WANTED: Tolerant, anonymity-friendly news admins

Because of recent attacks on the remailer network and mail2news
gateways, I may loose access to at least one of the news servers I
currently feed news to from my mail2news gateway.

If you are a news administrator, believe in free speech and anonymity,
and you would like to help the cause, please consider giving transfer
(aka "IHAVE" or "hosts.nntp") privileges to this machine.  You will
not be the only server, and so do not need to worry about being the
point of entrance of mail2news articles to Usenet.

Please contact me if you can help.  Thank you.

For those who oppose the existence of mail2news gateways, you should
know that we are taking steps to limit the abuse.  However, doing so
without in any way limiting articles that abide by the usage policy is
tricky, and must be done carefully.  Please be patient.

lcs Remailer Administrator wrote:
> 
> Because of recent attacks on the remailer network and mail2news
> gateways, I may loose access to at least one of the news servers I
> currently feed news to from my mail2news gateway.
> 
> If you are a news administrator, believe in free speech and anonymity,
> and you would like to help the cause, please consider giving transfer
> (aka "IHAVE" or "hosts.nntp") privileges to this machine.  You will
> not be the only server, and so do not need to worry about being the
> point of entrance of mail2news articles to Usenet.
> 
> Please contact me if you can help.  Thank you.
> 
> For those who oppose the existence of mail2news gateways, you should
> know that we are taking steps to limit the abuse.  However, doing so
> without in any way limiting articles that abide by the usage policy is
> tricky, and must be done carefully.  Please be patient.


  I'm writing from the Freedom Knights list but am in no way
representing them.
  
  What exactly do you mean by 'taking steps to limit the abuse'?  
Personally I think much of what is called abuse is nonsense and
that all posts, with the exception of cancels/NoCems should be
propogated regardless of content (including what is currently
referred to as spam).

  Also--could you forward to the Freedom Knights list a copy of
your 'usage policy' and impressions on the Freedom Knights two
FAQs.

  Thanks,

  Steve

On Thu, 6 Feb 1997, ISP_Ratings wrote:

> lcs Remailer Administrator wrote:
> > 
> > Because of recent attacks on the remailer network and mail2news
> > gateways, I may loose access to at least one of the news servers I
> > currently feed news to from my mail2news gateway.
> > 

Who attacked the network and for what reason?

> > If you are a news administrator, believe in free speech and anonymity,
> > and you would like to help the cause, please consider giving transfer
> > (aka "IHAVE" or "hosts.nntp") privileges to this machine.  You will
> > not be the only server, and so do not need to worry about being the
> > point of entrance of mail2news articles to Usenet.
> > 
> > Please contact me if you can help.  Thank you.
> > 

Well, just who is cutting you off and for what reason?
And what is their telephone number?

> > For those who oppose the existence of mail2news gateways, you should
> > know that we are taking steps to limit the abuse.  

Just what is your definition of "abuse?"

However, doing so
> > without in any way limiting articles that abide by the usage policy is
> > tricky, and must be done carefully.  Please be patient.
> 
> 
>   I'm writing from the Freedom Knights list but am in no way
> representing them.
>   
>   What exactly do you mean by 'taking steps to limit the abuse'?  
> Personally I think much of what is called abuse is nonsense and
> that all posts, with the exception of cancels/NoCems should be
> propogated regardless of content (including what is currently
> referred to as spam).
> 
>   Also--could you forward to the Freedom Knights list a copy of
> your 'usage policy' and impressions on the Freedom Knights two
> FAQs.
> 
>   Thanks,
> 
>   Steve
>

aga <aga@dhp.com> writes:

> Who attacked the network and for what reason?

Well, as best I can tell I've gotten caught in the crossfire of a
spam/"anti-spam" spam war.  People are forging articles through
anonymous remailers to solicit spam to non-spamming customers of
"spam-friendly" ISPs, in the hopes of driving those customers away.
In other words, a lot of articles are being posted to groups like
alt.make.money.fast with headers like:

 From: customer@isp.under.attack (My^ISP^spams^I^should^switch)

Then the spam bots collect the addresses, and send lots of mail like

 To: customer@isp.under.attack (My^ISP^spams^I^should^switch)
 Subject: Great opportunity!!!

 My^ISP^spams^I^should^switch,

 I saw your post the other day, and have an oportunity for you that's
 so good you can't miss it...

It would be amusing if it weren't causing me hassles.  Ultimately,
however, the person doing this is clearly trying to get ISPs to set
more restrictive policies about what mail/news customers can send,
while knocking off a few anonymous remailers and mail2news gateways in
the process.

> Well, just who is cutting you off and for what reason?
> And what is their telephone number?

At issue here are a number of complicated high-level administrative
issues.  It's not just that someone is trying to pull the plug on me.
I've been asked by someone who is not the one getting the phone calls
or exerting anti-mail2news pressure if I would stop using MIT news
servers.  The reason is that that person needs to maintain good
relations with the people who are being harassed over the fogery.

I don't really want to go into details.  The point is that this
situation is a lot more subtle than whether the pro-mail2news people
can "out-harrass" the people complaining about forgeries.  Therefore,
I would sincerely appreciate it if you did not try to make any phone
calls or do anything to use up any more of these people's time.  I
fully intend to keep mail2news running, and am just trying to get more
news servers (after having lost one) to maintain reliability and
strengthen my position.

> Just what is your definition of "abuse?"

This got answered in a separate message.

On 7 Feb 1997, lcs Remailer Administrator wrote:

> aga <aga@dhp.com> writes:
> 
> > Who attacked the network and for what reason?
> 
> Well, as best I can tell I've gotten caught in the crossfire of a
> spam/"anti-spam" spam war.  People are forging articles through
> anonymous remailers to solicit spam to non-spamming customers of
> "spam-friendly" ISPs, in the hopes of driving those customers away.
> In other words, a lot of articles are being posted to groups like
> alt.make.money.fast with headers like:
> 
>  From: customer@isp.under.attack (My^ISP^spams^I^should^switch)
> 
> Then the spam bots collect the addresses, and send lots of mail like
> 
>  To: customer@isp.under.attack (My^ISP^spams^I^should^switch)
>  Subject: Great opportunity!!!
> 
>  My^ISP^spams^I^should^switch,
> 
>  I saw your post the other day, and have an oportunity for you that's
>  so good you can't miss it...
> 
> It would be amusing if it weren't causing me hassles.  Ultimately,
> however, the person doing this is clearly trying to get ISPs to set
> more restrictive policies about what mail/news customers can send,

Well, that is bullshit, and that person needs to be stopped.  Anyone
trying to get more restrictive policies needs weeded out and
identified, and then dealt with.

> while knocking off a few anonymous remailers and mail2news gateways in
> the process.
> 
> > Well, just who is cutting you off and for what reason?
> > And what is their telephone number?
> 
> At issue here are a number of complicated high-level administrative
> issues.  It's not just that someone is trying to pull the plug on me.
> I've been asked by someone who is not the one getting the phone calls
> or exerting anti-mail2news pressure if I would stop using MIT news
> servers.  The reason is that that person needs to maintain good
> relations with the people who are being harassed over the fogery.
> 

Just who is getting harassed over this.  All you need to do is get me
the names and phone numbers, and we will eliminate this problem
immediately. 

> I don't really want to go into details.  

No, do not do it in this list, but respond by a private response
to this address.  This is a place you can trust.

The point is that this
> situation is a lot more subtle than whether the pro-mail2news people
> can "out-harrass" the people complaining about forgeries.  Therefore,
> I would sincerely appreciate it if you did not try to make any phone
> calls or do anything to use up any more of these people's time.

Well, it sounds like you are being a chicken shit now.  The whole
world runs on the telephone, and it all runs by voice, and not by
text.

  I
> fully intend to keep mail2news running, and am just trying to get more
> news servers (after having lost one) to maintain reliability and
> strengthen my position.
> 
> > Just what is your definition of "abuse?"
> 
> This got answered in a separate message.
> 

yes it did.  But why the fuck do you not want to find out who did
this to you?  I mean, Jesus fucking CHRIST!  Let's get some fucking
balls here.  You can not let that mothetfucker get away with that!

All you need is telephone numbers for some VERY nice phone calls.
Learn to use your voice and not just your keyboard.

I would be happy to provide access to news.cyberpass.net (its good to be
the King). Just let me know the machine name and IP.

	-Lance

At 2:17 PM -0800 2/6/97, lcs Remailer Administrator wrote:
>Because of recent attacks on the remailer network and mail2news
>gateways, I may loose access to at least one of the news servers I
>currently feed news to from my mail2news gateway.
>
>If you are a news administrator, believe in free speech and anonymity,
>and you would like to help the cause, please consider giving transfer
>(aka "IHAVE" or "hosts.nntp") privileges to this machine.  You will
>not be the only server, and so do not need to worry about being the
>point of entrance of mail2news articles to Usenet.
>
>Please contact me if you can help.  Thank you.
>
>For those who oppose the existence of mail2news gateways, you should
>know that we are taking steps to limit the abuse.  However, doing so
>without in any way limiting articles that abide by the usage policy is
>tricky, and must be done carefully.  Please be patient.


----------------------------------------------------------
Lance Cottrell   loki@obscura.com
PGP 2.6 key available by finger or server.
http://www.obscura.com/~loki/

"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra.  Suddenly
it flips over, pinning you underneath.  At night the ice
weasels come."
                        --Nietzsche
----------------------------------------------------------