Re: Is Sandy really censoring criticisms of Stronghold, his product?

Okay, I went through my old mail, and I'm fairly sure this is the
message.  I'm convinced it never went to the flames list, and now that
I've found out I'm on the -unedited list after all, I think it
probably didn't go to the regular cypherpunks list either.  Can people
on the various lists confirm this for me?

Given the total lack of technical content, the flamey nature of the
article, and the fact that it is verifiably false (stronghold source
code is available), I can see people arguing it should have gone to
-flames (though I would probably disagree).  However, I don't want to
debate that.  What I object to more strongly and think is wrong is the
fact that it went to *neither* list.

A lot of people out there are subscribing to the cypherpunks-flames
and cypherpunks lists thinking that they will see everything that gets
rejected (albeit with a substantial delay).  If this is not the case,
it should be made clear.  Otherwise, it's not moderation, but
dishonesty.

--

>From cypherpunks-errors@toad.com  Thu Jan 30 17:26:50 1997
From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Subject: Security alert!!!
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 97 16:15:21 EST
Organization: Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.
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WARNING: There's a rogue trojan horse out there on the internet known as the
"stronghold web server".  It's actually a hacked-up version of Apache with a
backdoor, which allows hackers (or whoever knows the backdoor) to steal credit
card numbers and other confidentil information on the Internet.

Be careful! Always use encryption. Do not send confidential information 9such
as passwords and credit card numbers) to any site running the trojan horse
"stronghold". 

In general, beware of "snake oil" security products and hacked-up versions of
free software.

Please repost this warning to all relevant computer security forums.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 10:07 PM +0000 2/7/97, Against Moderation wrote:
>Okay, I went through my old mail, and I'm fairly sure this is the
>message.  I'm convinced it never went to the flames list, and now that
>I've found out I'm on the -unedited list after all, I think it
>probably didn't go to the regular cypherpunks list either.  Can people
>on the various lists confirm this for me?

I checked the archive site (http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks) for the
"main" (censored) list, and do not see it there, either by title or by
author.

I only recently subscribed to the Flames list, so I cannot check to see if
it went there. Anyone else check the Flames list?

As I said in my last messages, if this message went to neither the Main
list nor the Flames list, then a very serious problem has been exposed.

Further, if the post, while not being sent to either of the nominal lists
which filtered stuff is supposed to go to, was used as the basis of legal
threats by the employer of Sandy, the list's censor, then dramatically more
serious implications seem evident. I await Sandy's views with great
anticipation.

The message itself does not look flamish to me. It makes charges, but so do
a zillion other posts. It cannot be the job of a censor to decide on what
is true and what is not true.

>Given the total lack of technical content, the flamey nature of the

It's not "flamey." Nobody is called a cocksucker, nobody is called  a
faggot, etc. Yes, it claims a product has a trojan horse, but this is a
claim comparable to other claims routinely made on list and newsgroups.

I'm also neither stupid nor disingenuous. I realize full well that Vulis
probably made the claim because he knows Sandy works for the seller of
Stronghold. Be that as it may, it is not proper for a censor employed by
the seller of a product to decide that criticisms of his product are
flamish. Would the list have countenanced censorship of criticisms of an
RSADSI product if the list were being censored by an employee of RSADSI?
And by letting Vulis make such a claim, and then having it quickly rebutted
by other employees of C2Net, for example, Vulis would be shown to be
spreading disinformation and his reputation capital would decline still
further.

If in fact the Vulis claim never made it either of the two lists to which
all filtered messages are supposed to be sorted, then deception has
occurred. And a conflict of interest.

Again, I await Sandy's response.

>A lot of people out there are subscribing to the cypherpunks-flames
>and cypherpunks lists thinking that they will see everything that gets
>rejected (albeit with a substantial delay).  If this is not the case,
>it should be made clear.  Otherwise, it's not moderation, but
>dishonesty.

Indeed.

--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


In <v03007804af2160f848b5@[207.167.93.63]>, on 02/07/97 at 05:03 PM,
   "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> said:


>I'm also neither stupid nor disingenuous. I realize full well that Vulis
>probably made the claim because he knows Sandy works for the seller of
>Stronghold. Be that as it may, it is not proper for a censor employed by the
>seller of a product to decide that criticisms of his product are flamish. Would
>the list have countenanced censorship of criticisms of an RSADSI product if the
>list were being censored by an employee of RSADSI? And by letting Vulis make
>such a claim, and then having it quickly rebutted by other employees of C2Net,
>for example, Vulis would be shown to be spreading disinformation and his
>reputation capital would decline still further.

I had posted to the list earlier about the problem of moderation & reputation
capital.

I beleive that the moderation of a group has a negitive affect on building a
reputation based system within the group.

If all the spam & flames are filtered out from the list and we only see the
"good" side of the posters then they will tend to gain greater reputation
capital then they deserve.

I do find the accusation that Sandy blocked the posting of a message critizing
the company he works for rather troubling. Though there are several
possibilities:

1 - It is just more FUD.

2 - Snafu. As I am sure everyone here is aware of that this happend more often
    than not with computer system.

3 - It's true. This would be realy sad and probably do irreparable harm to
    Sandy's reputation.

I hope that it is #1 or #2 if it is #3 I doubt that I will stay any longer on
the cypherpunks list. :(




- --
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Tag-O-Matic: Windows?  WINDOWS?!?  Hahahahahehehehehohohoho...

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On Fri, 7 Feb 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:

> I do find the accusation that Sandy blocked the posting of a message critizing
> the company he works for rather troubling. Though there are several
> possibilities:
> 
> 1 - It is just more FUD.
> 
> 2 - Snafu. As I am sure everyone here is aware of that this happend more often
>     than not with computer system.
> 
> 3 - It's true. This would be realy sad and probably do irreparable harm to
>     Sandy's reputation.
> 
> I hope that it is #1 or #2 if it is #3 I doubt that I will stay any longer on
> the cypherpunks list. :(

Count it as #3...  Sandy didn't pass my response to one of Vulis'
messages (asking for him to supply some evidence) to either list, and
e-mailed me, telling me about it.


|\/|ike Gurski  mgursk1@umbc.edu  http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~mgursk1/
finger/mail subject "send pgpkey"|"send index"  Hail Eris! -><-  O- |Member,
1024/39B5BADD PGP Keyprint=3493 A994 B159 48B7 1757 1E4E 6256 4570  |   Team
My opinions are mine alone, even if you should be sharing them.     |   OS/2
	    Senate Finance Committee Chair, SGA 1996-1997

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Michael Gurski <mgursk1@umbc.edu> writes:
>
> On Fri, 7 Feb 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:
>
> > I do find the accusation that Sandy blocked the posting of a message critiz
> > the company he works for rather troubling. Though there are several
> > possibilities:
> >
> > 1 - It is just more FUD.
> >
> > 2 - Snafu. As I am sure everyone here is aware of that this happend more of
> >     than not with computer system.
> >
> > 3 - It's true. This would be realy sad and probably do irreparable harm to
> >     Sandy's reputation.
> >
> > I hope that it is #1 or #2 if it is #3 I doubt that I will stay any longer
> > the cypherpunks list. :(
>
> Count it as #3...  Sandy didn't pass my response to one of Vulis'
> messages (asking for him to supply some evidence) to either list, and
> e-mailed me, telling me about it.

Please post Sandfart's e-mail to this mailing list.  Thank you.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

Timothy C. May wrote:
> At 10:07 PM +0000 2/7/97, Against Moderation wrote:
> >Okay, I went through my old mail, and I'm fairly sure this is the
> >message.  I'm convinced it never went to the flames list, and now that
> >I've found out I'm on the -unedited list after all, I think it
> >probably didn't go to the regular cypherpunks list either.  Can people
> >on the various lists confirm this for me?

> >A lot of people out there are subscribing to the cypherpunks-flames
> >and cypherpunks lists thinking that they will see everything that gets
> >rejected (albeit with a substantial delay).  If this is not the case,
> >it should be made clear.  Otherwise, it's not moderation, but
> >dishonesty.

Normally I'd address just the list, but in this case I'm sure you'll
understand.  Check the archives of Sandy's moderation announcements,
and I believe you'll see where he claimed that although *all* messages
would make it to the -unedited list, he admitted that some of those
would not make it to either the -edited or -flames lists, due to the
anomalies of hand-editing.