An exchange with Cancelmoose[tm]

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Posted-Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 01:14:27 -0500
To: farber () central cis upenn edu
From: an48985 () anon penet fi (Cancelmoose[tm])
X-Anonymously-To: an51851
Organization: Anonymous contact service
Reply-To: an48985 () anon penet fi
Date: Mon,  9 Jan 1995 05:27:30 UTC
Subject: Re: SF Examiner:


[ > are comments I sent to Cancelmoose  djf]


> You are not engaged (yet) in a restriction of free speech
> and I can support your attitude and actions.


Thank you. I have worked long and hard to make sure that this doens't
interfere with free speech.  All of the traditional media's articles
have had gross errors, accusing me of things like:


* Not letting Wolff get a word in edgewise.  [In truth, I take special
care to make sure that I'm not cancelling non-spam articles from the
same sender.]


* Sending him threatening email from "himself".  [I've never sent him
any sort of email.]


* Being a cracker.  [Cancel messages do not require breaking security
systems.  While the cancels are forgeries, they are also clearly
labeled as to what they are.]


> What worries
> me is that it will, in fact , given our society soon
> devolve (in my opinion) into cancelrobots that will attach
> neo-facist, gay, democrat, conservative or any of a vast
> number of things which some folk determine is "not proper".
> Pretty soon the net will be useless as a Hyde Park.


This is already happening in alt.religion.scientology-- some
scientologists at netcom seem to be cancelling church-critical
messages. Supposedly netcom is looking into this.


Cancelbot wars has always been at threat.  I have discussed these
issues in depth on news.admin.misc-- the basic consensus is that if a
few small companies get away with "free" advertising to millions of
people, it won't be long until lots of small and large companies want
the same coverage.  I don't think it takes much imagination to figure
out what will happen if C&S-esque spams become commonplace.  If
companies recieve a lot of complaints, but also a few customers, some
may consider this worthwhile, and repeat it.


> What do you suggest as the way out of that highly likely future.


To be honest I think the solution will come with new versions of the
news transport mechanism.  I envision anti-spamming techniques and
control message authentication to be part of the next generation of
news.


As I've said in the past-- Spam cancelling is a very poor solution,
but it's all we've got to hold the net together until these changes
come.


(cm)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help () anon penet fi.
Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin () anon penet fi.