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> From: "Lanny Trager" 
> Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 10:09:16 -5
> Subject: spamming
> 
> The length and content were innapropriate.  If not for the ongoing 
> discussion I would have all but forgotten it by now.  However since 
> it has sparked this debate...
> 
> About a year and a half ago after a long effort I found an investor 
> for an Internet site that I had designed and planned for over a year. 
> We got the site up and running and began taking out ads in the local 
> papers.  That's when my investor discovered usenet.  He posted to 
> hundreds of groups.  He claimed to be offering free Internet accounts 
> (this was not true).  I was very disturbed at what he had done and 
> told him so, but he insisted that it was his "right" to post anywhere he 
> wished.

Legally, there are very few limits on what can be sent to a usenet list
(Email or news).  The exceptions are fraudlent offers (Described above)
and illegal traffic (drug deals, kiddie porn, insider stock trading...)

The internet is effectively self regulating.  There are conventions
and reccomendations that are described in alt.newsusers (the only
REQUIRED newsgroup preconfigured into the NNTPD config file).

> In a matter of days our staff, techsup, root accounts, and many of our 
> customers found themselves subscribed to hundreds of "lists".  The 
> volume of mail choked our machines and made life hell.

Personally, I send encrypted full length videos, gifs and jpegs, and
forward alt.sex.pictures.binary directly to their mail account.  They
can't see them (because they are encrypted), but they eat up a mail
server in seconds.  I knew one clever chap who had a "noise mailer"
that sent 1 million bytes of randomly generated characters every
30 minutes.

Unsolicited e-mail and innappropriate postings to mailing-lists
and news-groups is a problem that has been around since the inception
of usenet 20 years ago when uucp traffic would overwhelm the 300 baud
modems because a "Spam" (current term) message generated overwhelming
responses.

> I dare say that someone is already working to make life miserable for 
> our spammer.  In the fifteen years that I've been online, I've 
> seen all sorts of methods for dealing with "the netiquitly 
> challenged."  Inevitably the ISP gets dragged into the picture 
> because his network resources are weighed down by the responses.  The 
> ISPs that don't respond in a positive manner find that their site has 
> become a favourite of crackers.  They find files and even entire hard 
> drives deleted.

Cracking is still illegal, especially if there is damage.  More often,
the disk becomes so overloaded that the allocation/i-node tables get
corrupted.

> So spammers tend to go form ISP to ISP.  ISPs do talk to each other 
> and word does get around.



> Conclusion:  Don't be that concerned.  Our spammer is most likely at 
> this time either trying to find another ISP of trying to deal with 
> the onslaught of "fakemail" to their account.  When their phone bill 
> comes in they will probably also find several thousand dollars worth 
> of calls that they didn't make on it.

One favorite going around the net these days is to levy a $1/megabyte
surcharge.  The ISP backs up all of the e-mail comming in to his account
to tape and hits the spammer with a $4000 bill for filling a 4 gig
disk drive (which is actually cached to tape).  One spammer filled
a carousel (24 8 gig drives) with responses.

> Spammers almost always get dealt a healthy dose of their own medicine 
> and then some.

Another popular practice that has become popular among ISPs is to
provide ISDN accounts.  ISDN circuits allow the ISP to "call" the
customer and deliver mail immediately, giving the customer a disk drive
so full it shreds the hard drive -- and no tape back-up.

> Lanny Trager

	Rex Ballard
	(Personal Post)

> From: ddern@world.std.com (Daniel P Dern)
> Subject: Forecasting disaster: It's not just a job
> 
> > On Fri, 13 Oct 1995, J.J. Linden wrote:
> > > If one-tenth of one percent of the Internet e-mail community were to send 
> > > you one e-mail each, you'd receive roughly 40,000 messages.  
> > Has anything like this ever happened?  No.  Is it likely to happen, no it 

Actually, AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy frequently have to deal with the 
impact of a "Spam artist".  Usually, they just bill the guy so much he
can't wait to get off.  They also block and count his e-mail.  His
usr/spool/mail account is linked to /dev/null.

> > The disaster 
> > I see facing the net is of very small coteries of ideologues attempting to 
> > speak for "everyone" without "everyone's" or even the majority's 
> > permission. 

Actually, for a "city" of 125 million people (+/- 200%), the internet is 
remarkably self-regulating.  Troublemakers are handled quickly and 
quietly.  I have had my hand "slapped" a few times for posts that
were cc'd to inappropriate news-groups or mailing-lists.  (Especially when
using Delphi "reply").

There are about 16,000 - 20,000 news-groups and 45,000 mailing lists, 
carefully structured by interest.  Spam senders try and include as many 
as possible, often including things like online-news and 
online-news-digest.

> A. The bulk of the Internet and Usenet exist today because of small coteries
> B. Versus "small coteries" of one, mmm?

It is important to note that it is entirely possible to generate highly
qualified sales leads and even sales through mailing lists and 
news-groups.  Sun, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and Silicon Graphics actually 
have groups and mailing lists which provide information, feed-back, and
marketing hype for their products.  It gets interesting because it is
a fully bidirectional media.  Sun might introduce what it thinks is
something great while their own users tell them they are dissatisfied 
with the product.  Sun was originally not going to support Motif at all
until their own customers demanded support.  Eventually, they provided
the widget level compatibility that allowed Motif clients on other hosts 
to run under their Open Look window manager.

The power of the "Dialogue" between a vendor, customers, competitors,
and hecklers can be very powerful.  The UNIX operating system evolved
from a "lab experiment gone bad" to a global product supported by
an organization 6 times larger than Microsoft almost entirely as a
result of this type of dialogue.

> > Small activist groups too often usurp opinion in the self-appointed
> > universe of interactive crankiness.  Junk mail drives some people to 

Actually, activist groups are encouraged to start their own mailing lists 
and locally sponsored "alt" news-groups.  You can find some interesting
groups that aren't mass-distributed, but can be accessed by a privately
managed nntp server.  I have been invited to join several "by invitation
only" news-groups, including the IETF lists (I couldn't handle the
traffic :-).

> > red-faced paroxyms bordering on mayhem, but should these exquisitely 
> > sensitive few make the rules for everyone else?  In the physical world I 

You are welcome to attempt to "Spam" a cross-section of lists with what
you may consider a posting so enrolling that you actually have people
begging to buy your product.  If you provide your own server, and
pay your own telecomms charges and purchase your own T1 link to one
of the DS-5 backbones, you could probably keep up with the traffic.

You are free to choose, and be responsible for the consequences.

> > do occasionally get unsolicited mail that interests me, that I use, or 
> > make purchases or investments through.  "Junk" is in the eye of the 
> > beholder; and oligopoly, by any other name, still smells. 

Actually, I even search out information via the interenet.  I can search 
8 million web pages on Lycos, 4 million web pages on web crawler, and
a few million more on various other servers.  I can search 80 million
news postings on InfoSeek, 30 terrabytes via the WAIS server network,
and even grep through my own mail-box.

There is a huge market and a huge demand for servers who can provide
"Just the mail/spam i'm looking for".

> You don't mind if I add your name to the list of "people who don't mind
> getting junk email" which I'll then post/provider, do you?  

This isn't such a bad idea!  Collect all that "free advertizing", archive
it on a searchable database, and charge for the "Hits" (send them a bill
and a threat to delete their posting if they don't pay :-).

> > I'd agree with you if the "disaster" you describe had any reasonable, real 
> > chance of actualization.  It does not, so I do not.

> ------------------------------
> 
> From: beep 
> Subject: Re: Apology
> On Sun, 15 Oct 1995 Joelito@aol.com wrote:
> > As far as Yves bizarre idea that Netiquette rules are "obsolete," I will
> > restrain my language out of respect to other members of this august forum.

Nettiquette rules are based on fundamental characteristics of human 
beings.  Even if we said "Go ahead and spam", the nature of human beings
to retaliate when threatened is so fundamental that users would
simply abandon any group which became offensive, after they had saturated
the mail-boxes of the offenders.

If you kill a man's children, that man will want to kill you or your 
children.  Whether or not you and your children live is a function of
his ability to act out on the impulse and is spiritual maturity.

> I happen to agree that netiquette is good. I'm not sure I'd agree on 
> always on what is a breach of it.

I have occaisionally breached nettiquette.  I usually get between 20
and 200 reprimands.  I also know that it is a good idea to reply
or apologize.

> As for the junk_email if the big it is 
> monetarily successful then we will have junk email; threats of flooding 

We have a very popular form of "Junk Mail" called the "Web Home Page".
The great thing about the web and URLs is that people read the "Junk Mail"
they really want to read, and often become purchasing customers.

Another very popular form of Junk Mail is informative interactive 
dialogues on mailing lists and news-groups.  If I give you 30 ways to
help your business, you might want to check out the URL on my signature 
line.

> their accounts, cracking their phones will work maybe the first time but 
> after the time the junk mailers will biuld defenses; plus in thruth there 
> are really few phreaks and crackers of any real ability out there -- not 
> none but much less than myths spread by the media spread.

There are probably 20 or 30 really effective crackers, who target the most
offensive/attractive players.  If New York City had the same statistics
there would be 3 pan-handlers on Manhattan.

> mike 

> ------------------------------
> 
> From: "S. Finer" 

> There are about 16,000 newsgroups (which, BTW we were not discussing---the
> topic was e-mail) and you have offered as an example of your point three. 

There is one big difference between newsgroups and E-mail.  With 
newsgroups, each site gets only one copy of your "Advertizement", with
mail 2000 "glossies" (mime e-mail with enclosed GIF or JPEG files)
show up at the same site, instantly saturating a 4 gig disk drive.

A 5 line blurb at the bottom of your signature file, including a URL is
quite common.  This is an appropriate method of providing "advertizing" 
to interested markets.

> These three newsgroups are poorly managed.....which proves nothing

Every newsgroup is poorly managed!!  Other than moderated news-groups,
everything posted gets replicated to the universe.  Newsgroups are self
regulated.  If I post the same article to alt.religeon, alt.sex.bondage, 
and comp.arch, at least one of them will be filling my box with mail
telling me how innappropriate my posting was.

> whatever about the so called "disaster" forecast by JJ, Mark, etc... BTW,
> I waste no time whatever on alt.2600, and spend less than 5 hours a month
> on Usenet.

I would reccomend that you consider (if you have your own server) not only
using it, but hosting "alt" groups which cover your business and the 
products you would like to tell me about via e-mail.  It will gradually
propagate through the net and be available to people who request to see 
it on their machine.

I would suggest that you turn your "Spam" into a Web Page, post it to
a Web page Server, and submit it to the 20 different "Indexes".  THEN
I can find YOU.  If I do, it's probably because you were one of the
20 most relevant pages to the 3 or 4 words I used search the database.

>  There are a handful(at most 500-600) of useful
> newsgroups......most, using the vernacular, ....suck.  The problem on

It's really a matter of taste isn't it?  You may have no interest in 
alt.tv.drwho or alt.religeon.new-age or alt.politics.republican, but I 
might find them fascinating.

> Usenet is not spamming, ....the problem is that too few folks have much
> useful to contribute, ...a different issue entirely.

Can you imagine coming in to your e-mail system and finding every 
magazine ad, newspaper ad, television ad, radio ad, and bill-board ad, 
sitting in your mail-box?  Can you imagine getting updates weekly or
daily?  Never mind the caching, you would need a 4gigabyte disk drive
just to store your PERSONAL mail.  Now imagine being a system 
administrator at a company like Federal Express, with 2000 e-mail users,
each getting 4 gig/day.

Madison Avenue still loves to ship web pages load with JPEG or even 
Acrobat files (which only a fraction of the browsers can even handle).

> I might be tempted, but I will not attempt to define "junk" mail or 
> "spamming" for anyone other than myself......what I do not regard, I do 
> not read....its very simple.  I do have much sympathy for those who 
> appoint themselves to controlling other's speech......especially when 
> there are better means of dealing with the issue.

> > B. Versus "small coteries" of one, mmm?

> The small coteries of people who created the net have no right whatever 
> to control its evolution indefinitely into the future Dan. To suggest so 
> is quite ridiculous, ....or do you think the USA should be controlled by 
> white angolo-saxon protestant males....since they designed the Constitution?

It's rather interesting, the primary purpose of Nettiquette was to reduce 
or eliminate the need for sanctions to be placed by network 
administrators.  Schools, Universities, and Corporations each had very 
different agenda for wanting "Regulation".  At one point, there was
pressure on "Spaf" to force all mailing lists and news groups to be fully 
moderated.  The only moderators who would have had enough time were the 
corporate marketing people.  The "comp.atari" moderated list was so 
obviously biased that it became obvious that the most common form of 
censorship would be blocking negative remarks about the sponsor's 
products.

> Just how far should anyone go to protect the ideals of a
> narrowly-based, founding oligopoli, especially when the circumstances of
> governance change?

There has never been an oligopoli on the internet.  It takes an act of 
Congress, backed up by a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States 
to regulate the "Press"/Carrier activities of a usenet, mailing list,
or internet site administrator.  Strong forces including AT&T, the 
television networks, print media, cable television, and many of the 
corporations who provided the earlly communications links, have all 
threatened to "clamp down on the net".  There have been forces that tried 
to constrain the internet to a form of "Ham Radio" (many of the early 
usenet relays were ham stations).

The religious right has tried to force the entire internet under government
control.  The left has tried to get the government to provide exclusive
funding/infrastructure for the internet (which would force the religious
right off the net).  George Bush wanted the internet to be entirely
self-supporting using no public funds.  Al Gore wanted internet sites at
every high-school, elementary school, middle-school, and university, paid for
by federal tax dollars. 

I was the one who talked a corporate executive at MCI into providing 
"dirt cheap" telecomms to the NSF, partnering with router companies like 
Cisco and Wellfleet, and providing "protected" networks to Corporate 
America, and partnering with local BBS operators to provide "Local Access 
points" (for which I was never paid).  I was the one who threatened to 
publish a share-ware internet access product that a computerphobic 
grandmother could use.  I was also the one who encouraged 4500 publishers 
to tailor their material for Mosaic (and later NetScape) rather than try 
to send "Acrobat Documents" via E-Mail.

I have helped to create a multi-billion dollar industry.  The core of the 
conversation was "Opportunity for everyone".  Microsoft doesn't like it 
that Linux has the same playing field as them on the Internet.  But 
neither Linux nor Microsoft can be prevented from using the net within 
the bounds of Nettiquette.

> > You don't mind if I add your name to the list of "people who don't mind
> > getting junk email" which I'll then post/provider, do you?  

> Is this a veiled threat Dan?  Do you imagine you can make your point with
> threats?  Are you that sort of person?  BTW, have you ever spoken with the
> computer crime group at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA.  They take a dim
> view of maliciously targeted theft of computer services, and conspiracy to
> do so, especially on hacker newsgroups and lists. 

Actually, there are lists of lists, which send out invitations to join 
more mailing lists.  There are lists for "Press Releases", which enable 
people to get press releases, promotional announcements, and other "Junk 
Mail" from indescriminate posters.  These are often filtered by news 
beaureaus.

> I subscribe now to a list called Yellowpages that delivers all manner of 
> unusul commercial offers, ....some days I ignore it, others not. 
> Frequently it is quite comical, and therefore, a source of entertainment.

The key operative word here is that you subscribe to that list.  You
actually requested junk mail.  Nothing wrong with that.  In fact, there 
are "announce" groups such as "comp.sun.announce" or 
"comp.microsoft.announce" that are "Junk mail newsgroups".

Junk mail is only Junk Mail when it is undesired, not relevant to the 
recipient, and gets mixed in with the "important stuff" (like bills and 
requests from your boss and customers) to the point that important stuff 
gets lost.

> The problem Dan is those would usurp democratic principles to inflict 
> their worldview on others without public due process.  The physical 
> assets that support the Internet are now overwhelmingly in private hands, 

This is primarily true.  Your advertizing may go directly into your 
competitor's machine.  Would you like your competitor to filter your 
output for you?  At one time, IBM tried to "loose" mail coming from DEC.

Today, common carriers such as MCI, AT&T, Sprint, and ANS provide 
internet access to ISPs and Content providers on a "Flat Rate" basis.  
The provider can pass that flat-rate to you or leverage it.  The key is 
that the provider doesn't have to worry that he's paying for the bandwith 
his comptetitor is using to put him out of business.

> Regulations limiting the use of the phone for marketing purposes do 
> exist, but they are carefully and narrowly drawn though a precisely 
> balanced system of broadly based public comment.  i.e.  no kangaroo 
> courts of limited interests can ram through their own agendas outside full 
> public disclosure.

Actually, the Internet has even fewer regulations precisely because it is 
self regulating.  If one wishes to exchange x-rated e-mail with a young 
lady who enjoys receiving that sort of thing, there are almost no 
restrictions (she has to say in e-mail that she is over 18).  She may be 
too young, she may not even be a she (men pretend to be women to get 
interesting e-mail), and in some cases, it's wise to copyright the 
material (some of my e-mail ended up in "Variations").  It is legal.

> The arcane governance systems used when the Internet was small are now 
> insufficient to the broader population using the medium.

Actually, the principles behind the Nettiquette guidelines are very 
simple, and are only amplified and further validated in very large 
models.  In 1982 the administrators at RIT, MIT, UCB, IBM, DEC, and 
Hewlett Packard were concerned that the e-mail traffic was eating up 
the RM80 80 meg hard drive on their VAX 11/750s (or equivelent), and
they came up with NNTP.  In 1988, the replication traffic was so intense 
that the 60 Meg/day couldn't be sent via Modem/X.25  By 1992, the
60 gig/day generated on the internet couldn't be searched so archie, 
veronica, and wais were created to search remote servers rather than 
bring content directly to servers where users weren't even keeping up 
with what they did read.  By 1993, the e-mail user base had grown
so rapidly that AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy had to support internet 
e-mail.  By 1994 the mailing-list traffic was so overwhelming that all 4 
services had to provide news-groups.  By 1995, the news traffic was so 
overwhelming that the services had to provide Mosaic/Netscape support.
By the end of 1995,  all 3 services will be providing raw SLIP/PPP 
service because there is traffic than their servers can route.  By March 
1996, ISDN service will provide automatic "pseudodedicated" delivery
of Mail, News, Web queries directly to end-user sites.  By June 1996, 
every business in North America, Europe, and East Asia will have web 
server capability via UNIX and/or Windows-NT.  By October 1996 current 
users of Windows 3.1 will have chosen either NT/Workstation or Linux/Unix 
as an upgrade path, with full client and server capabilities.

> The founders' 
> original ideals need to be reexamined in that light, and that light needs 
> to be as bright as possible.

The ideals have been developed in a very well lit room, under the 
watchful and skeptical eye of people like you for 15 years (that I know 
of), and will continue to be debated and reviewed for another 20 years or 
more.  Compare that to a Congress or Supreme Court hearing and 
deliberation (almost entirely behind closed doors).  The structures for 
commerce and marketing have been put into place.  New structures will 
likely be developed.

> ciao, good buddy
> ------------------------------
> 
> From: jbellack@ypn.com (Jonathan Bellack)
> Subject: Re: Usenet may be public, but it's not a free for all
> 
> Daniel Dern says:
> 
> >jbellack@ypn.com (Jonathan Bellack) says:
> >
> >>    The Internet has, to date, maintained a unique freedom from almost all
> >> unsolicited sales materials.  The 'rabid edge' to anti-spamming sentiment
The key operative word is actually irelevant sales materials.  Mailing 
lists and news groups are frequently laced with sales materials embedded 
into signature lines, or even informative postings.  The key is that 
readers of comp.arch aren't usually getting invitations to apply for 
green cards.

> >> reflects a belief that an individual's E-mail address is, despite the
> >> 'mail' metaphor, a private space more like a phone number than a postal
> >> address.

It's more a matter of "Marketing 101".  The point of any advertizement, 
even "Spam" is to reach qualified customers and create a desire for the 
product such that they will investigate further and ultimately make a 
purchasing decision.  The problem with "Spam" is not that it is an 
invasion of privacy, but rather that the user is capable of responding in 
a manner that is not only not desired, but which makes receiving the 
desired results almost impossible.  Phone solicitors don't leave messages 
and a number to call back because you can call up and fill their machines 
with 2 hours of "Led Zepplin" music.  Anyone who has run a mail order 
business has recieved bricks, cinderblocks, or even bags of cement taped 
to their reply card which states "Return postage guaranteed".  The postal 
carrier will expect to be paid for his hernia.  Was at one seminar where
a software developer told several of these stories as the class howled 
with laughter.  When he mentioned that his "Return Postage" bill hit 
$20,000/month everybody stopped laughing.  Would you send another reply 
card to the same address?

>    > Personally Bob, I am opposed to censorship in ALL forms, even if it is
>    > called "filtering"

Nettiquette is intended as a means to reduce the need for filtering.  
Filtering is almost always a last resort.  Unfortunately, when a user is 
not willing to be responsible for his actions, the administrator must 
intervene.

> In other words, to restate the obvious, Usenet, and the Internet as a
> whole, are CHANGING.  I find it neither mystifying nor appalling that
> people are asking questions about the nature of the Net.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Remember, the 
original users of the internet were freshmen college students and 
corporations seeking to recruit "Believers" who had just left their
Apple ][ in high school and discovered their brand new PDP/11 or VAX or 
SUN or HP or RS-6000.

> In 1991 I believed any form of
> Usenet advertising was a violation of purpose; in 1995, I'm willing to
> admit that I'm not so sure.

Until March of 1992 NSF traffic, and therefore Usenet, was heavily funded 
by Goverment funds.  Even then, corporations were allowed to provide 
"information, research, and education", on newsgroups and mailing lists.

> Daniel, I appreciate your strong views, but I don't think it was
> appropriate to append this paragraph onto the end of your message:
>
> >But if you think it's OK for people to burst into topically defined
> >discussions and areas hawking unwelcome messages, please post a list of
> >the clubs, organizations, activities, hobbies, stores, and other
> >places open to the public that you make use of, and I will forward it to
> >assorted tupperware vendors, prostheletizing organizations, insurance
> >sales reps, street musicians, UFO believers, con artists, opheceiclide
> >players, frisbee teams, and tourists, who are looking for a place to
> >stop and do their thing.

This is very appropriate.  I can bash Microsoft and promote Linux as a web
server based on the assumption that most of the people seeking to publish
on-line news want to know how to become publishers on the internet.  I 
read this group to see what opportunities are arising in MSN.  There are 
newsgroups which can provide "information" (text based advertizing) for 
any of the interests above.

> This paragraph makes it sound like I _SUPPORT_ newsgroup spamming.  I've
> spent plenty of time in the past year confronting Internet newcomers who
> wanted to post their ads on thousands of newsgroups on a weekly basis
> because they came from a television advertising POV.  I managed to dissuade
> them by educating them about the nature of the community they were
> targeting rather than flaming them for corrupting the purity of Usenet.  If
> I had tried direct confrontation, I would have lost.

It's always difficult to try to explain to people with 6 year degrees in 
marketing why they shouldn't go for the "Biggest possible rate".  
Unfortunately, they view internet Wizards as "Propeller heads" who just 
don't understand advertizing.  There aren't many people out there with 
both MSEE and MBA/Marketing degrees.

>     -- Jonathan Bellack
>        ** Browse the Net Books online at http://www.ypn.com/
This is an appropriate example of advertizing.


	Rex Ballard
	http://cnj.digex.net/~rballard/biography.html


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Mon Oct 16 03:55:42 1995
Status: O
X-Status: