richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (09/19/88)
To the members of Usenet:
Hello. There has emerged, what we feel to be a huge problem. For
a while now, the net has been plagued with postings from several
"people" at the Portal System (tm) in California. The postings are
made from ambiguous accounts such as "Spartan", "Hijacker", "Argent",
"ANKH" etc, ad nauseum. It is our opinion that the Site Administrator's
decision to let subscribers use these "handles" (and apparently change
them at will) encourages some of them to post irresponsibly, and perhaps
not use the best of judgement when doing it. I offer as a "for instance"
the fairly recent incident of "jj@cup.portal.com" who posted a plea for
money across the entire net, cross-posting to most of the newsgroups.
This problem might be solved if the management at the Portal System would
simply replace or augment the "XPortal-User-Id:" line with the (l)user's
real name. This situation would perhaps force a poster to use more
discretion prior to posting, knowing that his or her *real* name would
be attached to the posting.
If the Site Administrators at the Portal System are still uncertain as
to whether or not they should implement such a thing, perhaps those of
us who feel this way could help them out by assembling as complete a
portfolio of these postings as possible. Then, mail them to
'root@cup.portal.com' along with your comments as to why you feel
the postings are inappropriate. This will aid their staff in resolving
the problem by presenting them with *complete* first-hand evidence.
I thank you, and Usenet thanks you. It's your net. Do it now.
--
Life is fishforks.
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM {backbone}!gryphon!richardmhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel) (09/19/88)
To the members of Usenet: Greetings. There has emerged, what I feel to be a big problem. For a couple of weeks, the net has been plagued with postings from several "entities" at the Portal System (tm) in California. The postings are made from ambiguous accounts such as "Spartan", "Hijacker", "Argent", "Ankh" etc, ad nauseum. It is my opinion that the Site Administrator's decision to let subscribers use these "handles" (and apparently change them at will) encourages some of them to post irresponsibly, and perhaps not use the best of judgement when doing it. I offer as a "for instance" the fairly recent incident of "jj@cup.portal.com" who posted a plea for money across the entire net, cross-posting to most of the newsgroups. This problem might be solved if the management at the Portal System would simply replace the "XPortal-User-Id:" line with the user's real name. This situation would perhaps force a poster to use more discretion prior to posting, knowing that his or her *real* name would be attached to the posting. If the Site Administrators at the Portal System are still uncertain as to whether or not they should implement such a thing, perhaps those of us who feel this way could help them out by assembling as complete a portfolio of these postings as possible. Then, mail them to 'root@cup.portal.com' along with your comments as to why you feel the postings are inappropriate. This will aid their staff in resolving the problem by presenting them with *complete* first-hand evidence. Miriam Nadel -- "I deny that I have ever given my opinion to anybody" - George Bush mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM <any backbone site>!gryphon!mhnadel
cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (09/20/88)
In article <7106@gryphon.CTS.COM> mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel) writes: }This problem might be solved if the management at the Portal System would }simply replace the "XPortal-User-Id:" line with the user's real name. This }situation would perhaps force a poster to use more discretion prior to }posting, knowing that his or her *real* name would be attached to the }posting. This is, at best, a bit difficult to arrange and certainly an untenable net.precedent. You may object to "Inquisitor" handles, but point of fact no one knows _anything_ about anybodys name around the net. I suppose one could argue that "net pseudonyms" are to be verboten, but I'm not sure how one would enforce that or what penalty might be invoked. There are the well-known ones (_hobbit comes to mind right away), plus the virtually useless ones ("From" field is "ajport@<someplace>", with the signature just saying "aj" -- so who IS that?) -- will we get to (or have to) vote on whether a particular net identity is "acceptable"? Perhaps it is enough simply to complain to the sysop and just require that sysops know who maps into the various net handles for postings from that site, and you can always contact the sys admin if you have a complaint. This _may_ have been posted by.... (if such a person actually exists at all): __ / ) Bernie Cosell /--< _ __ __ o _ BBN Sys & Tech, Cambridge, MA 02238 /___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_ cosell@bbn.com
woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (09/20/88)
In article <7086@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > >To the members of Usenet: > >Hello. There has emerged, what we feel to be a huge problem. For >a while now, the net has been plagued with postings from several >"people" at the Portal System (tm) in California. >... >If the Site Administrators at the Portal System are still uncertain as >to whether or not they should implement such a thing, perhaps those of >us who feel this way could help them out by assembling as complete a >portfolio of these postings as possible. This is unlikely to work, as it is these "people" who pay the bills for Portal, not us. What we need to do is get their feeds to cut them off, so we can get rid of this crap forever. I for one have *never* seen anything useful come out of portal. As far as I can see, it is a company that is making lots of money off USENET while causing serious damage to it (or allowing their users to do so, which amounts to the same thing). Unfortunately, Portal's main feed appears to be uunet, and there isn't anything in the UUNET policy (as I understand it) that would permit them to refuse service to anyone willing to pay for it, even should we be able to convince them that it is a desireable thing to do. So it would seem that, as long as we have UUNET, the continued existence of things like Portal is an unfortunate side effect. --Greg
mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel) (09/21/88)
In article <29839@bbn.COM> cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell) writes: >In article <7106@gryphon.CTS.COM> mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel) writes: >}This problem might be solved if the management at the Portal System would >}simply replace the "XPortal-User-Id:" line with the user's real name. This >}situation would perhaps force a poster to use more discretion prior to >}posting, knowing that his or her *real* name would be attached to the >}posting. > > This is, at best, a bit difficult to arrange and certainly an untenable > net.precedent. You may object to "Inquisitor" handles, but point of fact > no one knows _anything_ about anybodys name around the net. I suppose one > could argue that "net pseudonyms" are to be verboten, but I'm not sure how > one would enforce that or what penalty might be invoked. There are the > well-known ones (_hobbit comes to mind right away), plus the virtually > useless ones ("From" field is "ajport@<someplace>", with the signature just > saying "aj" -- so who IS that?) -- will we get to (or have to) vote on > whether a particular net identity is "acceptable"? > This is not terribly difficult to arrange - there is already a line on every posting from Portal which says "XPortal-User-Id:" followed by a sequence of numbers, which indicate which Portaloid has posted that particular piece of drivel. (I admit to having seen a very rare posting from Portal which is not complete drivel, but such postings have always had a real name attached instead of a handle.) Admittedly, we do not know if someone is using their real name. But, in the case of business and university machines, one can track a users affiliation. In addition, the username in the from field won't change, while the name associated with it may, while one needs to waste time with a cryptic bunch of numbers to determine that killer@cup.portal.com is the same dweeb as wasser@cup.portal.com, for example. Other public access sites and private sites do not permit one to avoid taking responsibility for one's postings in the same manner. In addition, Portal's legendary Usenet interface apparently permits one to post without knowing anything about Unix, editors, etc. making it far more accessible to people who cannot be bothered to understand what they're using than other public access sites. Note that we have not taken the extreme step of requesting that Portal be removed from the net. We are merely asking that their users be forced to take responsibility for their actions. I am tired of users who have excessively long signatures. I am tired of users who can't be bothered to use e-mail instead of posting. I am tired of users who don't know how to edit out 240 lines of previous responses before adding a one word reply or nothing at all (except the 16 line signature, including how to reach them by carrier pigeon.) Portal users are certainly not the only people to abuse the net in this manner but, when there are a large number of users at a given site who refuse to practice good netiquette, one can only hold the site responsible. In addition, Portal users - and management - have repeatedly violated the strictures on commercial use of the net. Miriam Nadel -- "I deny that I have ever given my opinion to anybody" - George Bush mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM <any backbone site>!gryphon!mhnadel
gil@limbic.UUCP (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) (09/21/88)
In article <29839@bbn.COM> you write: |> This is, at best, a bit difficult to arrange and certainly an untenable |> net.precedent. You may object to "Inquisitor" handles, but point of fact |> no one knows _anything_ about anybodys name around the net. |> Bernie .. cosell@bbn.com Its not really the handles they are objecting to, its the lack of responsibility that these users are using when posting articles to the net (the alt net in particular). I have to back-up these folks on this point -- I don't always agree with Richard & Oleg, but in this particular case, I think they have struck a note with many of us. +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Gil Kloepfer, Jr. | Net-Address: | | ICUS Software Systems | {boulder,talcott}!icus!limbic!gil | | P.O. Box 1 | Voice-net: (516) 968-6860 | | Islip Terrace, New York 11752 | Internet: gil@icus.islp.ny.us | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) (09/21/88)
In article <7106@gryphon.CTS.COM> mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel) writes: >Greetings. There has emerged, what I feel to be a big problem. For >a couple of weeks, the net has been plagued with postings from several >"entities" at the Portal System (tm) in California. The postings are > {Details of problem and suggested remedy deleted} The other option is for whoever is providing them a newsfeed to (briefly) interrupt the service. That ought to 1)get their attention and 2)stifle any further outbursts of the "_we_ are the dominent force on the net" variety. I'd hate to see anyone lose a feed permanently, but it is one way to stop the deluge of trash. I wonder how long those people would continue paying to mail garbage to each other? -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Still working on _natural_ intelligence. gary@percival (...!tektronix!percival!gary)
sac@well.UUCP (Steve Cisler) (09/21/88)
I recently read an article in MacWeek on the number of scanned photographs on commercial systems (CompuServe, GEnie, Portal) and while most services said it was not illegal or a problem, Phil Sih of Portal claimed that Portal is a COMMON CARRIER. Now that is an interesting defense; it is consistent, even if it is wrong. I think that he would use that same argument about the posting of the real id of all his Dr. Cracker type of subscribers. Since Portal relies so heavily on Usenet for value, I think the peer pressure of other system administrators will be very influential. Steve Cisler Connect: Libraries & Telecommunications Box 992, Cupertino, CA 95015
Phillip_M_Dampier@cup.portal.com (09/22/88)
A reminder: jj.cup.portal.com was immediately removed from Portal once the messages from him started. I would also point out that JJ did not only use the facilities of Portal to post his "College Fund" messages. I would like to see the blatant stereotyping of all Portal users as teenagers who are irresponsible stopped. You people are allowing a few bad apples to influence your views in general on Portal users.
soley@ontenv.UUCP (Norman S. Soley) (09/22/88)
In article <718@ncar.ucar.edu>, woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) writes: > In article <7086@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > This is unlikely to work, as it is these "people" who pay the bills for > Portal, not us. What we need to do is get their feeds to cut them off, so > we can get rid of this crap forever. I for one have *never* seen anything > useful come out of portal. Well, you haven't been looking then, Patrick_Townson posts some very interesting and valuable stuff from Portal and there are others. -- Norman Soley - Data Communications Analyst - Ontario Ministry of the Environment UUCP: uunet!attcan!lsuc!ncrcan!ontenv!soley VOICE: +1 416 323 2623 OR: soley@ontenv.UUCP
rfarris@serene.CTS.COM (Rick Farris) (09/24/88)
In article <9337@cup.portal.com> Phillip_M_Dampier@cup.portal.com writes: >I would like to see the blatant stereotyping of all Portal users as teenagers >who are irresponsible stopped. You people are allowing a few bad apples to >influence your views in general on Portal users. I don't suppose it occured to you that the "you people" you're speaking of are adults, and know exactly what they're doing? There's this problem, see; on a system with (reputedly) 15,000 users, a small minority of them are causing trouble for people on the net. Now everyone knows (contrary to your opinion above) that it's only a small minority, but the problem is; How do you get the attention of someone who can do something about it? The people who are the targets of the irresponsibility are not paying customers of Portal. The people that are paying customers (you) don't seem to care about the actions of their fellow portalets. Indeed, they probably don't even feel a kinship for them. So how do you apply pressure to the powers that be at Portal? One way is to make things so darn hard on every other Portal user, that *they* turn to the Portal management and say things like "Why don't you do something about the Portal users who are abusing Usenet?". Now we've got paying customers complaining, and *that* works. Simple, neh? _______________________________ Rick Farris | rfarris@serene.cts.com | Voice (619) 259-6793 POB M | ...!uunet!serene!rfarris | BBS 259-7757 Del Mar, CA 92014 |_______________________________| serene.UUCP 259-3704
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (09/24/88)
In article <799@ontenv.UUCP>, soley@ontenv.UUCP (Norman S. Soley) writes: > Well, you haven't been looking then, Patrick_Townson posts some very > interesting and valuable stuff from Portal and there are others. I second this. I've been quite impressed with Patrick Townson's messages, considering where he's forced to post from. At least provide a lifeboat for the good Portal People before stripping them out of the net (either by cutting of their feeds or installing one of those obnoxious programs people have been writing to censor Portal). -- Peter da Silva `-_-' Ferranti International Controls Corporation. "Have you hugged U your wolf today?" peter@ficc.uu.net
werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (09/25/88)
[ this article is cross-posted to news.admin and news.misc ]
[ but follow-ups are directed to news.misc, exclusively ]
recent articles from such sites as "serene" and "gryphon" may have caught
your attention also, enough to make me curious to want to learn what sites
*.CTS.COM are all about. Am I mistaken in the impression that there are some
kind of commercial time-sharing/BBS type of machines, possibly competing
with PORTAL in some ways? Please send me Email and I'll summarize and either
post or mail what I learn, depending on the number of requests I get.
I post this in the hope that readers will add to the sparse info I can find
in the maps and at NIC while at the same time indicating what I know already...
also to benefit those who may not have ready. easy access to this info...
Here is the information I found in the SRI-NIC database and UUCP-maps:
werner> telnet sri-nic.arpa
.....
SRI-NIC, TOPS-20 Monitor 6.1(7341)-4
@whois cts.com
Whois: cts.com
Crash TimeSharing (CTS-DOM)
1274 Vista Del Monte
El Cajon, CA 92020-6830
Domain Name: CTS.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Blue, Bill (BB167) bblue@CRASH.CTS.COM
(619) 444-7004
Domain servers in listed order:
RUTGERS.EDU 128.6.4.7
AOS.BRL.MIL 128.20.1.2, 192.5.25.82
HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU 10.0.0.9, 128.103.1.1
No known hosts under this secondary domain.
@whois host crash.cts.com
No match for host "crash.cts.com".
and the information in the maps:
UUCP mail information for host gryphon (#USENET lines show USENET news links):
#Name gryphon
#System-CPU-OS SCO Xenix SV
#Organization TE Technology
#Contact Gregory M. Laskin
#Electronic-Address greg@gryphon.CTS.COM
#Telephone +1 213 513-1100
#Telephone +1 213 372-1294
#Postal-Address 1165 E. 230th St., Carson, CA 90745
#Latitude-Longitude 33 54 N / 118 18 W
#Remarks gryphon is located in Redondo Beach, CA.
#Remarks gryphon has 2400 baud and Telebit Trailblazer + available.
#Written-by greg@gryphon.CTS.COM Fri Aug 26 18:58:03 PDT 1988
#USENET elroy desint aztec pande
#USENET mejac cadovax crash lakesys ddsw1 pnet02 lll-winken
#USENET marque ksala vector anb02
#
pnet02 = pnet02.cts.com
gryphon =gryphon.cts.com
gryphon pnet02(LOCAL)
pnet02 PNET(DIRECT)
gryphon amy(POLLED), anb02(DIRECT), aztec(DIRECT),
....etc....
UUCP mail information for host serene (#USENET lines show USENET news links):
#Name serene
#System-CPU-OS Fast AT clone; Xenix 286 2.2.2
#Organization RF Engineering
#Contact Rick Farris
#Electronic-Address !serene!rfarris
#Telephone (619) 259-6793 (voice)
#Postal-Address POB M, Del Mar, CA 92014
#Latitude-Longitude 33 5', 117 41'
#Remarks Unix and MS-Dos C programming. GPIB Device drivers.
#Written-by serene!rfarris (Rick Farris); Sat Aug 13 11:00:41 PDT 1988
#
serene bang(DIRECT), btree(DIRECT), crash(DEMAND), del(DEMAND), ncr-sd(DEMAND)
UUCP mail information for host bang (#USENET lines show USENET news links):
#Name bang
#System-CPU-OS AT Clone, Xenix 2.2
#Organization Internet Communications Co.
#Contact Bret Marquis
#Electronic-Address {hplabs!hp-sdd, crash, sdcsvax}!bang!bam
#Telephone 619/452-2110
#Postal-Address P.O. Box 12051, La Jolla, CA 92037
#Latitude-Longitude 32 44 N / 117 11 W city
#Remarks Host for public access P-Net, +1 619 450 0052
#Written-by crash!bblue (Bill Blue);
#USENET
#
bang crash(DEMAND), chem(DEMAND), ucsd(DEMAND), blia(DAILY),
gryphon(DAILY/2), serene(DEMAND), pnet08(LOCAL), datel(DIRECT)
bang = bigbang
bang = bang.cts.com
UUCP mail information for host crash (#USENET lines show USENET news links):
#Name .cts.com, crash
#F nosc.mil
#Organization Crash TimeSharing
#System-CPU-OS Symmetric s/375, BSD 4.2/3
#Contact Bill Blue
#Electronic-Address bblue@crash.cts.com
#Telephone +1 619 444 7004
#Postal-Address 1274 Vista Del Monte, El Cajon, CA 92020-6830
#Latitude-Longitude 32 47 N / 116 56 W
#USENET ncr-sd telesoft (full)
#USENET cacilj sdsu vixie stag gryphon pnet01 rush xroads jack elgar (partials)
#Remarks registered
#Remarks gateway to P-Net and ProLine networks
#Remarks Host to public access P-Net, +1 619 444 7006
#Written-by crash!bblue (Bill Blue); Sun Aug 28 09:21:40 PDT 1988
#
< long list of PNET-sites deleted > .... Pnet =?= PUBLIC access net?
--
--------------------> PREFERED-RETURN-ADDRESS-FOLLOWS <---------------------
(ARPA) werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet: 128.83.144.1)
(INTERNET) werner%rascal.ics.utexas.edu@cs.utexas.edu
(UUCP) ..!utastro!werner or ..!uunet!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!wernergreg@gryphon.CTS.COM (Greg Laskin) (09/26/88)
[ heavily edited quotation] In article <3168@utastro.UUCP> werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes (somewhat ingenuously): > ... "serene" and "gryphon" ... >Am I mistaken in the impression that there are some >kind of commercial time-sharing/BBS type of machines, possibly competing >with PORTAL in some ways? Yes, you are. >I post this in the hope that readers will add to the sparse info I can find >in the maps and at NIC while at the same time indicating what I know already... >also to benefit those who may not have ready. easy access to this info... *.CTS.COM should resolve to an MX pointing to NOSC.MIL. The map entries you posted are absoulutely accurate. Bill Blue at crash.cts.com is the So. California map coordinator. email to an Email contact (or postmaster) at any .CTS.COM site would have gotten you all the information you want about .CTS.COM. >UUCP mail information for host gryphon (#USENET lines show USENET news links): >#Name gryphon >#USENET elroy desint aztec pande >#USENET mejac cadovax crash lakesys ddsw1 pnet02 lll-winken >#USENET marque ksala vector anb02 >gryphon amy(POLLED), anb02(DIRECT), aztec(DIRECT), >....etc.... Werner omits 30 or so of gryphon's connections and 70 or so of crash's connections (I didn't count them - just a guess). gryphon.cts.com is sitting on my desk. It has 3 dial-up lines. Nobody pays anything to use it. There are about 40 gryphon users who use gryphon by my largesse. I pay all the bills. gryphon really feeds news to all those sites in the map entry. There are full and partial feeds. gryphon also supports a pnet node (pnet02). Pnet (People Net) is a Multi-threaded conferencing system. Pnet sites with usenet connections can make usenet available to pnet users. Here, at gryphon, the 180 pnet users have access to a limited set of usenet groups, and posting privileges are controlled. pnets also are networked together (not over usenet or by email - they talk pnet to pnet protocols) and maintain the conference threads and references across all the systems in the pnet network. No pnet users here pay anything to use the system either. crash.cts.com is a major news and mail machine in San Diego, operated by Bill Blue (just like the map entry says). It is also the gateway machine for pnet (Bill wrote pnet), so all the pnet sites are in the .CTS.COM domain. I think Bill accepts donations, but they are not required. I don't know much about the policies of the other .CTS.COM domains but I believe that none of them are commercial in any sense. What else would you like to know? Feel free to send me mail. If you're on Internet and your mailer can't deal with gryphon.CTS.COM try gyphon!greg@nosc.mil or crash!gryphon!greg@nosc.mil. Some Internet (especially BITNET sites) have better luck with gryphon.uucp. -- Greg Laskin greg@gryphon.CTS.COM <any backbone site>!gryphon!greg