[comp.org.eff.talk] Fooling the censors

zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) (03/13/91)

	I have something to say.

In article <CNH5730.91Mar7100654@maraba.tamu.edu> cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu writes:
>
>If you are going to offer news groups to down-stream sites, you do
>_NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHICH NEWS GROUPS YOU ARE GOING TO
>DENY TO THE HUMAN BEINGS DOWN-STREAM FROM YOU_.
	I grant you this opinion . . .(I am yet undecided what would be right.)

>
>I would submit that the only reason news feeds have been able to get
>away with this so far is that no legal case has been initiated in
>which quality lawyers have been enlisted. I, for one, would be willing
>to donate to such a case if a lawyer like William Kunstler were
>retained.
	No.  We should not bring lawyers into this and the government, etc.
The net is working very well as an anarchy, and it should stay that way. . .
if it become general.net.practice to do as you stated above, then what should
be done to sites that don't follow this rule is to discontinue their feed,
not call in lawyers and involve the government and the courts. (And we all
know what it takes for the government to burn a witch.)


-- 
zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM

karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (03/13/91)

In article <1991Mar13.033143.29172@ddsw1.MCS.COM> zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) writes:
>
>	I have something to say.
>
>In article <CNH5730.91Mar7100654@maraba.tamu.edu> cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu writes:
>>
>>If you are going to offer news groups to down-stream sites, you do
>>_NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHICH NEWS GROUPS YOU ARE GOING TO
>>DENY TO THE HUMAN BEINGS DOWN-STREAM FROM YOU_.
>	I grant you this opinion . . .(I am yet undecided what would be right.)

No.  This opinion is WRONG.

When you, as the downstream site, buy me the modems, disk space, CPU and
electric power that I need to run the machine, and pay me to run it, THEN 
AND ONLY THEN can you tell me what to carry here.  Believe me, you won't
like the bill you get should you really try to do this :-)

It's my disk, my electricity, my machine and my phone bill.  Since I pay 
the bills, I choose what I carry AND distribute.

You don't like this?  Then find someone who will feed you what you want.  Go
to UUNET if you must; you'll pay for it, but if you want that kind of service 
(and are willing to pay for it) then UUNET (and others) are there.  UUNET
has a simple policy -- they carry everything and anything.  It's part of 
their service statement, so I guess it would be considered part of their
contract.  

You simply will not, and cannot, tell me what to carry or feed as long as
I'm paying the bills and own the machine you're getting the feed from.  
If you try, I simply turn off your feed (and you get >no< feed at all).

Now, if I'm charging you for the feed, you can contract with me for some
portion of the feed, all of it, or whatever.  That's a contract, agreed to 
by both parties.  No problem there.  But I have no obligation just 'cause I
distribute news to distribute or receive all of it.

I'll say this though -- I do feed people, and I reserve the right to drop
any group at any time for any reason.  On the floor.  Done, gone, and
trashed.  It hasn't happened yet, but trust me, it gets thought about 
once in a while.

There are lots of sites doing this, especially with groups like
alt.sex.pictures.  The reason isn't censorship -- it's cost and potential
liability.  a.s.p is the worst offender on the cost basis, >and< the 
articles in that group are nearly all on shaky legal ground as well 
(copyrights you know).

>>I would submit that the only reason news feeds have been able to get
>>away with this so far is that no legal case has been initiated in
>>which quality lawyers have been enlisted. I, for one, would be willing
>>to donate to such a case if a lawyer like William Kunstler were
>>retained.

You'd lose big time, and when the person you sued got done with you you'd 
be more broke than you can imagine.  Harassment suits are not good things 
to file; for one thing, they tend to get tossed back in your face.

Again, as long as I pay the bills, I decide what to feed and receive.
Simple enough.  It's my money and I'll decide where it gets spent.

>	No.  We should not bring lawyers into this and the government, etc.
>The net is working very well as an anarchy, and it should stay that way. . .

Yes.  Should lawyers get seriously involved in the net, you won't have 
to worry about it anymore -- it will likely cease to exist.  (yeah, I 
know, death of the net predicted :-)

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 808-7300], Voice: [+1 708 808-7200]
Copyright 1991 Karl Denninger.  Distribution by site(s) which restrict
redistribution of Usenet news PROHIBITED.

igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) (03/13/91)

In article <1991Mar13.033143.29172@ddsw1.MCS.COM> zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) writes:
>I would submit that the only reason news feeds have been able to get
>away with this so far is that no legal case has been initiated in
>which quality lawyers have been enlisted. I, for one, would be willing
>to donate to such a case if a lawyer like William Kunstler were
>retained.

There really are some very stupid people around.  If you instigate a
case which says ``carry all news groups or carry none or I'll see you in
court'', I expect that you would have a network for about twelve hours.

I wish people who don't have to justify news to management would keep
their ill-informed opinions to themselves.  If I feed someone some
fraction of the news, they have an easy solution --- get the balance
from someone else.  Or get it all from them.  I don't care.  

I gain nothing from giving out feeds bar a feeling of doing something
generous.  The company couldn't care less.  If people say ``don't feed
me as I can get a more politically correct feed from someone else'' I'm
hardly going to argue.  Nor, I suspect, is any other admin aside from
the pay-for-play ones.

I feel lusers trumpeting their ``right'' to news are rather killing the
goose that lays the golden eggs.

ian

igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) (03/13/91)

In article <|RH&^5=@uzi-9mm.fulcrum.bt.co.uk> I write:
> In article <1991Mar13.033143.29172@ddsw1.MCS.COM> zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) writes:
> >I would submit that the only reason news feeds have been able to get
> >away with this so far is that no legal case has been initiated in
> >which quality lawyers have been enlisted. I, for one, would be willing
> >to donate to such a case if a lawyer like William Kunstler were
> >retained.

He didn't, of course.  The correct attribution is:

In article <CNH5730.91Mar7100654@maraba.tamu.edu> 
           cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu writes:

Sorry Sameer.

``We apologise for the inconvenience.''

ian

nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) (03/13/91)

In article <CNH5730.91Mar7100654@maraba.tamu.edu> cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu writes:
>
>If you are going to offer news groups to down-stream sites, you do
>_NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHICH NEWS GROUPS YOU ARE GOING TO
>DENY TO THE HUMAN BEINGS DOWN-STREAM FROM YOU_.

What kind of drugs are you on?  I can do anything I damn please with
the list of newsgroups I feed downstream.  I carry the things I like,
I pass on a subset of them because that's all the CPU, disk-space and modem
time I can afford.  I also make it clear to my downstream feeds that I can
only feed them groups on a per-group request basis.  If they want something
then I'll see if I think I can afford to pass it on.

Passing newsfeeds on is a favor, nothing more.  We're not talking
censorship here, we're talking disk space, cpu time and free phone
lines.

No doubt you'd rather that if I can't pass them all I shouldn't pass
any of them?  Maybe you should ask my downstream sites whether they
would prefer that?  Go ahead.  The sites are pro-angmar, shakti and
trystro.  They all hang off of alfalfa.com.
-- 
Alfalfa Software, Inc.          |       Poste:  The EMail for Unix
nazgul@alfalfa.com              |       Send Anything... Anywhere
617/646-7703 (voice/fax)        |       info@alfalfa.com

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.

karl@ficc.ferranti.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (03/13/91)

For the people who think what's happening to alt.sex.pictures is anti-sex
censorship, watch what is happening to alt.fractals.pictures.  It, too,
is being "censored", with its connectivity slowly dribbling away.  Now
are you going to attribute this to a knee-jerk, fundamentalist mentality
against fractals?  Of course not.  Lots of us (yes, I am a site admin who
feeds several other sites) do not feel compelled to spend our own money
to move 28+ megabytes of your copyright-infringing GIFs every two weeks, 
nor do we feel compelled to spend our money to move your insipid fractal GIFs
around, and has been said about a hundred friggin' times, if you don't
like it, why not spend a bit of your own money to pick it up from UUNET?
I didn't think so.  Why buy the cow when you can bitch in all caps about
how the people providing the free milk should be forced to supply it in
unlimited amounts?
-- 
-- "If it ain't too broke, don't fix it."  -- me, with apologies to Bert Lantz
	Save Twin Peaks!!

gray@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com (Bill Gray x2128) (03/14/91)

karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes:

>When you, as the downstream site, buy me the modems, disk space, CPU and
>electric power that I need to run the machine, and pay me to run it, THEN 
>AND ONLY THEN can you tell me what to carry here.  Believe me, you won't
>like the bill you get should you really try to do this :-)

>It's my disk, my electricity, my machine and my phone bill.  Since I pay 
>the bills, I choose what I carry AND distribute.

I notice that Karl is posting from a .COM site.  It seems to me that this
strengthens his position, namely that he is using his own resources and
can do with them as he sees fit.  From this it follows that he can pass or
drop all or part of a news feed as the Spirit moves him.

But I *think* the original poster complained that some unknown entity upline
from him was dropping a.s.p.  In a followup article, the upline entity
made himself known and explained that: 1.)  his charter didn't say anything
about propagating dirty pictures and 2.) his system didn't have enough
disk capacity to handle the phenomenal traffic a.s.p generates.

But I believe the upline entity was a tax-supported institution.  If that is
true, it may be worthwhile to ask why rec.autos (for example) is worthy of
a tax subsidy and alt.sex.pictures is not.  One could dwell on the damage
done to our ecology by autos, the economic implications of extravagant oil
consumption due to our cultural dependence on cars, the loss of life and the
other health effects of cars, etc., and perhaps make a case as damning to
rec.autos as can be made against alt.sex.pictures (which, I hasten to add,
I am not defending).

Bill
-- 
: gray@rsvl.unisys.com                      :                                  :
:                                           :  My gun is safer than Ted        :
: Unisys has enough problems without being  :  Kennedy's car.                  :
: blamed for my personal opinions.          :                                  :

rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (03/14/91)

karl@ficc.ferranti.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
> For the people who think what's happening to alt.sex.pictures is anti-sex
> censorship, watch what is happening to alt.fractals.pictures.  It, too,
> is being "censored", with its connectivity slowly dribbling away...

In fact, it may go away faster.  I shut it off here when I had to unwedge
news and found *one* REELY KUL twit had posted > 4 Mb in a day...as Karl
says, it has nothing to do with censorship or morality.  We *use* news
here; we can't have it wedged up.  And alt.fractals.pictures is even
stupider than alt.sex.pictures!  At least with a.s.p you've got some
semblance of real-world data; a.f.p is essentially just program output.
Ship the programs and initial data around instead; save two orders of
magnitude in what gets transmitted.  Think a little.

Yeah, you can dodge the barriers that are being set up; people who
administer the machines will just move the barriers as needed to keep
from getting inundated with gigantic postings they don't want.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...But is it art?

theo.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Theo Heavey) (03/15/91)

nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) writes:

> >
> >If you are going to offer news groups to down-stream sites, you do
> Passing newsfeeds on is a favor, nothing more.  We're not talking
> censorship here, we're talking disk space, cpu time and free phone
> lines.
> 

I have deleted quite a bit of verbage in an effort to be brief.

Has anyone else noticed how excitable we all become when accused of
censorship or more pointedly losing our feeds?

Does anyone realize that providing these feeds that cannot afford
or are not allowed the "luxury" of feeds at their site is a very
tireless and thankless job? It is not your RIGHT to a feed, it is
a PRIVLEDGE ---- abuse of which (or the persons that provide it) will 
terminate this priviledge.

If you do have a 'good samaritan' who sends along your feed or mail in
general, ring them up and remind them that you appreciate their efforts.
Remember that on all ends of this 'CyberSpace' there are human beings.

floyd@ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) (03/15/91)

gray@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com (Bill Gray x2128) writes:
>
>I notice that Karl is posting from a .COM site.  It seems to me that this
>strengthens his position, namely that he is using his own resources and
>can do with them as he sees fit.  From this it follows that he can pass or
>drop all or part of a news feed as the Spirit moves him.
>
>But I *think* the original poster complained that some unknown entity upline
>from him was dropping a.s.p.  In a followup article, the upline entity
>made himself known and explained that: 1.)  his charter didn't say anything
>about propagating dirty pictures and 2.) his system didn't have enough
>disk capacity to handle the phenomenal traffic a.s.p generates.
>
>But I believe the upline entity was a tax-supported institution.  If that is
>true, it may be worthwhile to ask why rec.autos (for example) is worthy of
>a tax subsidy and alt.sex.pictures is not.  One could dwell on the damage
>done to our ecology by autos, the economic implications of extravagant oil
>consumption due to our cultural dependence on cars, the loss of life and the
>other health effects of cars, etc., and perhaps make a case as damning to
>rec.autos as can be made against alt.sex.pictures (which, I hasten to add,
>I am not defending).

Depends on two things (in order):

	1)  What is Karl's interest in (subject matter)

	2)  How much disk space does rec.autos use compared 
	    to a.s.p.

End of debate?

Floyd
-- 
Floyd L. Davidson  |  floyd@ims.alaska.edu   |  Alascom, Inc. pays me
Salcha, AK 99714   |    Univ. of Alaska      |  but not for opinions.

nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) (03/16/91)

In article <138@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com> gray@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com (Bill Gray x2128) writes:
>But I believe the upline entity was a tax-supported institution.  If that is
>true, it may be worthwhile to ask why rec.autos (for example) is worthy of
>a tax subsidy and alt.sex.pictures is not.  One could dwell on the damage
The complicated answer is that being tax-supported doesn't change things
in the slightest.  You still have limited resources and the sysadmin still
has the right to make the decisions.

The simple answer is that rec.autos is legal and alt.sex.pictures is illegal.
-- 
Alfalfa Software, Inc.          |       Poste:  The EMail for Unix
nazgul@alfalfa.com              |       Send Anything... Anywhere
617/646-7703 (voice/fax)        |       info@alfalfa.com

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.

karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (03/18/91)

In article <|RH&^5=@uzi-9mm.fulcrum.bt.co.uk> igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes:
>In article <1991Mar13.033143.29172@ddsw1.MCS.COM> zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) writes:
>>I would submit that the only reason news feeds have been able to get
>>away with this so far is that no legal case has been initiated in
>>which quality lawyers have been enlisted. I, for one, would be willing
>>to donate to such a case if a lawyer like William Kunstler were
>>retained.
>
>There really are some very stupid people around.  If you instigate a
>case which says ``carry all news groups or carry none or I'll see you in
>court'', I expect that you would have a network for about twelve hours.

Sameer didn't write that article to the best of my knowledge!

Watch your quoting and attribution!  I posted a followup to it, and Sameer
wasn't in the headers then!

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 808-7300], Voice: [+1 708 808-7200]
Copyright 1991 Karl Denninger.  Distribution by site(s) which restrict
redistribution of Usenet news PROHIBITED.

mpd@anomaly.SBS.COM (Michael P. Deignan) (03/19/91)

gray@s5000.rsvl.unisys.com (Bill Gray x2128) writes:

>But I believe the upline entity was a tax-supported institution.  If that is
>true, it may be worthwhile to ask why rec.autos (for example) is worthy of
>a tax subsidy and alt.sex.pictures is not.

1. Bandwidth consumed

2. Consistantly forged article headers

MD
-- 
--  Michael P. Deignan                      / 
--  Domain: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com            / "The Mother Of All Battles"
--    UUCP: ...!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!mpd  /  apparently had an abortion...
-- Telebit: +1 401 455 0347              /

zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Sameer Parekh) (03/24/91)

In article <Xoe2y2w164w@dogface>  writes:
>nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) writes:
>
>> The simple answer is that rec.autos is legal and alt.sex.pictures is illegal.
>
>The content may be, but there's no guarantee that every image that travels on
>a.s.p. violates copyright law.  The group is just the medium that brings it to
>you.  It is, in theory, possessed of the same constitutional protections that
>your daily paper is.
>Putting the issue of personal taste aside, if I post an image of a certain
>actor getting to know his hamster on a real personal level clipped from a
>magazine, that's a beef against me, not a.s.p.  It's the same as if I put a
>note in this group parenthetically stating that I'd pay 2500 bucks for any
>SunDevil prosecutor or informant's credit card number.  If I ever did post a
>message asking for just that, and not using it as an example as in the past
>sentence, and somebody gave those numbers in a public reply, then that person
>would have trouble ahead.  Not the newsgroup!  And yes, I know something about
>conspiracy law.  CYA paragraph coming up...
	That is how it SHOULD be, not how it is.  BBSes are seized because
their users may have traded CC #'s by email, not just the users trading
the #'s.


-- 
The Ravings of the Insane Maniac Sameer Parekh -- zane@ddsw1.MCS.COM

nikolai@guru.pub.uu.oz.au (nikolai kingsley) (04/03/91)

karl@ficc.ferranti.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:

> For the people who think what's happening to alt.sex.pictures is anti-sex
> censorship, watch what is happening to alt.fractals.pictures.  It, too,
 
hah! thas easy for YOU to type!  we don
(oops) don't GET alt.sex.pictures here... something to do with not having 
cable tv, i think... chort!

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