[comp.admin.policy] Stop Me Before I Kill!

ATGVG@ASUACAD.BITNET (06/04/91)

HELP! Sorry to resort to your forum for this mundane question, but I can't find
 help elsewhere, and this looked like a sympathetic place. A year ago some
 doofus in Alaska signed me up to an INTERNET discussion forum (called
 Native-Net out of Maine, I believe) without my permission. I've long since
 run out of patience deleting the stuff that comes a half dozen times per day,
 and I am trying to get off the mailing list. Repeated letters to the tender
 of the list have had no effect. He answered one with an apologetic promise to
 take me off but to no avail; I still get its frequent mailings.
     Question: How do you drop off these infernal things?
    I have no problem getting on and off of LISTSERVs on BITNET, but
 these Internet forums appear to function differently. Would appreciate
 help from anyone, plus a tip on where to find HELP for future
 problems of this type.
                          Thanks.
                              Gene Glass
                              ATGVG@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU

birchall@pilot.njin.net (Official Random) (06/04/91)

	Okay... so someone in Alaska signed you (in Phoenix) up for something
in Maine?  The words "Yeah, Suuuure" come to mind.  But seriously.... why 
worry about getting off the list?  Why not just sign HIM up for a few?  Things
with LOTS of bandwidth... like... Alt.Sex, Rec.Music, Rec.Arts.Anime... you 
know, the stuff where your disk system fills up with messages every week. 
You've got enough skill to post to Netnews (though the title sounds trite :) so
figuring out what this alleged character allegedly did to you should be easy
enough, and replicating it should be similarly simple.
 
[personally, i know of no way it could be done, or i'd have done it long ago]
 
		-sh :)
-- 
-------------------
Shag is. Nuff said.
-------------------

DSB100@psuvm.psu.edu (David Barr) (06/04/91)

  How about instead of deleting your mail from the list, FORWARD it all
to the person who put you on the list?  Then he'll see the problem  =)

--Dave

rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (06/04/91)

In article <91155.110854DSB100@psuvm.psu.edu> DSB100@psuvm.psu.edu (David Barr) writes:
>
>  How about instead of deleting your mail from the list, FORWARD it all
>to the person who put you on the list?  Then he'll see the problem  =)

  This assume that he knows who put him on the list!

  About a year ago I started being deluged with info-unix (the email form
of comp.unix.questions).  I still have no idea who put me on the list.
However by carefully scrutinizing the 'Received:' headers, I was able to
make an intelligent guess as to the host from which my copy was being
redistributed.  I wrote to the postmaster at that site.  Never got a reply,
but the deluge stopped.

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940

gst@spdcc.COM (Gary S. Trujillo) (06/06/91)

In article <91154.115932ATGVG@ASUACAD.BITNET> ATGVG@ASUACAD.BITNET writes:
>  ...A year ago some
>  doofus in Alaska signed me up to an INTERNET discussion forum (called
>  Native-Net out of Maine, I believe) without my permission...

I am the administrator of the NativeNet mailing list to which Gene refers.
Gene made two requests to me, and one to the postmaster on my system
(which also happens to be me :-).  I lost his first message, due to a
system problem, but I acted on the second one, send on 29 May - but made
a mistake which resulted in Gene's name not being removed from the list.
The third try (as always!) was a charm, and the deletion took place on
Tuesday, 4 June.

I offered profuse apologies to Gene concerning my slip-ups, and sent him
the name and coordinates of his pal in Alaska who had signed him up
originally.  Probably my most serious mistake was in not checking with
Gene originally to see if he really wanted to be on the list.

HOWEVER - I note from my records that Gene had been on the list since
October of 1990 (!) until just a few days ago, and I am left to wonder
why it took him so long to make his request to be removed, since it was
fairly simple for him to determine where the mail was coming from.

In any case, I have read the suggestions made in followup postings
concerning things one can do to "get even" - and suggest that such
tactics are rather ill-considered ("two wrongs don't make a right").

Again, my apologies to Gene for the inconvenience.

-- 
    Gary S. Trujillo                             gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts               {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst

kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) (06/06/91)

In <7741@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> gst@spdcc.COM (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:
[...]
>Probably my most serious mistake was in not checking with
>Gene originally to see if he really wanted to be on the list.
[...]

I, too, am a mailing list administrator. Everytime an address is added
or deleted, a confirmation note is automatically sent to that address.
This doesn't offer direct security, but does provide accountability.

- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign