Re: forged cancels (Re: Entrust Technologies's Solo - free download)

[dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)]

? the Platypus {aka David Formosa} <dformosa@st.nepean.uws.edu.au> writes:

> On Mon, 4 Aug 1997, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
>
> > Pedophile Chris Lewis is a content censor.
>
> I don't think Mr Lewis' algeded activerties with childeren have any
> validity to the argument.  Calling him a 'Pedophile' or any other name is
> not effective in changing my option about this mattor.

"Chris Lewis" is a common name.  "Pedophile Chris Lewis" serves to identify
the content censor who works for Bell North Forgery Research / Northen
Telecom Forgers and uses their facilities to forge Usenet cancels for
articles whose contents he doesn't like.

> >  There are dozens of other examples.
>
> As yet I have seen only the one, could you provide these other examples
> where Chris Lewis has perposly canceled posts that he dosn't like.

David, you're bordering on asciribing to me things I haven't said -
is you reading as bad as your writing?

I said, there were dozens of examples of cancel-forgers who claim to be
cancelling "spam" (i.e. multi-posts), but are in fact cancelling singly posted
articles whose contents they simply didn't like. Pedophile Chris Lewis is one
of many such content censors. Let's count the ones we find at
http://www.netscum.net: 1) Guy Macone 2) Sally Monde, 3) Tim Brown, 4) Bob
Curtis, 5) Sean Eric Fagan, 6) Nat Makarevitch, 7) Michael Horansky, 8) David
Howard, 9) Alex Bulan, 10) "Eric Dynamic", 11) John Milburn, 12) Gabriel
Krabbe, 13) Odd Einar Aurbakken, 14) Alan Reichert, 15) Andreas Kirchwitz, 16)
Dax Hutcheon, 17) James Gardner, 18) Otmar Lendl, 19) Henning Weede, 20) Ian
Goldberg, 21) Gregory Woodbury, 22) Bruce Lane, 23) Otto Makela, 24) Steve
Manes, 25) Rich Sauers, 26) Ralph Valentino, 27) Luis Echeverria, 28) Michael
S. Scheidell, 29) Matthias Scheler, 30) Wolfgang Schelongowski, 31) Dick
Depew, 32) Ed Hew, 33) George Nemeyer, 34) Edward Igoe, 35) Tom Phoenix, 36)
Michael Shields - that's 3 dozen, an there's probably twice as many more
listed on the Net.Scum pages. Check out Sally Monde: the lady claims to be a
heroin junky currently using methadone, she described how her Legal Aid lawyer
got a psychiatrist to convince the court that she's insane, so she's out of
jail and collecting SSI on mental disability - and she's forging cancels for
aricles she considers to be "racist crap". Do you want Sally to decide for you
what you're allowed to read vs. what's the forbodden "racist crap"?

> > > Since Dr Vulis is the newsadmin of that site, the question is quite valid
>
> > I would like to be able to tell
> > the rest of Usenet that these articles are not worth reading,
>
> And if thay should deside the what is not work reading is not worth
> storing?

My telling the readers of the affected newsgroups that an article posted
under my name isn't worth reading (e.g. because the car advertized as
being for sale has already been sold) is not a reason for news admins
(generally, a different group of people) to remove such an article from
their spool and to deprive their users of the ability to read that article
(e.g., to compare the asking prices for cars).  I'm not talking to
admins.  If they abuse my message by using it as a basis to remove
such articles from spool, then I'll be reluctant to issue it.

> > > Frees up diskspace + reducers propragtion.  May be a good thing.
> >
> > A spew spreads to almost all the servers there are in minutes.
>
> It seems to me more in the range of hours or days, esp in the case of
> uucp sites wich don't connect often.

This was the case many years ago.  These days, a spam propagates pretty
much everywhere because the cancels catch up with it.  The claim that
cancels save bandwidth is an outright lie.

> > > > We've got to receive repeated
> > > > blasts of forged cancels ten times the number of the offending posts?
> > >
> > > Ergh?  There is only one cancel per post.
> >
> > Were you around when Ausralia was knocked off the net by the cancels for th
> > Cantor and Siegel "spam"?
>
> There _is_ I'm talking about present tence.  Any anty spammer who dosn't
> follow the convention is going to be stopped or losse there account (eg
> David Richards).

David Richards is the sysop of the Ripco BBS in Chicago. He's been forging
cancels for dozens of articles he considers to be "off-topic" - see his
Net.Scum page at http://www.netscum.net/richard0.html.  He's been doing
this for months and no one's been able to stop him.

Scott Sadow's been forging cancels for months - he hasn't been stopped and
hasn't lost his account (see his Net.Scum page).

> >  Most of the forgers didn't follow the "$alz" convention (giving the
> > forged cancel the message-id "cancel.<original id>".
>
> I would argue that all cancels (not just 3rd party) should follow the
> message id protocol.

I would argue that all cancels should be ignored irrespective of message-id.

> And yes if thay set the reply-to: feild of the message to me I do consider
> it my post and cancelble from me.

To hell with cancels, but you should be able to issue a retraction nocem.

> > How about me posting under my own name or via an anonymous remailer, "Platy
> > is a spammer - complain to his ISP"?
>
> Both uws.edu.au and acmeonnline would know these complants are bogus.

I hope so.  A couple of weeks ago some scumbag posted via a remailer an
annoucement that "vulis@bwalk.dm.com" is responsible for some sort of
net-abuse. This address doesn't exist; nevertheless I received several
postmaster complaints about this address, giving detailed description of
the alleged abuse (junk mail, thousands of usenet articles, etc). One of
the complainers wrote from a work account - I tried to get him fired and
apparently succeeded :-) :-) :-)

> > How about if someone posted your credit card numbers to Usenet?
>
> I don't have a credit card for just that reson.  The creadit card securaty
> system is so fundermently flawed as to be the equiverlent of sticking a
> large sign on your forhead marked "ROB ME"

That's right, except in the U.S. various laws protect the consumer.
(The card issuer gets to eat the losses, and passes the cost to the
consumer whether or not he has a card :-)

Many Cabal supporters cite credit card numbers as the canonical example
of the kind of traffic that must be cancelled on sight. They're idiots.
Once a credit card # has been posted to Usenet, the card must be cancelled
at once to make it unusable. Cancelling the article won't make the number
"safe" again.

---

<a href="mailto:dlv@bwalk.dm.com">Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM</a>
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps