Re: Databasix conspiracy theories

[Andy Dustman <andy@neptune.chem.uga.edu>]

On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, Anonymous wrote:

> I think it's just as well that people NOT get the idea that the e-mail
> address in the headers (from *ANY* ISP) is somehow authenticated and reliable.

There is some merit to that...

> The remailers themselves have become the victims of forgeries.  Back during
> the DataBasix "reign of [t]error" directed at Jeff Burchell, the "DataBasix
> cabal" (called that by a Netcom news admin, BTW) accused the Mailmasher
> 'nymserver of being used for "forgery" of Gary Burnore's name and address
> to various posts.  And now, even after the cajones.com domain has apparently
> bitten the dust, I've seen complaints of spam being received by people that's
> been forged to look as if it had come from that domain.  In the case of the
> Burnore forgeries, the Path: was only traceable back to the mail2news gateway, 
> so the header items implicating Mailmasher could have easily been forged just 
> as Mr. Burnore's address was.  Nevertheless, these alleged "forgeries" 
> comprised the rationale used by a DataBasix employee, Billy McClatchie, for 
> demanding the Mailmasher be shut down.

I've never really been convinced that Databasix has much to do with the
Huge Cajones fiasco. I'm not saying nobody from there is involved, though.
I'm just trying to keep an objective opinion on the subject.
   
> That's even more evidence that the real target of the spam baiter(s) was the
> remailers themselves.  Why else would you "attack" people, then anonymously
> warn them of what you'd done?  Perhaps that's why the spam baiting reportedly
> was directed not only at the DataBasix gang, but also at their detractors,
> such as Ron Guilmette, Scott Dentice, etc.

That the primary target of the spam-baiting campaign was the remailer net
(one at a time), I have little doubt.

> > (There was another set of letters going around claiming to
> > be pro-remailer, but I was always skeptical that that was the true
> > intention.)
> 
> Sounds like a classic, "F.U.D." disinformation campaign like another
> anti-privacy bunch, the Co$, would engage in.  What better way to discredit
> remailers that to, for example, send out anonymous messages saying "Preserve
> your rights -- defend remailers!" and making it look like the message came
> from a member of the KKK, or NAMBLA, or some other unpopular group.

Yes, and that's how it appeared to me, as well. In fact, I really would
doubt any other possible scenario, mainly because much of the spam-baiting
was done to IP addresses (same people, different hosts), so IP addresses
were basically outlawed (if you have an IP address, you've got to have a
FQDN, right?). That and people were apparently being sent many copies of
the "warning" (to the same address). Also, the tone of the letter seemed
counter to what it was supposedly intended to accomplish, i.e., "there's
nothing you can do about it, so stop whining". OTOH, I did make a public
request for whoever it was doing it to stop, and they did seem to stop
rather shortly after that, though spam-baiting continued.

Andy Dustman / Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Design
For a great anti-spam procmail recipe, send me mail with subject "spam".
Append "+spamsucks" to my username to ensure delivery.  KeyID=0xC72F3F1D
Encryption is too important to leave to the government. -- Bruce Schneier
http://www.athens.net/~dustman mailto:andy@neptune.chem.uga.edu   <}+++<