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[LONG,FUNNY,NOISE] Cypherpunk wannabe threatens a lawsuit :-)

Cypherpunks, I offer these two Usenet articles for your amusement.

In article 1, I follow up on Bruce Bough's article, and, among many other
things, defend his right to vote (questioned by the orthodox Jewish homophobe
Dan Hartung). (It's very long and technical, so you can skip it.)

In article 2, Bruce Bough follows up on my article and threatens to prosecute
me under the Americans with Disability Act for misspelling his name.

This is almost as funny as his litanies about his dementia and memory loss.

Have fun.

Article 1:

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From: [email protected] (Dr. Dimitri Vulis)
Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.misc,news.admin.censorship,news.admin.policy,alt.config,news.groups,alt.journalism,atl.general,alt.culture.usenet,alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.wired,alt.cyberspace,talk.politics.misc,news.admin.net-abuse.misc,ga.general,misc.news.internet.discuss,soc.culture.russian,alt.flame.jan-isley,talk.forgery,alt.usenet.kooks,alt.grelb
Subject: Re: Towards A Usenet Social Contract
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 96 09:25:41 EDT

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Bruce Baugh) wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Lee S. Bumgarner) wrote:
>
>>Is a little premeditation too much to ask for a smoothly working system?
>
>Yes. The _only_ info the voting process needs to know is whether the
>voter is a unique individual. This is in practical terms not an
>achievable task. But processes like serialized authenticated ballots at
>least move in that direction. Voter registration that gathers _any_ info
>beyond establishing the legitimacy of the address is a step in the wrong
>direction. Information not in hand can't be abused, and I see great
>potential for abuse of any sort of repository of information about voter
>interests, preferences, etc.
>
>Further, any step toward increasing centralization seems to me counter
>to the fundamental paradigm of Usenet, which owes its survival to its
>decentralized nature. No system with anything like a real center could
>have survived the growth of recent years. One of the last things we need
>(in addition to info that can be put to abusive purposes being
>collected) is any additional bottleneck.
>
>>in my opinion, prevents this system from being viable. If we have a
>>registration system, then the cabal would be small, say 20 or so people.
>>They would not be system admins, simply interested readers.
>
>I give you...news.groups. All that's necessary of this concept exists.
>Further, by functioning in an ungoverned environment, it ensures that
>what status people have is _earned_ by virtue of their views and
>arguments.  The current system is completely open to addition of new
>figures to the pantheon. Again, centralization creates the potential for
>bottlenecks.
>
>I don't trust _anyone_ with the power to establish a "cabal" of this
>sort. I start with myself. Anyone who holds strong views of matters of
>controversy faces the problem of bias, and anyone not informed enough
>to hold views on them has no business selecting authority figures.

I remember how someone recently argued on news.groups that Bruce Bough's votes
should be invalidated because he's dying from AIDS. I strongly disagree with
Dan's (?) reasoning, which was, I recall, that someone with only a couple of
months left to live shouldn't be telling others how to run Usenet after his
death. I think we should consider Bruce's opinions as being representative.
After all, a Usenet vote is an interest poll, and the voters are just a sample
of a larger population. Not everyone who thinks like Bruce Bough is going to
die together with him from AIDS within a few months (sigh). Let him vote.

The use of numbered ballots (as proposed by Dr. Grubor and implemented by me),
will stop the following kinds of net-abuse:

* Cabal supporters such as Russ Allberry (spit) e-mailing pre-filled ballots to
their mailing lists, sometimes gathering tens of thousands of votes from people
who haven't read the CFV;

* Cabal supporters forging cancels to censor Usenet articles they claim contain
"unauthorized voting instructions". This pretext has been used to stifle
campaigning against the proposals the Cabal wanted to pass, as well as to
suppress protests against UVV misconduct by Jan Isley (spit) and his cohorts.

The use of a simple randomized question about the CFV - find the line that says
this and fill in the missing word on the ballot (as proposed by Dr. Grubor and
implemented by me), will stop the following kinds of net-abuses:

* Cabal supporters such as Stephanie da Silva (spit) vote YES on every
moderated newsgroup without reading the CFV;

* Cabal supporters such as Chris Stein (spit) vote NO on every unmoderated
newsgroup without reading the CFV.

There can be no pre-filled ballots under Dr. Grubor's proposal.

But Dr. Grubor's proposals don't address the issue of votetaker fraud. For
example, we've exposed Jan Isley (spit) as a liar and a forger, who frivolously
"invalidated" or "lost" votes from people he didn't like (including myself),
and forged cancels for their protests on news.groups. Emory University called
Isley's (spit) forgeries "reprehensible" and pulled his plug for net-abuse.

The UVV's refusal to use numbered ballots and to ask (simple) questions about
the CFV on the ballot is just a lame excuse. They really want to be able to
forge cancels for protests posted to news.groups about votetaker misconduct.

For example, of the following dozen votes I've cast, I've only received an ack
for my NO vote on soc.culture.israel.moderated (fuck you, Jonathan Kamens).

Where are the acks for the following ballots:

1. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

I vote NO on soc.culture.israel.moderated

I received an ack (thank you, Jani).

2. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote (ballot mark skipped):

>Voter name: Dr. Dimitri Vulis
>
>| Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each
>| newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name):
>
> Your Vote   Newsgroup
> ---------   -----------------------------------------------------------
>[ NO      ]  rec.arts.comics.marketplace.forsale
>[ NO      ]  rec.arts.comics.marketplace.wanted

So far, I received no ack.

3. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>I vote YES on rec.games.bridge.okbridge

So far, I received no ack.

4. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>I vote YES on soc.adoption.parenting

So far, I received no ack.

5. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>I vote NO on misc.transport.air-industry.cargo

So far, I received no ack.

6. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>I vote YES on comp.cad.microstation.programmer

So far, I received no ack.

7. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>I vote YES on comp.emulators.game-consoles

So far, I received no ack.

8. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>I vote NO on sci.med.obgyn

So far, I received no ack.

9. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>I vote YES on sci.agriculture.net

So far, I received no ack.

10. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>Give your real name here: Dr. Dimitri Vulis
>If you do not give your real name, your vote may be rejected.
>
>[Your Vote]  Group (Place your vote below in the brackets next to the group)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>[YES      ]  comp.lang.dfl

So far, I received no ack.

11. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>Give your real name here: Dr. Dimitri Vulis
>If you do not give your real name, your vote may be rejected.
>
>[Your Vote]  Group (Place your vote below in the brackets next to the group)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>[ YES      ] misc.invest.misc (renames misc.invest)
>[ YES      ] misc.invest.mutual-funds (renames misc.invest.funds)
>[ YES      ] misc.invest.options
>[ YES      ] misc.invest.marketplace

So far, I received no ack.

12. I e-mailed [email protected] and wrote:

>Give your real name here: Dr. Dimitri Vulis
>If you do not give a real name on the above line your vote may be rejected.
>
>[Your Vote]  Group
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>[NO       ]  soc.religion.paganism

So far, I received no ack.

What's going on? Why are 11 of my ballots not being acknowledged?
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Article 2:

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Path: ...!newsfeed.internetmci.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!psgrain!rainrgnews0!news.aracnet.com!mycroft
From: [email protected] (Bruce Baugh)
Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.misc,news.groups,alt.usenet.kooks
Subject: Re: Towards A Usenet Social Contract
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 96 00:17:16 GMT
Organization: Kenosis Design
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-u11.aracnet.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
X-Newsreader: News Xpress 2.0 Beta #2

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Dr. Dimitri Vulis) wrote:

>of a larger population. Not everyone who thinks like Bruce Bough is going to
>die together with him from AIDS within a few months (sigh). Let him vote.

Dimitri, I invite you to pick a date, not more than twelve months in the
future, beyond which you're certain I will die. I will then post the
next day.

Not, of course, that I expect you to have the honor to admit now that
you're deliberately misreading and misunderstanding my posts, nor to
admit in the future that you made a claim demonstrably wrong.

Nor, I see, can you spell my name correctly, even though you quote it
routinely in reply lines and sig files. People who can't read what's in
front of them on screen lose credibility when it comes to proposing
sweeping changes and radical innovations in software.

Further, you might want to read up on the Americans With Disabilities
Act. Slanderous and defamatory statements about the handicapped - and my
government agrees that I do have a real problem, though it's not AIDS -
open you up to interesting liability.

Bruce Baugh <*> [email protected] <*> http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce
See my Web pages for
    New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er
    Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns
    Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at $50/hour, min $100.
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