Subject: Re: FAQ: "Rogue Sites" on the Internet
From: Fat Freddy's Cat <ffcat@gmu.edu>
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.net-abuse.misc,news.admin.misc,alt.aol-sucks,alt.christnet.second-coming,alt.bbs.majorbbs,soc.culture.palestine,alt.fan.karl-malden.nose,alt.2600,alt.slack,alt.religion.scientology,alt.butt.harp,harvard.general

Repeated below is the most cogent FAQ I have ever read.


Ricardo Hector Gonzales wrote:
> 
>                 FAQ: "Rogue Sites" on the Internet?
> 
> ---FAQ BEGINS---
> Last updated: September 7, 1996
> Author: ricardo@paranoia.com (Ricardo H. Gonzales)
> 
> NOTICE: This text may not be reproduced in any form for profit without
>         the permission of the author.  It may be reproduced in any
>         form provided that no money is being charged.
> 
> The question of so-called "rogue sites" on the Internet has recently
> become a popular topic of discussion.  This FAQ was created in order to
> cover frequently asked questions about the "rogue site" label and to
> discuss related issues of interest.
> 
> 1. What is a "rogue site"?
> 
>    A "rogue site" is the title that in the past was assigned to Internet
>    sites that were operated by individuals who were intent on harming
>    the net.  The sort of net-abuse they practiced included
>    packet-sniffing, network floods, and account cracking.  Recently,
>    the title "rogue site" has come to mean any site in which an
>    individual has an email account with which they can express
>    opinions anonymously or state an unpopular opinion without the
>    approval of certain people who would like to restrict these forms
>    of expression.
> 
>    Each of these behaviours and methods of dealing with them will be
>    discussed below.
> 
> 2. I am a system administrator.  Why is my site being called a "rogue
>    site"?
> 
>    What likely occured is that one of your users posted a message that
>    someone else didn't agree with.  What could have happened is that
>    the reader may have been in such strong disagreement that he posted
>    a message in one of the news.admin.* groups claiming that your site
>    is a rogue site.
> 
>    It is also possible that a user on your system posted to several
>    newsgroups with a message that was unpopular.  Or maybe a user on
>    your system sent unwanted email to people.  If one person doesn't
>    like the opinions or behaviour of your users, then you may
>    be labeled a "rogue site" by this person and their friends.
> 
> 3. What is the UDP?
> 
>    UDP stands for the USENET Death Penalty which is handed out by
>    an offended person and their friends when they don't like the
>    user opinions or behaviours that come from your site.  It is
>    a tactic of revenge by use of censorship to try to cut you off
>    from the Internet.  It is an attempt to assert the values of
>    a person and his friends over free expression.
> 
> 4. Who are these people who control "Netiquette" and the Internet?
> 
>    Netiquette is a term that some people use when they mean to
>    say that there is a type of manners that you must adhere
>    to when using the net.  However, this concept has lots of
>    problems in practice.  There are a myriad of different ideas
>    about how manners on the net should exist.  Some people would
>    like to keep things like a church where nothing confrontational
>    or strong may be expressed.  Others would like to speak freely
>    and let others know about what they are thinking, even if it is
>    unpleasant or not socially conforming.  There are of course all
>    ranges of personality types between this.  Because there is not
>    and single definition for the type of manners that all people
>    should follow, there is no way to define netiquette, and it
>    effectively does not exist.  Those who claim it exists will
>    cite a document that someone wrote, but that document only expresses
>    the netiquette of the author and there will be millions of people
>    on the Internet that disagree with that opinion.
> 
>    When it comes to people trying to control the Internet, this is
>    an easier problem to solve.  Because of it's distributive and
>    democratically cooperative nature, no one really owns the Internet.
>    But there are people who would like to think that they did and try
>    to control people in various ways.  Some controllers try to stop
>    people who post messages containing certain ideologies, political
>    thoughts, or that are even critical of the controllers.  In some
>    cases the controllers send forged messages to cancel that articles
>    that offend them.  Often they try to have other people's accounts
>    removed.  But there is a way to stop many of these offenses.
> 
>    Because many of these people usually have this power through their
>    jobs, it is proper to have them fired for their abuse of their
>    position.  Going through email to an administrator at their machine
>    is not likely to be seen by anyone but them.  You will need to contact
>    a person who is in power at that organization and that may take
>    more work.  A possible approach to finding this information is
>    to post your grievance and a request for information on one of
>    the news.admin.* groups where there are watchdogs who document
>    the net-abuse of cabal members.  For long time offenders there is
>    a good deal of public information available about their employers
>    and private life.
> 
> 5. Why are certain harmless behaviours deemed illegal by "Netiquette"
>    standards?
> 
>    If you understand the fictional "Netiquette" as nothing more than a
>    system of morality that represents a small number of clamorous
>    people, you can understand how they tried to make it seem real.
>    They were effective in coming up with rules and propagating them, but
>    their netiquette system has no further basis than this.  Adding to
>    the comedy and tragedy of this system is the fact that additional
>    arbitrary rules have been invented to rule alongside it.  An example
>    of this is the "Briedbart Index (BI)" which is a made-up formula to
>    determine whether or not a person has posted "too many" messages in
>    a 45-day spam.  If a person has exceeded the BI level, people who
>    want to control the Internet will step in and begin to forge messages
>    as the sender to cancel the posts that their baseless formula
>    indicates are in excess.  The disastrous thing about this system is
>    that the formula means nothing because it was simply made up by a
>    person so that they could claim a reason to control USENET.  Anyone
>    could come up with any other formula and push it was a standard,
>    thought it would be equally as meaningless.  Recently, a newer version
>    of the BI, called BI2, is being pushed as a stricter limit that will
>    allow for even more cancels of posts that this group dislikes.
> 
>    Peter da Silva has recently been pushing for even stricter USENET
>    article cancellation rules.  He wants to cancel anything posted to
>    more than 3 groups, though in some cases posting up to 2 dozen groups
>    may be an appropriate distribution method.  This doesn't seem to concern
>    him, nor does the extreme unpopularity of his opinions and actions,
>    which are seen as a threat to USENET.
> 
>    The actions of the people who send forged cancel messages have
>    severely harmed the net.  In reaction, several organizations are
>    looking for ways to bypass their actions to keep free expression
>    possible, while adding features such as ad hoc moderating/advising
>    to increase the value and openness of USENET.
> 
>    What must always be remembered is that the responses to net abuse
>    that are being used now (forged cancels, following the Breidbart
>    index or other arbitrary scemes, etc.) only address symptoms
>    and never the cause of the actual problem.  Any reliance on them
>    only serves to make the actual problem worse while no methods
>    of stopping abuse are being developed.  Those who attempt to
>    enforce their methods on the net remain fixated on an old and
>    useless paradigm and do not see the larger picture.  They end
>    up causing more problems than they solve and should be avoided.
> 
> 
> 6. How can I stop the cabal so that my users and I may speak freely?
> 
>    The first thing you will want to do is to remove the power that
>    certain individuals have claimed for themselves.  They have no
>    right to this power and should be removed from their positions
>    because of their abuse and harm to the Internet.
> 
>    David C Lawrence (tale@uunet.uu.net)
> 
>    He attempts to control all aspects of USENET group creation
>    and deletion.  This means that he decides whether or not to
>    send approval for a group creation or cancelation of a group
>    that he does not approve of.  This stifles attempts by interested
>    people to have a "Big 8" group created to discuss timely matters.
>    His control limits or completely destroys all attempts to gain
>    decent message propagation across USENET, confining group
>    discussions to obscure "alt" groups that are rarely propagated
>    well, or at all, on most systems.
> 
>    Chris Lewis (clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca)
> 
>    He sends thousands of forged cancels a month to destroy posts that he
>    and his friends dislike.  He claims to be doing a service and gets
>    very angry when people point out that he is cancelling articles that
>    they wanted to see or that he had to right to cancel.
> 
>    John E. Milborn aka JEM (jem@xpat.com)
> 
>    He's another person who is proud of his forged cancel messages and
>    thinks he is a crusader for content control.  In a strange sort of
>    way it is true that censorship and cancelling other people's articles
>    is content control, but that's nothing to be proud of.  He has
>    recently claimed to have ceased his forged cancels, though forged
>    cancel messages continue to flow from someone using his address.
> 
>    Robert Braver (rbraver@ohww.norman.ok.us)
> 
>    This guy joined the bandwagon and loves to send forged cancel
>    messages too.  But I bet he'd be upset if someone sent forged
>    cancel messages in his name if they disliked his posts.
> 
>    Jan Isley (jan@bagend.atl.ga.us)
> 
>    As a major USENET vote keeper, he was exposed for vote fraud and
>    shamefully stepped down from that position.  Since then he has been
>    less of a public threat to USENET though he still operates behind the
>    scenes.  Unfortunately, there is a great deal of resistance to the idea
>    of having new elections for all of the newsgroups that were created or
>    denied because of the massive vote fraud he perpetuated.  He also
>    has proclaimed himself the only authority on what posts are not
>    permitted in the local atl hierarchy which resulted in another count
>    of Isley being called a censor and control freak.
> 
> 7. As a user, how should I deal with users' behaviours at a "rogue site"?
> 
>    It is possible to act appropriately to each of the behaviours that
>    label a site to be a "rogue" one.  Sometime it is most appropriate
>    to not act at all.  Here are common recommendations:
> 
>    Symptom:  User expressed an unpopular decision in a USENET group.
>    Solution: Discuss the opinion instead of trying to label that site
>              as a "rogue site" or having that user's account removed.
> 
>    Symptom:  User posted a disruptive message in a USENET group.
>    Solution: Disregard the message or email the user if you feel
>              compelled to communicate.  This is not an indication of
>              a "rogue site".
> 
>    Symptom:  User posted a useless message, such as "MAKE MONEY FAST".
>    Solution: Disregard the message or email the user if you feel
>              compelled to communicate.  This is not an indication of
>              a "rogue site".
> 
>    Symptom:  User posted an unpopular message to several groups.
>    Solution: Use a filtering service for USENET content (see "How
>              do we fix USENET" below)
> 
>    Symptom:  User mailed unwanted messages to several people.
>    Solution: This is not a USENET problem, so should not be discussed
>              in any news.admin.* newsgroups.  However, to keep this
>              sort of question from being asked in an improper group,
>              it will be answered.
> 
>              There are several approaches to dealing with this problem.
>              The first thing you will want to do is demand that you
>              be removed from this person's mailing list.  If this does
>              not happen, you will want to complain the administrator so
>              that you will be removed.  If this still does not work, you
>              might be able to arouse more interest in your request by
>              bombarding the offending system with megs of garbage email.
>              Several programs exist to automate this task.
> 
>              To prevent the annoyance of unwanted email, you might want
>              to try either or both of these popular approaches:
> 
>              1) Never post USENET messages that show a legitimate email
>              address.  While this approach is enough for some to label
>              your site a "rogue" one, it will ensure that no companies
>              who collect email addresses from USENET postings will be
>              able to fill your email box with unwanted and unrequested
>              mail messages.
> 
>              Since there is usually no legitimate need for anyone to ever
>              email you from a USENET post you made, this should cause no
>              problems for you and will prevent future annoyances.
> 
> 
>              2) Use a mail filtering device that only allows certain
>              pre-approved addresses to pass through your mail system.
>              Posts that are not approved can be approved by the sender
>              if they reply appropriately to an auto-reply that this
>              software generates.  This will filter out all mass emails
>              from automated software and auto-responders.  Software
>              to do this currently exists or can be created in a few
>              minutes using procmail, filter, or other mail stream
>              parsing software.
> 
> 8. How do we fix USENET?
> 
>    A major step towards fixing USENET would include removing the people
>    who control it and have led it into its current condition.  But this
>    is only part of the solution.  More toleration, freedom, and
>    intelligent and thoughtful approaches are also necessary.
> 
>    Long time net-guru David Hayes (dave@jetcafe.org) has organized a group
>    called the Freedom Knights which is dedicated to the task of stopping
>    true net-abuse and supporting free speech.  You can learn more about
>    this group by reading his FAQ for USENET Sites of Virtue
>    at http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet/virtue.html or you can join his
>    valuable mailing list by sending a message with
>    "subscribe freedom-knights" in the body to majordomo@jetcafe.org
> 
>    Dr. John Grubor is heading a team of experts who have proposed the
>    idea of bypassing human biases by letting a set of intelligent
>    programs perform all important USENET functions.  This will include
>    all vote taking (to stop the fraud from the controllers), all
>    new newsgroup creation, and other functions which have run poorly
>    because of the lack of ethics from the people in charge.  Naturally
>    since programs would run the net (Gruborbots), the people who try
>    to put themselves in charge now feel very threatened by the
>    possibility of being powerless and are reacting negatively, even
>    slandering Dr. Grubor in hopes of smearing his name.  However,
>    people have realized that his proposals remove human bias entirely,
>    support free speech no matter the topic, and are technologically
>    superior to current methods.  Best of all, they need no individual
>    to monitor and run them.  They serve the will of the people, whatever
>    that might happen to be.
> 
>    There is also a method of USENET filtering that is far superior
>    to both the forged cancel messages that certain people send and
>    the proposed NoCeM method.  There is at least one company that
>    is developing it commercially and I do not wish to discuss
>    their efforts.  It will revolve around something that is completely
>    different from the current USENET operations in that it allows for
>    any number of ad hoc moderators.  It will allow a diverse set of
>    opinions instead of permitting the noisy and hostile crowd on
>    news.admin.* to effectively run USENET with their arbitrary and
>    self-serving policies.  It will allow anyone to create any USENET
>    group they like instead of requiring approval from David C
>    Lawrence (tale@uunet.uu.net).  It will prevent forged cancels from
>    being sent (a popular approach used by several people to stop
>    messages they don't like).  It is the natural evolution away
>    from the behaviors that are clearly abusive and disruptive
>    in their intent.
> 
>    The future of USENET is in our hands and we must stop the people
>    who are trying to control it my holding all of votes and often
>    committing fraud, directing its path so as to keep them in power, and
>    acting openly hostile towards watchdogs who point out their ethical
>    oversights.  A more open system without the same small group of
>    people fighting for control would be better for everyone involved.
> 
> ---END OF FAQ---