NYTimes article on Netiquette -- misdefines spamming
Ron Newman
page of the Living section of today's (Wednesday 1/11/95) New York Times.
It's a good article on Netiquette, except for one thing:
One clear breach of netiquette is excessive cross-posting,
also known as "spamming," or putting the same message in
several different places on the net. "Users often get irate"
when that happens, warns "Netiquette: Knowing the Rules
to Live By on the Internet," by Richard Wagner (New Riders
Publishing).
For those new to this discussion: spamming is not the same
thing as "excessive cross-posting". Spamming is sending the
same message *separately* to many different newsgroups, instead
of cross-posting a *single* message to multiple groups (like
this message).
--
Ron Newman MIT Media Laboratory
rne...@media.mit.edu
Mark Hughes
> For those new to this discussion: spamming is not the same
> thing as "excessive cross-posting". Spamming is sending the
> same message *separately* to many different newsgroups, instead
> of cross-posting a *single* message to multiple groups (like
> this message).
That's your definition. It might be a good definition; it might be
the accepted definition; it might be Cancelmoose[tm]'s criteria for
clean-up. But it makes me no less irritated by a massively-
crossposted, off-topic article that someone is trying to make sure
I see. I just hope that by trying to precisely define spam, that
we aren't giving people a technically valid reason to annoy
millions of usenet readers. I can see it now:
"My article was correctly _crossposted_ to 67 newsgroups. That's
OK, isn't it? Its not spam."
Mark
Seth Breidbart
Mark Hughes <mhu...@pms144.pms.ford.com> wrote:
>rne...@media.mit.edu (Ron Newman) writes:
>
>> For those new to this discussion: spamming is not the same
>> thing as "excessive cross-posting". Spamming is sending the
>> same message *separately* to many different newsgroups, instead
>> of cross-posting a *single* message to multiple groups (like
>> this message).
>
>That's your definition. It might be a good definition; it might be
>the accepted definition; it might be Cancelmoose[tm]'s criteria for
>clean-up. But it makes me no less irritated by a massively-
>crossposted, off-topic article that someone is trying to make sure
>I see.
A punch in the nose would also irritate you. That doesn't make it
spam.
And a massively-crossposted article at least I see only once.
> I just hope that by trying to precisely define spam, that
>we aren't giving people a technically valid reason to annoy
>millions of usenet readers. I can see it now:
>
>"My article was correctly _crossposted_ to 67 newsgroups. That's
>OK, isn't it? Its not spam."
No, it's not OK, and it's also not spam. There are other forms of
net.abuse than spam.
Seth
charles daniels
: > For those new to this discussion: spamming is not the same
: > thing as "excessive cross-posting". Spamming is sending the
: > same message *separately* to many different newsgroups, instead
: > of cross-posting a *single* message to multiple groups (like
: > this message).
: That's your definition. It might be a good definition; it might be
: the accepted definition; it might be Cancelmoose[tm]'s criteria for
: clean-up.
A resounding "Yep!" to all of the above...
: But it makes me no less irritated by a massively-
: crossposted, off-topic article that someone is trying to make sure
: I see. I just hope that by trying to precisely define spam, that
: we aren't giving people a technically valid reason to annoy
: millions of usenet readers. I can see it now:
: "My article was correctly _crossposted_ to 67 newsgroups. That's
: OK, isn't it? Its not spam."
: Mark
OK, I think I see the problem here. We've got two things that are
superficially similar, but actually quite different in substance, and
people get them confused. That's because there's a shortage of
appropriately colorful terminology (no doubt a rare occurrence on the
Internet).
So we call the same (or extremely similar) messages posted repetitively
to large numbers of more or less non-relevant newsgroups *without* the
benefit of crossposting, "Spam"tm.
Then we simply need to identify 'a single message, excessively
crossposted to more or less non-relevant newsgroups' as
"Velveeta"tm, and there should be no trouble whatsoever distinguishing
between them, right?
"Yo, you just spammed the Usenet, dude."
"Oh yeah? Well you got Velveeta all over my newsgroups, you cheese-head."
So, does anyone know where I can find some nice spongy white "Wonder"tm
bread and a jar of "Dream Whip"tm on the Usenet? I want to make a sangwich.
I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is
to be flexible at all times. --E. Dirksen
__________________________
~~~~ret...@cyberspace.com~~~~
---------------------
Garrett Fitzgerald
>
>"My article was correctly _crossposted_ to 67 newsgroups. That's
>OK, isn't it? Its not spam."
For many newsreaders, I'd say that that's exactly right. As long as
you only see one copy, and it takes up minimal space on the other
groups since it's a crosspost, I wouldn't worry about it (despite a
post from me several weeks ago to this group -- I was tired. :-) ).
However, I've also used InterNews, an NNTP reader for Macs, where each
crosspost is shown separately. :-( YMMV....
Garrett
Mark W. Schumann
I have the same problem with crossposting overkill. But I don't
think it's a good idea to confuse the issue of "spamming" by
broadly extending its definition. It would tend to sidetrack
the discussion yet one more time into "What is Spam?" instead of
"What to do about Spam?"
IMHO, the time and place to discuss massively crossposted articles, if
any, is some time and place other than the spam discussion.
I wouldn't object if someone were to start such a discussion though.
Followups tightened.
--
Mark W. Schumann/STR, Inc./6800-A W. Snowville Road/Brecksville, OH 44141 USA
Scott Southwick
Garrett Fitzgerald <gfit...@nyx10.cs.du.edu> wrote:
>In article <3f3n1g$i...@eccdb1.pms.ford.com>,
>Mark Hughes <mhu...@pms144.pms.ford.com> wrote:
>>I can see it now:
>>
>>"My article was correctly _crossposted_ to 67 newsgroups. That's
>>OK, isn't it? Its not spam."
>
>For many newsreaders, I'd say that that's exactly right. As long as
>you only see one copy, and it takes up minimal space on the other
Anybody who cross-posts to 67 newsgroups will get plenty of flamage;
that "punishment" should fit that "crime". I tend to think of
"net-abuse" as widespread acts that should probably cause someone to
lose their account. I'd never complain to a postmaster about a massive
cross-post, but I'd certainly write to the poster.
At least the first offense... Now, I'd think *repeated* inappropriate
cross-posting could easily be net-abuse.
yrs,
Scotty
---
alt.current-events.net-abuse FAQ
http://www-sc.ucssc.indiana.edu/~scotty/acena.html
The Grinch
It could be spam, if it was posted to 50 different sets of 67 newsgroups
each.
Just out of curiosity, does Cancelmoose[TM] have a sister with a large
bitemark-shaped scar?
"Highly unnatural,
The tortured shape of this "food".
A small pink coffin." -- unknown
(apologies if you've seen the above before, but I needed filler)
@Man
--
Define the loneliness l, of a number to be the difference between n, the number
of people present, and m, the number of people desired: l = m - n. m or n < 0
implies a desire to bring one or more loved ones back from the dead. Note that
since m - (n) > m - (n - 1), n is the loneliest number since the number n - 1.
Tim Pierce
>But it makes me no less irritated by a massively-
>crossposted, off-topic article that someone is trying to make sure
>I see.
Agreed. I think that by pursuing the definition of spam as
"not crossposted," and trying to evade the issue of the cost
in human aggravation, we've done ourselves a serious
disservice.
--
Green Card fodder: Canter, Siegel, green card, Joel Furr, liable,
fortune, conspiracy, CyberSell, Tennessee Bar.
John Groseclose
(Mark Hughes) wrote:
A single article cross-posted to 67 newsgroups is a single article. You
see it once, and it's gone.
67 articles posted to 67 separate groups, and the same message keeps
popping up every time you go to the next group.
IMHO, the second is more "evil" as it repeatedly sends the same message
over and over and over and . . . SPAM! Wonderful Spam! The repetition is
what's bad, in *my* opinion.
Most articles that annoy me I only see once, and ignore them. When the
same article hits me three or four times, I become annoyed and forward a
copy to the postmaster at the offending site.
I've got it down to a single-button macro. :)
--
John Groseclose <car...@enet.net> WWW site: HTTP://ias.west.asu.edu/
Another person who will NEVER buy anything inappropriately
advertised on the UseNet...
*Unsolicited Commercial EMail will be proofread for $100 per message*
Dave Hayes
>Most articles that annoy me I only see once, and ignore them. When the
>same article hits me three or four times, I become annoyed and forward a
>copy to the postmaster at the offending site.
>I've got it down to a single-button macro. :)
1995. Year of the robo-bitchers.
Ever considered that this is considered just as much spam as the multiply
posted articles are by the postmaster whom you are robo-bitching at?
Hmmm...robo-bitcher....ro-bitch. A new jargon term.
--
Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss
Net-Runner
>
> For those new to this discussion: spamming is not the same
> thing as "excessive cross-posting". Spamming is sending the
> same message *separately* to many different newsgroups, instead
> of cross-posting a *single* message to multiple groups (like
> this message).
What do you define as "the same message." Is there a point where a
message is no longer the same. That is my main objection to
CancelMoose(tm) definition of spam. The recent event with my employer (M.
Wolff) proved that CancelMoose(tm) doesn't look at content, but only title.
Either way, could you explain why we need messages to be censored...
sorry, I meant cancelled... by an outside entity. What was wrong with the
old days of KillFiles and the choice that was given to each reader to
"kill" a post the second or third time it appeared ?
Cancelling, to me, is a dangerous trend as it will probably create more
problems like the current Scientology controversy. I fear for the future
of usenet if speech can be censored. Believe me, I know how to forge a
cancel but would never do it because I feel it stifles free speech.
TNL
--
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Desai
>car...@enet.net (John Groseclose) writes:
>>Most articles that annoy me I only see once, and ignore them. When the
>>same article hits me three or four times, I become annoyed and forward a
>>copy to the postmaster at the offending site.
>>I've got it down to a single-button macro. :)
>1995. Year of the robo-bitchers.
Long live robo-bitching. Only, I call it 'self-policing'.
>Ever considered that this is considered just as much spam as the multiply
>posted articles are by the postmaster whom you are robo-bitching at?
When I robo-bitch, I send ONE copy to ONE mahcine. I dont post 1000 copies
that every news server on the planet will store.
HUGE difference.
Desai
>Either way, could you explain why we need messages to be censored...
>sorry, I meant cancelled... by an outside entity. What was wrong with the
>old days of KillFiles and the choice that was given to each reader to
>"kill" a post the second or third time it appeared ?
Why are you even asking this question. You KNOW the difference. No amount
of users adding to a kill file is going to remove the 1000 copies of a post
that is stored on 1000's of machines world-wide.
Smart newsreaders are for cross-posts,
kill files are for kooks,
and CancelMoose is for spam.
James Jones
>What do you define as "the same message." Is there a point where a
>message is no longer the same. That is my main objection to
>CancelMoose(tm) definition of spam. The recent event with my employer (M.
>Wolff) proved that CancelMoose(tm) doesn't look at content, but only title.
No, it does not prove that--on the contrary. It required at least a look
to see that yes, the messages were essentially the same, designed to
technically evade the letter of the definition of spam while conforming
to its spirit.
James Jones
Opinions herein are those of their respective authors, and not necessarily
those of any organization.
Tim Pierce
>The recent event with my employer (M.
>Wolff) proved that CancelMoose(tm) doesn't look at content, but only title.
>...
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>| Net-Runner | home: tri...@dorsai.org | Unsolicited Junk |
>| T1 Databahn | work: tri...@ypn.com | E-Mail consultant |
>| Cybersphere | URL: http://www.dorsai.org/~tristan | |
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
I'm curious to know what you thought of the unsolicited junk
e-mail your employer recently sent out, consultant.
Ron Newman
>sorry, I meant cancelled... by an outside entity. What was wrong with the
>old days of KillFiles and the choice that was given to each reader to
>"kill" a post the second or third time it appeared ?
There are three reasons to cancel spam (defined here as abusive multi-posting)
1) A multi-posted article is transmitted over and over again, as many
times as it is separately posted. This wastes bandwidth. You may
not care, but someone who pays by the byte, or sits at the end of
a 14.4K UUCP link, certainly does.
2) Each copy of a multi-posted article is stored separately on disk.
You may not care, but many sites have limited disk space. To make
room for 1000 copies of spam, a site may need to remove 1000 other
articles, or shorten the expire time of many groups, or drop some
groups altogether.
3) Each reader sees a multi-posted article over and over again, in
each group that she reads that received the article. A global
kill file (as opposed to local kill files for individual
newsgroups) is the only way to avoid this, and even it will work
only if the spammer has not changed the Subject: line for each
copy of the spam. Processing a global kill file significantly
slows down any news reader, so most people try to avoid them.
Spam cancellation is a **deterrent**. It says to potential
spammers, "Don't do this! You won't get your message through, and
you'll piss a lot of people off royally."
Net-Runner
: In article <D2Eu5...@dorsai.org>, Net-Runner <tri...@news.dorsai.org> wrote:
: >Either way, could you explain why we need messages to be censored...
: >sorry, I meant cancelled... by an outside entity. What was wrong with the
: >old days of KillFiles and the choice that was given to each reader to
: >"kill" a post the second or third time it appeared ?
: There are three reasons to cancel spam (defined here as abusive multi-posting)
<SNIP: reasons: space, bandwidth...>
: Spam cancellation is a **deterrent**. It says to potential
: spammers, "Don't do this! You won't get your message through, and
: you'll piss a lot of people off royally."
Interesting point. I hadn't looked at it that way but now it's starting
to make more sense.
Net-Runner
: >The recent event with my employer (M.
: >Wolff) proved that CancelMoose(tm) doesn't look at content, but only title.
: >...
: >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
: >| Net-Runner | home: tri...@dorsai.org | Unsolicited Junk |
: >| T1 Databahn | work: tri...@ypn.com | E-Mail consultant |
: >| Cybersphere | URL: http://www.dorsai.org/~tristan | |
: >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
: I'm curious to know what you thought of the unsolicited junk
: e-mail your employer recently sent out, consultant.
HE SENT OUT UNSOLICITED JUNK E-MAIL ????? Now, that worries me. I haven't
heard anything about it but I guess that after I told them I disagreed
with their position, they won't consult me on much. The reason I have
this in my sig is to ensure that I will NOT receive unsolicited Email. If
I do, I'll send them a bill and if they don't pay, I'll take them to
court. That part of my sig is actual proof that I am what I claim to be
and posts will establish that I was doing it before I received the
offending Email. Either way, whoever sends me unsolicited junk Email will
lose money over it and drop me from their list.
TNL
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "All I want is my own T3" | Read alt.internet.media-coverage |
Sean Donelan
> What do you define as "the same message." Is there a point where a
> message is no longer the same. That is my main objection to
> CancelMoose(tm) definition of spam. The recent event with my employer (M.
> Wolff) proved that CancelMoose(tm) doesn't look at content, but only title.
Perhaps. But if I get 150 letters from Ed McMann all saying "You may
have won $10 million dollars" with a slight variation in how my name
is spelled, I would consider that the "same." By definition, every
netnews article has something different, if only the Message-ID.
rn and other newsreaders have long tried to warn posters about the
dangers of including more quoted text than new text. Perhaps newsreaders
should have a more global view and warn posters that the current post
has essentially the same contents as the previous 149 posts.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Affiliation given for identification not representation
Michael L Judson
: : > For those new to this discussion: spamming is not the same
: : > thing as "excessive cross-posting".
: OK, I think I see the problem here. We've got two things that are
: superficially similar, but actually quite different in substance, and
: people get them confused. That's because there's a shortage of
: appropriately colorful terminology (no doubt a rare occurrence on the
: Internet).
: So we call the same (or extremely similar) messages posted repetitively
: to large numbers of more or less non-relevant newsgroups *without* the
: benefit of crossposting, "Spam"tm.
: Then we simply need to identify 'a single message, excessively
: crossposted to more or less non-relevant newsgroups' as
: "Velveeta"tm, and there should be no trouble whatsoever distinguishing
: between them, right?
: "Yo, you just spammed the Usenet, dude."
: "Oh yeah? Well you got Velveeta all over my newsgroups, you cheese-head."
Did we (or should I say ret...@cyberspace.com) just define a new term?
Velveeta - v. To "cross-post" the same message to many newsgroups in an
attempt to reach the biggest audience. (See Spam)
I guess it makes sense. People who "velveeta" are cheese-heads. As
ret...@cyberspace.com so eloquently put it. And, like Velveeta, it is
a "processed imitation" of a spam (which isn't saying much for Spam).
The Nutty Professor
> What do you define as "the same message." Is there a point where a
> message is no longer the same. That is my main objection to
> CancelMoose(tm) definition of spam. The recent event with my employer (M.
> Wolff) proved that CancelMoose(tm) doesn't look at content, but only title.
Tristan, my dorsai brother -- you know how quickly articles expire on
Dorsai, do you not? I've frequently seen posts go in less than 24 hours.
In fact, I was unable to find your original post here, so I am quoting
you from someone else's post (note the references)!
Do you really think it's right that Wolff's messages, most of which were
better than 50% duplicated, and all of which were written with the
identical intent (to get the name of the book around) should have caused an
equal amount of legitimate Usenet postings to go south?
The crime of spam has naught to do with the content of the postings; it's
the fact that Wolff, in posting this way, pushed so many others toward
expiration. Spammers are people who rob others of their voice in this
manner. Wolff was a spammer.
--
>>>>>>>>>>>>Republicans are opposed to big government <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>excepting those parts of government that carry guns.<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Net-Runner
First, I would like to point out that I speak for myself on this and it
may or may not represent the policy of my company on this matter but now
that I have followed the debate about spamming, I am coming out against
spam because some arguments that I hadn't thought of are coming through
(such as waste of online resources) and I now understand why spam is bad
(I only thought of it as an annoyance but didn't consider the system end
of things.)
As you all know by now, earlier this month Michael Wolff Publishing
posted a message to 150 newsgroups and was promptly cancelled by
CancelMoose(tm). After that, a furor ensued because the company line was
to stand by their post. At the time, I felt that since content was
different for each of the newsgroup, we were a borderline case. However,
I was told not to get involved in this conversation (I may be looking for
a job next week because of this post but principles are more important
than jobs)
Nevertheless, I followed the threads and posted replies when there was no
mention of Wolff in particular but of spamming in general. Yes, I am
aware of teh green card incicdent and all the ensuing spams and yes, I
despise them. But my definition of spam was "the same message posted to
multiple newsgroups." I figured that putting the author in your killfile
for all newsgroup was the best answer.
At the time, I had not thought of disk space and bandwidth problems that
a spam could cause. I saw spams as mere annoyances that could be dealt
with with KillFiles. No, I see why this is not the solution.
Unfortunately, I do not see a good solution. Some of you are going to say
"CancelMoose(tm) has the solution" but the recent events with the church
of scientology have proved that mass cancelling is a first step toward a
dangerous and slippery road. Unfortunately, I do not have any alternative
to offer at this time. I REALLY wish I did.
Anyway, I now understand the furor over this and come out wiser. I would
like to thank you all for this debate. I now have to admit that my
position was wrong and would like to apologize (at least on my own
behalf) for it and for the damage I may have done to the net community by
condoning such behavior.
I would also like to point out that you are wrong in saying all employees
of Michael Wolff condone that behavior. Unfortunately, because our jobs,
may hang in the balance, we avoid speaking of it online. Sorry about our
silence. Believe me, this whole fiasco has made a lot of us more
sensitive to this issue.
So now I close and ask you for a favor: Could we please try to keep this
whole conversation in ONE newsgroup and ask anyone who is still
interested in discussing this to go to that one newsgroup (I figure
alt.current-events.net-abuse would be the best choice). As for me, I will
go to work and hope they don't hand me a pink slip tommorow morning. This
will be my last message on the subject and once again, I need to point
out that I am terribly sorry for the damage I may have caused by
condoning this.
Sincerely,
TNL
...who may be looking for a new job come tommorow evening.
Steve Bonine
I hate to try to interject a bit of logic into this emotional topic, but . . .
> There are three reasons to cancel spam (defined here as abusive multi-posting)
Actually, the only reason to cancel spam is as a deterrent, and the jury is
still out on whether the technique is working. As to your reasons, none of
them work in the real world.
> 1) A multi-posted article is transmitted over and over again, as many
> times as it is separately posted. This wastes bandwidth. You may
> not care, but someone who pays by the byte, or sits at the end of
> a 14.4K UUCP link, certainly does.
You're making an assumption here that the spam is canceled before it is bundled
up for transmitting over that uucp link, so that it actually helps. In
reality, the "savings" is generally negative because first you get to pull the
spam over, then a day or so later you get to pull over the cancel control
messages. So, although your arguement SOUNDS good, it doesn't actually help
the poor guy sitting at the end of the dialup connection.
> 2) Each copy of a multi-posted article is stored separately on disk.
> You may not care, but many sites have limited disk space. To make
> room for 1000 copies of spam, a site may need to remove 1000 other
> articles, or shorten the expire time of many groups, or drop some
> groups altogether.
Again, you're assuming that the cancel is done so quickly that the spam never
appears at the site, which isn't a valid assumption. The site still has to
have room for the spam, and the disk space isn't made available until the
cancel control message arrives and is processed. Since most sites keep cancel
control messages for a day, the net gain in disk space is probably zero until
the control messages roll off. Again, your arguement SOUNDS good, but in the
real world things just don't work like that.
As an aside, your 1000-newsgroup spam, a very large one considering what we've
seen recently, would hardly be noticed in the volume of today's Usenet traffic.
People who complain that a 60-newsgroup spam is forcing vast numbers of
articles to expire should get a bit of perspective on how much traffic flows
these days.
> 3) Each reader sees a multi-posted article over and over again, in
> each group that she reads that received the article. A global
> kill file (as opposed to local kill files for individual
> newsgroups) is the only way to avoid this, and even it will work
> only if the spammer has not changed the Subject: line for each
> copy of the spam. Processing a global kill file significantly
> slows down any news reader, so most people try to avoid them.
"Significantly slow down any news reader"? Come now. I don't think that's
true even on PC-based news readers. And I'd probably kill based on sender, not
subject. Anyway, most conferences don't have such a high signal-to-noise ratio
that one more article to skip is going to make much difference. You cope with
flames, right? And threads you don't want to read?
> Spam cancellation is a **deterrent**. It says to potential
> spammers, "Don't do this! You won't get your message through, and
> you'll piss a lot of people off royally."
Leaving the spam is a deterrent, too. Receiving hate mail from thousands of
people speakes pretty strongly.
I think that the recent experience with Mr. Wolff is an example of that. He
wants us to think that only a small cabal-like population in Usenet is upset
with his spam, and the fact that it was canceled leads him to that conclusion.
Thus, he's unrepentant. I would like to think that even Mr. Wolff would be
able to grasp the concept if he had been allowed to receive comaplints from a
broad base of Usenet. Of course, that is probably MY silly assumption for this
article.
Please don't get me wrong. I am not defending spam or excessive cross posting.
I am just providing some food for thought on whether today's "saviours of the
net" really are helping. It's never easy to make a decision NOT to take an
action, but sometimes it is the correct decision.
Don Whiteside
: Did we (or should I say ret...@cyberspace.com) just define a new term?
: Velveeta - v. To "cross-post" the same message to many newsgroups in an
: attempt to reach the biggest audience. (See Spam)
: I guess it makes sense. People who "velveeta" are cheese-heads. As
: ret...@cyberspace.com so eloquently put it. And, like Velveeta, it is
: a "processed imitation" of a spam (which isn't saying much for Spam).
Works for me. Nearly totally artificial, like spam, but slightly less
obtrusive and disgusting, less likely to arouse total disgust and seem
out of place, and actually worthwhile when used sparingly and
appropreately.
And, worth of a few puns. "What's all this all over the place? These are
nacho groups to abuse!"
Nico Garcia
Michael L Judson (jud...@linex.com) wrote:
: Did we (or should I say ret...@cyberspace.com) just define a new term?
: Velveeta - v. To "cross-post" the same message to many newsgroups in an
: attempt to reach the biggest audience. (See Spam)
How about a slightly different name: "Treet". It's like Spam, but very
similar in components, flavor, and odor.
Nico Garcia
ra...@athena.mit.edu
Dave Hayes
>When I robo-bitch, I send ONE copy to ONE mahcine. I dont post 1000 copies
>that every news server on the planet will store.
>HUGE difference.
Oh.
So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
--
Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
People oppose things because they are ignorant of them.
Joe George
>charles daniels (ret...@cyberspace.com) wrote:
>: "Yo, you just spammed the Usenet, dude."
>: "Oh yeah? Well you got Velveeta all over my newsgroups, you cheese-head."
>Did we (or should I say ret...@cyberspace.com) just define a new term?
Or did "we" attempt to take a once-cute inside joke past the point of
absurdity?
What do we call BBS gateways that repost articles all over the place?
"Your chocolate is in my peanut butter" or "Your peanut butter is in my
chocolate"?
--
Joe George (jge...@nbi.com, jge...@crl.com) |Even I don't always
"Oh Bother," said Pooh, and quietly erased his hard disk.|agree with my own
|opinions. Nobody
(Please don't use 'jge...@twiglet.nbi.com' anymore.) |else does either.
Dave Hayes
>Tristan, my dorsai brother -- you know how quickly articles expire on
>Dorsai, do you not? I've frequently seen posts go in less than 24 hours.
Now that's either unreasonable newsgroup discrimination, or someone needs
to spend the $750 it takes to add 1 gig to your site's spool. What newsgroup
was this example taken from.
>Do you really think it's right that Wolff's messages, most of which were
>better than 50% duplicated, and all of which were written with the
>identical intent (to get the name of the book around) should have caused an
>equal amount of legitimate Usenet postings to go south?
What about my postings? Most people think my writings are worth less than
spam...should I now be net.lynched for posting my opinion?
Labeling a post as spam is in theory no different from judging the content
to be something you do not like.
--
Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
It is only knowledge that will destroy bias.
William Barwell
Pope Charles
SubGenius Pope Of Houston
Slack!
The Nutty Professor
: : Then we simply need to identify 'a single message, excessively
: : crossposted to more or less non-relevant newsgroups' as
: : "Velveeta"tm, and there should be no trouble whatsoever distinguishing
: : between them, right?
: : "Yo, you just spammed the Usenet, dude."
: : "Oh yeah? Well you got Velveeta all over my newsgroups, you cheese-head."
: Did we (or should I say ret...@cyberspace.com) just define a new term?
: Velveeta - v. To "cross-post" the same message to many newsgroups in an
: attempt to reach the biggest audience. (See Spam)
: I guess it makes sense. People who "velveeta" are cheese-heads. As
: ret...@cyberspace.com so eloquently put it. And, like Velveeta, it is
: a "processed imitation" of a spam (which isn't saying much for Spam).
Hey waitaminnit you guys! I named it "Broadcast brand Corned Beef Hash"
yesterday. Well, okay , so I didn't give it *that* much thought...
John Vender
: kill files are for kooks,
Can you please elaborate on that. Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing
what you said, it's just that I haven't found a better way yet to stop posts
that I don't want to read (e.g. about software I have no interest in in
groups where there is a lot of things of interest to me) wasting my time.
The statement you made suggests there is a better way. If there is, I would
like to know.
Cheers,
John
Always willing to learn.
Rob Pegoraro
Bonine) wrote:
....
> Leaving the spam is a deterrent, too. Receiving hate mail from thousands of
> people speakes pretty strongly.
>
> I think that the recent experience with Mr. Wolff is an example of that. He
> wants us to think that only a small cabal-like population in Usenet is upset
> with his spam, and the fact that it was canceled leads him to that
conclusion.
> Thus, he's unrepentant. I would like to think that even Mr. Wolff would be
> able to grasp the concept if he had been allowed to receive comaplints from a
> broad base of Usenet.
My understanding is that Wolff, as well as C&S and God knows who else has
mass-advertised on Usenet, *has* gotten a huge volume of complaints via
e-mail. But I've yet to hear of anybody in that category coming out and
saying, "Sorry, we were wrong. We read all these thoughtful messages and
now see the error of our ways." C&S regularly trot out favorable
customer-response figures for their Green Card Lawyers post. So in the
right hands, a cancelbot might be the only effective response (I say
"might" because I haven't made my mind up on this.).
The one obvious and direct response that has worked so far is getting a
spammer's provider to yank their account. That's happened plenty of times
with MAKE.MONEY.FAST-type jerks from Netcom, AOL, various bbses, etc. On
the other hand, once somebody's acquired their own domain it's much more
difficult to stop them from posting at will. And people who have their own
domain name can usually do much more than somebody with just a dial-up
account. The only immediate fix then is to kill based on sender and...I
don't know what next, although there's been no lack of good ideas and
debate in this thread.
Just my inconclusive and rambling $.02 worth,
Rob
ro...@cais.com====================================================
Rob Pegoraro Work address: pego...@washpost.com
Arlington, Va. But I'm speaking only for myself here.
===============================http://www.cais.com/robp/home.html
Mark W. Schumann
summation of Why Spam is Bad.
Net-Runner <tri...@news.dorsai.org> responded:
>Interesting point. I hadn't looked at it that way but now it's starting
>to make more sense.
Yup. And YPN is supposed to be net.experts. Uh-huh.
--
Mike White is the Ralph Perk of the 90's. Bring back Kucinich in 1998!
Mark W. Schumann/STR, Inc./6800-A W. Snowville Road/Brecksville, OH 44141 USA
Mark W. Schumann
Steve Bonine <s...@ntrs.com> wrote:
>In article <1995Jan15....@news.media.mit.edu>,
>rne...@media.mit.edu (Ron Newman) writes:
>> 1) A multi-posted article is transmitted over and over again, as many
>> times as it is separately posted. This wastes bandwidth. You may
>> not care, but someone who pays by the byte, or sits at the end of
>> a 14.4K UUCP link, certainly does.
>
>You're making an assumption here that the spam is canceled before it is bundled
>up for transmitting over that uucp link, so that it actually helps. In
>reality, the "savings" is generally negative because first you get to pull the
>spam over, then a day or so later you get to pull over the cancel control
>messages. So, although your arguement SOUNDS good, it doesn't actually help
>the poor guy sitting at the end of the dialup connection.
From this site the assumption is usually true. Our UUCP link
connects somewhat infrequently, and we often miss out on spam
entirely because of it.
>> 2) Each copy of a multi-posted article is stored separately on disk.
>> You may not care, but many sites have limited disk space. To make
>> room for 1000 copies of spam, a site may need to remove 1000 other
>> articles, or shorten the expire time of many groups, or drop some
>> groups altogether.
>
>Again, you're assuming that the cancel is done so quickly that the spam never
>appears at the site, which isn't a valid assumption.... [snip]
See above.
>As an aside, your 1000-newsgroup spam, a very large one
>considering what we've seen recently, would hardly be
>noticed in the volume of today's Usenet traffic. People who
>complain that a 60-newsgroup spam is forcing vast numbers of
>articles to expire should get a bit of perspective on how
>much traffic flows these days.
Not true if you receive only 200 newsgroups, as we do. This is
probably not unusual.
>> 3) Each reader sees a multi-posted article over and over again, in
>> each group that she reads that received the article. A global
>> kill file (as opposed to local kill files for individual
>> newsgroups) is the only way to avoid this, and even it will work
>> only if the spammer has not changed the Subject: line for each
>> copy of the spam. Processing a global kill file significantly
>> slows down any news reader, so most people try to avoid them.
>
>"Significantly slow down any news reader"? Come now. I
>don't think that's true even on PC-based news readers. And
>I'd probably kill based on sender, not subject. Anyway,
>most conferences don't have such a high signal-to-noise
>ratio that one more article to skip is going to make much
>difference. You cope with flames, right? And threads you
>don't want to read?
Yep. Here on my RS/6000 Model 350 killfiles are a drag.
And I specifically get newsgroups (CONFERENCES?) that have
a good S/N ratio.
I don't know about your newsfeed, but spam has caused me
to extend my news partition twice in the past week. (Either
that or volume in comp.unix.aix has gone through the roof.)
Lazlo Nibble
>>> "Yo, you just spammed the Usenet, dude."
>>> "Oh yeah? Well you got Velveeta all over my newsgroups, you cheese-head."
>>
>> Did we (or should I say ret...@cyberspace.com) just define a new term?
>
> What do we call BBS gateways that repost articles all over the place?
Fidonet?
--
::: Lazlo (la...@rt66.com)
::: Visit http://rt66.com/lazlo/ for Discographies, Record
::: Collecting Resources, The Internet Music Wantlists, and more.
Bruce Baugh
form, unlike Spam, which just sits there.
bru...@teleport.com * Bruce Baugh, posting from but not for Teleport
List Manager, Christlib, where Christianity and libertarianism intersect
(E-mail to majo...@teleport.com, "subscribe christlib" in body)
"The white cells are for loading and unloading only."
Tim Pierce
>Tim Pierce (twpi...@quads.uchicago.edu) wrote:
>
>: I'm curious to know what you thought of the unsolicited junk
>: e-mail your employer recently sent out, consultant.
>
>HE SENT OUT UNSOLICITED JUNK E-MAIL ????? Now, that worries me. I haven't
>heard anything about it
Message-Id: <1994121717...@ypn.com>
To: twpi...@unix.amherst.edu
Subject: NetGames!
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 12:18:33 -0500
From: "in...@go-netguide.com" <in...@ypn.com>
Dear Netter:
A free multimedia demo with an excerpt from the new bestselling book "Net
Games," by the creators of "Net Guide," is waiting for you. "Net Games"
features more than 1,500 places on the Net where you can play games, find
opponents, learn tricks and cheats, and talk about online gaming. Try the
demo--it includes a useful introduction to gaming on the Net. Repost it.
Trade it. Amaze your friends. Let us know what you think
(edi...@ypn.com)!
... [several pages deleted] ...
(This was one of two or three unsolicited advertisements I
received from Peter and the Wolff.)
Seth Breidbart
Dave Hayes <da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
>but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
You're actually starting to understand.
For 1 person to send 1 message to 1 mailbox is ok. It's not the
responsibility of that 1 person if 999 _other_ _individual_ people
also happen to choose to send 1 message to that same mailbox. For 1
person to send 1,000 messages to 1 mailbox is not ok, it's
mailbombing. For 1 person to send 1,000 messages to 1,000 newsgroups
is likewise not ok, it's spamming.
Seth
Seth Breidbart
>What do you define as "the same message." Is there a point where a
>message is no longer the same. That is my main objection to
>CancelMoose(tm) definition of spam. The recent event with my employer (M.
>Wolff) proved that CancelMoose(tm) doesn't look at content, but only title.
Your making that claim proves that you weren't reading this newsgroup
(a.c-e.n-a at least) at the time. CancelMoose included, not just one
cancelled message, but the unique text (newsgroup desriptions) from a
lot of them in the message that told us about the cancels. Obviously,
CancelMoose _did_ look at the content, else only a single message (as
is the usual practice) would have been included.
>Either way, could you explain why we need messages to be censored...
>sorry, I meant cancelled... by an outside entity. What was wrong with the
>old days of KillFiles and the choice that was given to each reader to
>"kill" a post the second or third time it appeared ?
Convenience. Killfiles take time to run, wasting _my_ time. Given
the choice between a newsfeed full of spam and one without it, I'd
choose the one without it (and I vote with my dollars).
>Cancelling, to me, is a dangerous trend as it will probably create more
>problems like the current Scientology controversy.
That may be solved when people stop accepting cancels from netcom; you
see, it's up to the administrators of each site what they'll do with
various control messages like cancels. I'd prefer a site that did
_not_ cancel messages in a.r.s if those cancels came from (or via)
netcom.
At your site, you can do whatever you want with messages. If I don't
like it, I won't pay you for net access (that's all _I_ can do).
Seth
Dave Hayes
>Dave Hayes <da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>>So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
>>but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
>You're actually starting to understand.
It's *what* I understand that I think you don't see.
>For 1 person to send 1 message to 1 mailbox is ok. It's not the
>responsibility of that 1 person if 999 _other_ _individual_ people
>also happen to choose to send 1 message to that same mailbox.
Yet if the owner of that 1 mailbox sees 1000 messages, there's
far more potential to overload a system there than 1000 more
newsgroup messages (out of 60,000 per day). News is expected to
increase in volume like that (just look at the Thursday peaks).
Mail isn't.
So, the "justification by sheer numbers" theory still seems to
rear its ugly head. Apparently this is acceptable.
--
Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
Bribe (n.) - 1. Substitute for law.
Law (n.) - 1. Substitute for justice.
Dave Hayes
>Are you going to try to say nobody
>should send email to anyone else for *any* reason?
No.
I'm saying that *I* will not complain to another site about a usenet posting.
It makes no sense...999 people are ahead of me anyway.
>That's the hazard of
>posting to the net - your words reach a *lot* of people, and not all of them
>are as self-contained as, say, Dave Hayes. If you cannot deal with responses to
>your words, better to lurk and not be noticed.
Completely agreed there.
>And, by the way, are you saying that the Big Seven's RFD/CFV process is
>fundamentally flawed? Last I heard, that sometimes involved a *lot* more people
>than 1000, all sending 1 message each to 1 mailbx...
There's a difference. It's called "preparation". In the RFD/CFV process,
there's no appended "H".
--
Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
The greatest test of courage on earth is to fear defeat without losing heart.
Richard E. Depew
[...]
>What do we call BBS gateways that repost articles all over the place?
Broken.
Regards,
Dick
--
Richard E. Depew, Munroe Falls, OH r...@redpoll.mrfs.oh.us (home)
``Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up.'' Old saying
David DeLaney
>sd9...@ehibm5.cen.uiuc.edu (Desai) writes:
>>When I robo-bitch, I send ONE copy to ONE mahcine. I dont post 1000 copies
>>that every news server on the planet will store.
>>HUGE difference.
>
>Oh.
>
>So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
>but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
Exactly. The 1000 people are not, generally speaking, members of a Secret
Cabal To Send Messages To spa...@aol.com - they're just 1000 people who
separately decided they wanted to reply. Are you going to try to say nobody
should send email to anyone else for *any* reason? That's the hazard of
posting to the net - your words reach a *lot* of people, and not all of them
are as self-contained as, say, Dave Hayes. If you cannot deal with responses to
your words, better to lurk and not be noticed.
And, by the way, are you saying that the Big Seven's RFD/CFV process is
fundamentally flawed? Last I heard, that sometimes involved a *lot* more people
than 1000, all sending 1 message each to 1 mailbx...
Dave "Of course, in the rare cases where a Cabal *is* involved in mail-icious
orchestration, then that's not particularly ok" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney d...@panacea.phys.utk.edu "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. Disclaimer: IMHO; VRbeableWIKTHLC
http://enigma.phys.utk.edu/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ / CanterSiegelKibozeBait!!
Taki Kogoma
<1995Jan16....@nbi.com> in news.admin.misc:
>jud...@linex.com (Michael L Judson) writes:
>>charles daniels (ret...@cyberspace.com) wrote:
>>: "Yo, you just spammed the Usenet, dude."
>>: "Oh yeah? Well you got Velveeta all over my newsgroups, you cheese-head."
>
>>Did we (or should I say ret...@cyberspace.com) just define a new term?
>
>Or did "we" attempt to take a once-cute inside joke past the point of
>absurdity?
>
>What do we call BBS gateways that repost articles all over the place?
The term 'Gateway Spew' has been in use for at least 3 years from my
observations.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
qu...@unm.edu | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
charles daniels
: sd9...@ehibm5.cen.uiuc.edu (Desai) writes:
: >When I robo-bitch, I send ONE copy to ONE mahcine. I dont post 1000 copies
: >that every news server on the planet will store.
: >HUGE difference.
: Oh.
: So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
: but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
: --
Yep. You nailed it. That's exactly right. Now that you've figured it
out, why are you sounding like it's so incomprehensible to you?
: Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
: da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
: People oppose things because they are ignorant of them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nell," the Constable continued, indicating through his tone of voice
that the lesson was concluding, "the difference between ignorant and
educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing
to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between
stupid and intelligent people--and this is true whether or not they are
well educated--is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are
not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations--in fact they
expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly
straightforward."
--------------------------------------
--Neal Stephenson "The Diamond Age"
------------------------------------
retief @ cyberspace dot com
Timothy C Hagman
> Dave Hayes (da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov) wrote:
> : So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
> : but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
> Yep. You nailed it. That's exactly right. Now that you've figured it
> out, why are you sounding like it's so incomprehensible to you?
Why has nobody pointed out that the former situation adds a 1000 messages
worth of bandwidth to the net, while the latter adds a million messages?
Me
--
Disclaimer: Anything I said, writ, or thought in my life should not
necessarily be held or thought to imply any view, opinion, or idea
of mine, any organization I have chosen to associate with, or those
people who choose to associate with me. - hagm...@student.msu.edu
Michael Dobson
Mark Hughes <mhu...@pms144.pms.ford.com> wrote:
[ what is, is not spam]
>"My article was correctly _crossposted_ to 67 newsgroups. That's
>OK, isn't it? Its not spam."
>
Correct, it's not spam. Any half-way decent newsreader will only show the
article to the user once. If your newsreader shows a cross-posted article
more than once either:
1) get a better newsreader, or
2) complain to your vendor/service provider so they fix their
broken software.
Unlike multiple postings, it only exists on the news server once with links
to the other locations. Thus, a cross-post is not the resource hog of an
equivalent multi-post and far less intrusive to the user. Since the sole
justification for canceling spam is to reduce the use of network resources,
a massive cross-post is not spam, unwise if the number of groups is more
than a handful, but not spam.
Mike
--
LCDR M. Dobson | NetNews Admin info.usuhs.mil
Experimental Hematology Dept | dob...@info.usuhs.mil
Armed Forces Radiobiology |
Research Institute | I don't have enough rank to speak for DoD
Rob Pegoraro
Hayes) wrote:
> >For 1 person to send 1 message to 1 mailbox is ok. It's not the
> >responsibility of that 1 person if 999 _other_ _individual_ people
> >also happen to choose to send 1 message to that same mailbox.
>
> Yet if the owner of that 1 mailbox sees 1000 messages, there's
> far more potential to overload a system there than 1000 more
> newsgroup messages (out of 60,000 per day)....
That's only looking at results, it seems, and ignoring intentions. Yes,
1000 messages on the same topic from 1000 different people are as much of
a problem as 1000 identical messages from one person, in terms of carrying
capacity, disk space, etc. But at least the 1000 different people were
offering their own input, or perhaps they thought they were.
At the same time, I'd disagree that posting one of those 1000 messages
implies no responsibility. Nobody likes "me-too" posts. You can see this
most dramatically on any crowded listserv--say, apple-internet-users,
which one Monday morning a few weeks ago dumped 250 messages in my mailbox
(with the help of some previously stalled mail traffic that burst through
over the weekend). It's worth taking a moment to ask yourself, What new or
different views/facts can I add to this discussion?
Rob
_________________________________________________________
Rob Pegoraro | ro...@cais.com
Arlington, Va. | http://www.cais.com/robp/home.html
Speakin' only for myself
Desai
>sd9...@ehibm5.cen.uiuc.edu (Desai) writes:
>>When I robo-bitch, I send ONE copy to ONE mahcine. I dont post 1000 copies
>>that every news server on the planet will store.
>So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
>but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
Too easy.
1000 * 1 * 1 = 1000
1 * 1000 * 1000 = 1,000,000
But more importantly, the 1000 is on the offender's box, whilst the
1,000,000 is on many boxes of innocent spam victims.
Dave Hayes
>charles daniels (ret...@cyberspace.com) penned, off the top of the head:
>> Dave Hayes (da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov) wrote:
>> : So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
>> : but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
>> Yep. You nailed it. That's exactly right. Now that you've figured it
>> out, why are you sounding like it's so incomprehensible to you?
>Why has nobody pointed out that the former situation adds a 1000 messages
>worth of bandwidth to the net, while the latter adds a million messages?
Because they'd have to point out that the transport mechanisms for the
former can't handle nearly as many messages as the transport mechanisms
for the latter.
--
Dave Hayes -- Institutional NETworks - Section 394 -- JPL/NASA - Pasadena CA
da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov da...@jato.jpl.nasa.gov ...usc!elroy!dxh
A motto of the human race:
Tell me what to do; but it must be what I want you to tell me.
Alan Brown
>jge...@nbi.com (Joe George) was observed writing message
>>What do we call BBS gateways that repost articles all over the place?
>
>The term 'Gateway Spew' has been in use for at least 3 years from my
>observations.
Only applied to rebroadcasting of old messages, not mass gating
of new ones which should have been crossposted.
I concur with Dick. "Broken" is the best definition.
--
AB
Bren Lynne
>From: hagm...@cps.msu.edu (Timothy C Hagman)
>Subject: Re: NYTimes article on Netiquette -- misdefines spamming
>Date: 17 Jan 1995 16:56:44 GMT
>In article (<3fggn9$5...@case.cyberspace.com>), charles daniels (ret...@cyberspace.com) penned, off the top of the head:
>> Dave Hayes (da...@elxr.jpl.nasa.gov) wrote:
>> : So 1000 people sending 1 message each to 1 mailbox is ok,
>> : but 1 person sending 1000 messages to 1000 newsgroups isn't?
>> Yep. You nailed it. That's exactly right. Now that you've figured it
>> out, why are you sounding like it's so incomprehensible to you?
>Why has nobody pointed out that the former situation adds a 1000 messages
>worth of bandwidth to the net, while the latter adds a million messages?
Well perhaps you are so lost that you cannot also see that these are not
advertisements from box-to-box, but conversations. This is like saying
one personal (snail mail) letter in one mailbox is the same as the piece
of junk mail sitting beside it. The problem is that there is a million
other pieces of identical garbage in everyone else's box. Bandwidth,
speed, quality of communication, goodbye. Form-letter hell, brainless
net.noise, joyeux de vivre, hello. Comprendé? Much like what happens when
needlessly cross-posted messages get replied to, and then someone tacks on a
long .sig.
May I ask, what business are YOU in, and have you figured out a cheap
way to exploit this democratic media yet? Turn it into a pointless
parade of tacky chintz like has happened to television.
Regards, fellow net.citizen.
*********************************************************************
* __________________ *
* Bren Lynne \----------------/ *
* | | ______ *
* | |/_____ | *
* Incredibly convincing ____________|_______ |/ || *
* E-mail Reply Daemon ( * /||||||||||\* * ) | || *
* available at: ( * ** * * * * * ) |____ // *
* ( ) |_____/ *
* br...@interlog.com ( )______/ *
* (________________) *
* *
*********************************************************************
Kai Henningsen
> In article <1995Jan15....@news.media.mit.edu>, rne...@media.mit.edu
> (Ron Newman) writes:
[...]
> > 1) A multi-posted article is transmitted over and over again, as many
> > times as it is separately posted. This wastes bandwidth. You may
> > not care, but someone who pays by the byte, or sits at the end of
> > a 14.4K UUCP link, certainly does.
>
> You're making an assumption here that the spam is canceled before it is
> bundled up for transmitting over that uucp link, so that it actually helps.
> In reality, the "savings" is generally negative because first you get to
> pull the spam over, then a day or so later you get to pull over the cancel
> control messages. So, although your arguement SOUNDS good, it doesn't
> actually help the poor guy sitting at the end of the dialup connection.
Well, at least in this part of the world, it *does* work - the cancels get
there fast enough. For most spams, I see only the cancels. And yes, I'm at
the other end of a 14.4 UUCP line. (Soon also at the other end of a 14.4
SLIP line, but that's not for news - I want those compressed.)
> > 2) Each copy of a multi-posted article is stored separately on disk.
> > You may not care, but many sites have limited disk space. To make
> > room for 1000 copies of spam, a site may need to remove 1000 other
> > articles, or shorten the expire time of many groups, or drop some
> > groups altogether.
>
> Again, you're assuming that the cancel is done so quickly that the spam
> never appears at the site, which isn't a valid assumption. The site still
[...]
As I said, it *does* work that way here. Most cancels I get (I'd say about
95%) don't cancel anything because they already did before.
> zero until the control messages roll off. Again, your arguement SOUNDS
> good, but in the real world things just don't work like that.
Hey, this *is* the real world!
> As an aside, your 1000-newsgroup spam, a very large one considering what
> we've seen recently, would hardly be noticed in the volume of today's Usenet
> traffic. People who complain that a 60-newsgroup spam is forcing vast
> numbers of articles to expire should get a bit of perspective on how much
> traffic flows these days.
Well, the Emmanuel-flood *did* cause my disk to overflow *and* my polls to
expand "forever". It was never completely cancelled, either. No fun.
> > 3) Each reader sees a multi-posted article over and over again, in
> > each group that she reads that received the article. A global
> > kill file (as opposed to local kill files for individual
> > newsgroups) is the only way to avoid this, and even it will work
> > only if the spammer has not changed the Subject: line for each
> > copy of the spam. Processing a global kill file significantly
> > slows down any news reader, so most people try to avoid them.
>
> "Significantly slow down any news reader"? Come now. I don't think that's
> true even on PC-based news readers. And I'd probably kill based on sender,
Well, I'd say it isn't true on my PC newsreader, though I'm sceptic as to
Unix readers ... :-)
Good algorithms and data structures are everything. That's a real problem
with Unix news spools or NNTP.
> conclusion. Thus, he's unrepentant. I would like to think that even Mr.
> Wolff would be able to grasp the concept if he had been allowed to receive
> comaplints from a broad base of Usenet. Of course, that is probably MY
> silly assumption for this article.
From what he said, he *did* get the hate mail ...
> posting. I am just providing some food for thought on whether today's
> "saviours of the net" really are helping. It's never easy to make a
They are definitely helping *me*.
Kai
--
Internet: k...@ms.maus.de, k...@khms.westfalen.de
Bang: major_backbone!{ms.maus.de!kh,khms.westfalen.de!kai}
## CrossPoint v3.02 ##
Kai Henningsen
> jge...@nbi.com (Joe George) writes:
> > What do we call BBS gateways that repost articles all over the place?
>
> Fidonet?
In Germany, "Z-Netz" or "Z3.8" or "nicht GateBau-konform" [inGermany-joke
off] [Fidonet is a *minor* contender]
Terry Laskodi
Ditto to what Seth said; actually, Dave, I'm disappointed in your question:
Dave, YOU were always preaching "I have NO CONTROL over what other people <insert
your-favorite-control-freak-word-here>"; so, now we're supposed to in direct con-
trol of what other people may email someone??? Sounds like you're not being very
consistent here, Dave; either we CAN control what others do, or we can't....