Cpunks List: Remove The Spammer From The List

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On 1/5/24 00:38, Greg Newby wrote:
> Hi grarpamp. I appreciate your passion for the cypherpunks list, and
> your contributions so it.
> 
> For your request below:
> 
> In short, it is my belief that subscribers who don't want to see
> content from other subscribers are expected to have the capability to
> block those subscribers from their personal mailboxes.

Those spams will still count against any bandwidth quotas. This response 
isn't all that far from "shut up and eat your spam".

> Many gmail users have been automatically unsubscribed as a result.
> This is unfortunate, but it would not be fixed by banning or censoring
> the people mentioned below. Instead, the solution is for those
> subscribers to not use their @gmail.com addresses to receive the
> list.

I do not have a soft spot for Google or Gmail, but I find the proposed 
solution to Gmail's spam filtering (which apparently has tagged the 
entire Cypherpunks list as a spam source) to be quite tedious, if not 
odious.

I personally pay for this email address at Fastmail. I have the spam 
filtering turned down to its lowest setting to avoid losing any 
legitimate email (some of which is work-/income-related).

> There are plenty of other free email providers. I hear that
> protonmail.ch works reasonably well.

I'm sure there are many other free email providers out there but sooner 
or later, Cypherpunks list email will trip their spam filters as well if 
the root cause is not dealt with. Allowing the entire Cypherpunks list 
to be tagged as a spam source is close to the worst possible outcome; 
were that to happen, it basically means a few bad actors have the power 
of censoring *everyone* who would otherwise like to post to the list, a 
true tragedy of the commons.

Look at what happened to Canter & Siegel. Look at what happened to 
Sanford Wallace. Many, many other spamming operations have come and 
(thankfully) gone, as the internet community at large deems that conduct 
unacceptable. I remember writing untold numbers of messages to abuse 
contacts hosting Sanford Wallace, who apparently negotiated a contract 
with AGIS (a backbone provider of the era) where he couldn't get kicked 
off even for the most blatant, egregious, and vile conduct in violation 
of the former's AUP/TOS. It took months for AGIS to find a way to boot 
him. I've been fighting the anti-spam fight for years.

graramp later writes:
> Not mine, but on behalf of the list, on behalf of all who have
> complained about these spammers and personal abusers over
> the years.

That would include me as well.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at rushpost.com>