It's 2001, so it must be time for A Modest Filtering Proposal
Tim May
tcmay at got.net
Sat Feb 17 12:06:13 PST 2001
At 9:55 AM -0500 2/16/01, Trei, Peter wrote:
>[Apologies in advance for the multiple posting; this had to get
> to everyone -pt]
>
>Jim (and other cypherpunk node operators):
>
>The spate of "Mail Delivery Failure" messages we've been
>seeing for the last few days are due to messages sent to a
>user "rob at nihilist.com", apparently a very temporary (and
>now dead) web mail address at www.another.com.
>
>I've exchanged mail with the postmaster (richard at uk.another.com),
>and he clearly regards this as Someone Elses Problem, and has no
>intention of ceasing to send the bounce notices.
>
>I strongly advise everyone running a cpunk node to check for, and
>delete rob at nihilist.com. It's not like he/she/it can't resubscribe if
>they want to.
>
>Sigh.... Yet Another Attack now exists against the cypherpunks
>S/N ratio.
This is actually Just an Old Attack. It used to be that either Eric
Hughes or Hugh Daniel would periodically delete addresses which
caused problems like this. (I'm talking about the period 1992-1996.)
After the "CDR Era" began, with the main CDR unfiltered nodes echoing
the traffic sent to _any_ of the other nodes, this pretty much
stopped.
Since then, anytime anyone brings up the issue of how to fix the spam
and cluelessness problems, screams, usually from Choate, are heard
that this is "censorship."
Yes, procmail and Eudora-type filtering offer various ways to not see
the bounces, much of the spam, etc. But the list is now at the point
where more than half of the unfiltered traffic is spam or bounces or
"help me make bombz so i can get yur site shut down" requests.
There have long been several "noncensorious" approaches:
1. Only subscribers can post, plus anything that comes from an
identifiable remailer. Many mailing lists already work this way, of
course. The remailer addresses can be entered manually, with CDR
operators exchanging updated lists of known remailers. ZKS and
similar privacy systems can presumably be handled in some way.
2. A "magic word" in the text or subject line. Instead of Choate
adding "CDR:" to all of the signal + noise that reaches his system,
wouldn't it be more interesting if _authors_ added such a word--even
CDR, ironically enough!--to their message headers?
(The idea of both of the above is that spammers and clueless bombz
dewdz would probably not know enough to either subscribe to the list
or to insert the magic word.)
3. Wider use of downstream-filtered services, like Ray Arachelian's
service. I have sometimes thought about dropping my subscription to
one of the CDR nodes and subscribing to Ray's service instead, but I
have several reservations. First, whether it will remain in
operation. Second, what the lag time is. Third, his is a "this is
what I think is interesting" service, so there are obvious problems
of his interests not matching mine, or even of my own posts not being
seen by me because he has elected not to pass them on.
A more interesting downstream filter service would be something
operated as an automated site, like another CDR node, except that it
automatically filters out nonsubscribers to one of the main lists.
(This requires no cooperation with the other CDR nodes, provided the
whois function can retrieve their subscribers.)
This service should be low-latency, which rules out a human critic
deciding which posts are worthy of passing on. And it should
The "magic word" approach cannot be used in isolation, as it only
works if a very large fraction of the interesting list memmbers are
using the magic word.
If one of you folks out there does this--sets up this kind of
low-latency filtering of nonsubscribers, plus inclusion of anonymous
or remailed or ZKS/Mojo-type posts--then I will subscribe to your
service.
A more ambitious approach might give options for filtering, at a
fairly coarse granularity. Not individual posters, but, say, "Don't
pass on any traffic from toad.com."
But just the "subscribers to any CDR node plus anonymous" filter
would be the key step in eliminating the spam and bounces and
unwelcome bombz dewdz.
(Choate can presumably be counted on to start foaming about how I am
proposing censorship and that if I would like such a service I should
build one myself. Happily, I won't see his foamings.)
Consider this an invitation for someone to try doing this. And if
someone is already doing this, you need to advertise more!
--Tim May
--
Timothy C. May tcmay at got.net Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
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