From: mcb@net.bio.net (Michael C. Berch)
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 94 01:07:19 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Anybody heard of "The SLED"?  (long)
Message-ID: <199402280906.BAA01147@net.bio.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On ba.internet I got a pointer to something called "the SLED", a
database of e-mail addresses, and requested the info file,  which is
appended.  While the people offering the system seem to be interested
in privacy, encryption, and PGP key service, there are some strange
thing about it, especially where they require *you* to identify
yourself to *them* when registering your address.   My comments to the
newsgroup appear at the end.

--
Michael C. Berch
mcb@net.bio.net / mcb@postmodern.com

--------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 18:56:21 -0800
From: Stable Large Email Database <sled@drebes.com>
Message-Id: <199402280256.SAA10575@drebes.com>
To: mcb@net.bio.net
References: <199402280247.SAA16850@net.bio.net>
In-Reply-To: <199402280247.SAA16850@net.bio.net>
Subject: Sled Info

 -----------------------------------
 SLED : Stable Large Email Database
 -----------------------------------

SLED is an attempt to provide a reasonable mechanism to maintain
and search email addresses for individuals and companies that 
make up the on-line community.  SLED is intended for those who 
have one or more mailboxes that are generally checked on a 
daily basis, and are addressable from the internet.

 --- What does it provide? ---

  I.   Timely maintenance of current email address: Over a 
       period of time a person may have many different email 
       addresses, which come and go with the changing of jobs, internet 
       providers, schools, and so on.  Maintenance also means 
       pruning the list for those who no longer interact on-line 
       (and are perhaps dead).

  II.  Realistic search parameters:  Current email databases such
       as whois & netfind provide a search granularity that is 
       useful only if you already know the person's email address.

       The data set is crafted by each individual user.  It can
       contain entries for schools, occupations, research areas,
       nick names, and so on.  See note below on how this data
       is kept private.
 
  III. Protection against the enemy:  SLED is intended to provide 
       a high quality data set which provides flexibility in 
       searching, but yields protection against the enemies of large 
       address books.

       The enemy can be one of the following.
             - Head Hunters/Body shops
             - Anonymous and Fake user accounts
             - Commercial Junk mailers

  IV.  A repository for PGP public keys: SLED provides an alternative
       to the huge, very public "public key" rings on some of the
       foreign key servers. (If you don't know what PGP is, don't
       worry.) 


 --- How? ---

It costs a few $$, and it requires the use of snail mail ( USPS )
at least once.

There are several reasons for charging a small (very small in this case)
fee for this service.

   1. Authoritative ID.  For your data to be included in the database
      we require that you write a personal check.  For the initial 
      sign-up, we verify that the name on the check matches the name 
      in the database.  A signed check which clears the 
      banking system provides very good authentication.  
      
      A semantic note: we don't actually wait for the check to clear.
      We get the check, eyeball the data, update the computer and then
      send the check to the bank. If the check turns out to be bogus
      we go back and zap you. (So you see, there is a way to get a 
      couple days of free time.)  
   
   2. By charging a small fee, we can help offset the cost of the
      resources used to maintain & back up the database.  With the
      fee structure, no one will get rich or poor, but there is
      an increased likelihood that this database will be around
      for years.  

   3. By tacking on a few dollars to the initial fee, we hope to 
      discourage people who would fail to maintain their data, and 
      then drop out of the database, then re-join, then drop out,
      then re-join.

   4. Every 5 months (or so), we email an invoice (typically
      for $5.00 US) for the next 5 months of service.  This invoice
      must be printed and sent to us, with a check, via US mail.  
      This procedure keeps all data reasonably current ( +/- 5 months),
      which is about as good as it's going to get for such a 
      remote service.  The point being, you can not just write 
      a check for $50.00 and be covered for the next
      4 years.

 --- Well, how much does it cost? ---

      Fee to add your data to the database:   $4.00 US
      Fee to maintain your data:              $1.00 US / per month

 --- Trivia ---
 - The database is meant to be hold REAL names, no aliases,
   anonymous, or otherwise bogus id's.
 - In order to search the database, users must themselves exist
   in the database.
 - The dataset you enter for yourself can never viewed as a whole.  
   You are encouraged to enter data for previous & current schools,
   occupations & other organizations/institutions, but a match on 
   a single item will not reveal the others.  For example, you used 
   to work at AT&T, and now you work for IBM.  If an old friend 
   was trying to track you down, they might search on parts
   of your First and Last Name and AT&T.  If you were found, it
   would only show your one line entry corresponding to AT&T.

   The point being that although your data might be read as
   a personal resume, it won't be shown that way.  Of course 
   that won't stop your nosy friend from sending you email
   asking where you are working now.
 - People keep asking why the database doesn't have fields
   for phone & address.  No! That kind of data is too personal 
   for a large database like this.  If you want someone's address, 
   send them email and ask for it.  
 - The searching criteria make it really hard to use this
   database for something like head hunting or generating a
   junk mail list (this is by design).

 --- Interface ---
 The interface is via email.  This allows the database to span all 
 services (cis, prodigy, aol,...) which have gateways to the 
 internet.  Also, it allows each user to craft their data with 
 their own editor, in a flexible time frame.

 Searching the database via email, while very functional,  is a bit
 more kludgy than is desirable.  A searcher accessible via telnet 
 will be put online once we get an idea of the bandwidth & cpu needs.

 It would certainly be cool to have interfaces to gopher and 
 www also.

 Additionally, the future will make further use of PGP
 (ViaCrypt PGP in our case).

 --- How To Start ---

   Send Mail to:

  -  sled@drebes.com  subject 'info'   for a (this) text
  -  sled@drebes.com  subject 'add'    to add yourself to SLED
  -  sled@drebes.com  subject 'change' to alter your data
  -  sled@drebes.com  subject 'search' to search the SLED

  -  bugs@drebes.com  To report a bug.
  -  comments@drebes.com  To send a comment that isn't quite a bug.

 --- The End ---

-------------------------------------------

From: mcb@umberto-eco.postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: ba.internet
Subject: Re: NetPages Coming
Date: 28 Feb 1994 03:07:20 GMT
Organization: Postmodern Consulting, San Francisco, California USA
Lines: 37
Sender: mcb@umberto-eco.postmodern.com
Message-ID: <940227.185716.mcb@umberto-eco.postmodern.com>
References: <mcculleyCLI2AI.DI9@netcom.com> <2k7a3b$lhp@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Summary: The SLED

In the referenced article, cx132@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Cliff Gillespie) writes:
> [Response to Aldea NetPages]
> Oatmeal!  Not a flame, but this a pales in comparison to what the
> folks running the SLED are doing.  They have a setup where you
> can  store & search all sorts of stuff (where you sent to school,
> where you used to live, jobs, books you've written, multiple
> email addresses...), but only matched items are displayed. 
> You can send mail to sled@drebes.com with info in the subject 
> for a summary.

I requested (and read) the SLED info file and was not that impressed.
First of all, you have to PAY to be included in the SLED database.
It is only $5 plus $1/month, which is not a whole lot, but the problem
is that will so sharply limit the number of people who list there, so
the value of the database is limited as well.  And there is the
pain-in-the-ass factor of having to pay them every few months or so.

Plus, the SLED people seem to claim to be interested in subscriber
privacy (by offering PGP [future?] and making the DB hard to make into
a marketing list), yet seem to be totally anal-retentive about the DB
being only "REAL NAMES", to the point of REQUIRING a real live personal
check from you (not cash).

There is also no provision for entering street addresses or voice
telephone numbers, even if you WANT to, since they claim that is much
too personal.  Shouldn't users make that choice for themselves?  
This also makes the DB that much less useful, plus you have to search
it BY EMAIL only, which is slow and clunky.

Thanks, but NetPages sounds more useful to me.   Or even "whois", for
that matter.  (The SLED people also claim that to use whois you have 
to know someone's email address, which is completely bogus.)

--
Michael C. Berch
mcb@postmodern.com / mcb@net.bio.net / mcb@remarque.berkeley.edu

--- END ---