From: Rich Burroughs <richieb@teleport.com>
Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 10:21:06 +0800
To: pdx-cypherpunks-l@teleport.com
Subject: [Fwd: --> CRISIS on USENET -- SIGN THE PROTEST STATEMENT VIA E-MAIL]
Message-ID: <31AAE908.4D23@teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain

This is a post from Jon Noring (noring@netcom.com) about the recent 
spamming of alt.religion.scientology.  I thought he summed the 
situation up very well.

Jon is asking folks to sign an email petition to show their protest 
over this threat to free speech.  The signatures will be counted by an 
independent third party, and the names/email addresses of signers will 
not be made available to CoS.

Please redistrubute freely.


Rich

____________


Subject: --> CRISIS on USENET -- SIGN THE PROTEST STATEMENT VIA E-MAIL
From: noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring)
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 06:24:49 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.clearing.technology,alt.religion.scientology,alt.support.ex-cult,news.admin.net-abuse.misc,nl.scientology,talk.religion.misc
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Sender: noring@netcom11.netcom.com
Xref: nntp.teleport.com alt.clearing.technology:19074 alt.religion.scientology:176837 alt.support.ex-cult:8143 news.admin.net-abuse.misc:60902 nl.scientology:182 talk.religion.misc:215542

This post is to outline what I see as a major crisis now occuring on Usenet.

The crisis is a massive, ongoing, vertical spamming (*) of a Usenet newsgroup
never before seen at this scale, and its purpose is to completely drown out
regular discussion on a newsgroup of public interest, alt.religion.scientology.
The evidence points to the "Church" of Scientology as being behind this
massive, incessant, carpet bombing.

(* Vertical Spamming, for those who don't know, is when somebody posts a huge
number of posts to a single newsgroup in a very short period of time.  It's
purpose is usually to shut the newsgroup down by making it useless to carry on
any meaningful discussion.)

In the next few sections I'll outline what's currently happening and provide
the evidence -- you make up your own mind who is behind the assault on the
newsgroup, and its importance to you.  No matter who is really behind it, it
is a crisis that needs to be dealt with by everybody in the Usenet community
because it concerns the important matter of freedom of expression.

If we fail to understand the spam's long-term ramifications and fail to take
the appropriate action, we seriously risk losing our freedom to express our
thoughts and beliefs on Usenet.  After all, if the massive spam succeeds to
shut down one newsgroup in order to stifle critical discussion, then it will
set a dangerous precedent and embolden other organizations and groups that
likewise cannot tolerate open discussion to follow in the same path.  We must
prevent this.  We must draw the line clearly in the sand -- now!

And after reading this, if you agree with my assessment of who is behind the
spamming, and see the threat it poses to freedom of expression, one thing you
can do right now is to sign (via e-mail) a statement of protest directed
towards the "Church" of Scientology.  It is a very easy yet effective way to
express your opinion.  Details for submitting your signature are given at the
end of this post.  NOTE:  I will NOT publicly release, nor send to the
"Church" of Scientology, the names or e-mail addresses of those who sign,
just tally the total count, verifed by an independent third party, probably
someone in the news media.

Please do consider signing the statement and ask others to do the same.  I'd
like to get 10,000 sigs, but 1000 would send a clear message to the "Church"
of Scientology organization that their actions towards Usenet and the Internet
are totally unacceptable to the Usenet community, and pose a serious threat to
freedom of expression on the Internet.  (Note that many of the participants
of a.r.s. are former Scientologists who still want to practice the *religion*
of Scientology, but free from the iron control of the current "Church" of
Scientology organization -- thus one could strongly argue that their freedom
of religion is also being hampered by the spam attack, so the issues go beyond
freedom of expression.)

And do forward this post to anybody who may be interested, including the news
media.  One of the best solutions to this crisis is media attention.


THE SITUATION (as of 27 May 1996)
=================================

In the last week, there have been several thousand (and rapidly approaching
10,000!) short posts swamping the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.)
by a person or persons unknown.  They are coming from several accounts, most
of them forged or bogus, and when the account is closed by its site
administrator based on complaints, the flood begins anew elsewhere.  In at
least one instance a mail-to-news gateway has been used, necessitating the
administrator to close all posting to a.r.s.  That one gateway has received,
last we heard, 886 attempted posts by the spammer within a 28 hour period
(which fortunately never reached their intended destination -- but thousands
of others have.)

And at this moment, while you read this post, the spam continues unabated
from new accounts.  Almost a thousand of the same type of post have been made
to a.r.s. within the last 24 hours.  There is no indication it will stop, and
has actually stepped up the last two days as the spam is now coming from
multiple sources.


THE EVIDENCE WHO MAY BE BEHIND THE ROBO-SPAMMING
================================================

It is unknown the person or persons who are behind this.  However, the
evidence strongly points to the "Church" of Scientology (CoS) as the culprit.
Here is the evidence:

1)  All the posts are supportive of Scientology, and each one is a short
    snippet taken from their copyrighted book "What is Scientology", which
    has also been placed on their Web site.

2)  They all use a similar "boiler-plate" format, including a similar
    preamble:  "Many falsehoods and inaccurate statements regarding several
    aspects of the religion of Scientology have been observed on ars..."

3)  The use of semi-anonymous "throw-away" accounts somewhat follows the same
    pattern used recently to cancel posts containing portions of CoS' "secret"
    scriptures, and which used the boiler-plate statement "Cancelled due to
    copyright infringement" as the justification for the clearly illegal
    cancels.

4)  Most of the materials being spammed have a prominent CoS copyright notice.
    Since CoS has shown by their actions within the last year to be very
    sensitive to unauthorized recopying of their materials, their silence on
    what is now happening is clear tacit approval of the massive spamming now
    taking place.  In essence, by their inaction to do or say anything to stop
    the spam, they are thus tacitly *authorizing* the spam attack, whether
    they instigated it or not (though I believe they did).

5)  In the last 1.5 years, internal documents from CoS have been revealed
    detailing such a plan to overwhelm the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology
    with their own posts.  CoS has not disavowed or refuted these documents.
    They are in the file 'spamplan.txt', which can be downloaded via
    anonymous ftp from ftp.netcom.com /pub/no/noring/spamplan.txt, or in URL
    form:  ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/no/noring/spamplan.txt

6)  A recent post, supposedly based on intelligence information from inside
    CoS, but so far unverified, stated that the spam is part of a Scientology
    program to so overwhelm the newsgroup 'alt.religion.scientology' with
    'theta' (their term for 'safe' ideas) that it would be safe to allow loyal
    rank-and-file Scientologists to begin accessing the Internet, particulary
    their new Web site (up to now they've not been allowed to access the
    Internet because of the 'entheta', their term for 'unsafe' ideas.)  Even
    if this turns out not to be one of the reasons for the spam attack, it is
    entirely plausible based on assessment by those who are knowledgeable with
    how the CoS organization thinks and operates.


THE RAMIFICATIONS TO USENET IF THIS CONTINUES UNSTOPPED
=======================================================

Already, discussion on a.r.s. has been affected, and if it continues without
adjustment by the Usenet community, will seriously hamper the free exchange
of ideas and viewpoints on that newsgroup.  The ramifications of this to all
of Usenet as a whole is clear:  if the spammers get away with this, then what
will prevent other organizations from anonymously using the same tactic to
squelch unfavorable discussion on other unmoderated newsgroups?

Thus, the Usenet community needs to be aware that the spam attack has grave
ramifications to freedom of expression to Usenet above and beyond just the
Scientology newsgroup.  It should be considered as serious a threat to free
expression as the Exon CDA.  And in some ways it is even worse since it will
also affect the integrity and viability of Usenet itself.  It is very
important that we get concerned and fight it any way we can.  Get involved,
even if you're a lurker or a new person on Usenet!


WHAT CAN BE DONE?
=================

There are several things that can be done to handle the crisis.  Some of them
are now being employed by concerned net citizens who are in a position to do
so.  However, for the reasons I'll give, they are not adequate enough, which
makes this, in my opinion, a crisis.  If you have other ideas for how to deal
with this, do post them.  Let's keep discussion level-headed and avoid silly
ad hominem attacks and the like.  This is a serious situation.  The following
are listed in no particular order of importance.  Consider it a partial list
only.

1) IGNORE THE SPAM -- With most newsreaders, this is simply not a solution.
   When there are 1000 spam posts in 24 hours, like we saw today, the reader
   simply has trouble locating the discussion threads, no matter how
   sophisticated the newsreader.  And if the reader doesn't locate the
   legitimate discussion, they will not contribute to any discussion, and
   poof, no more discussion.  New subscribers to a.r.s., most of whom want to
   get all sides of the issue, won't even participate when they see the huge
   numbers of single-sided robo-posts with no discussion.

   And for those who must download all the posts before reading them (or
   even kill-filing them), the spam will most likely force the user to
   unsubscribe from and no longer participate in the newsgroup.  Freedom of
   Expression has thus been curtailed because of the massive spam.

2) KILL FILES -- The usual reply to a problem like this is "kill files".
   However, it is clear that kill files will not work to prevent grave impact
   on the newsgroup because:

   a) Many users today don't even have kill file capability (unix-based
      newsreaders are rapidly being pushed into the minority), and for those
      who do, only a fraction of them have the computer savvy necessary to
      implement it.  And for those who pay for their news one way or another,
      it becomes expensive for the kill file to do its thing (this is
      especially onerous for those who have to actually download all the
      posts, several megabytes per day, through their modem *before* they can
      even "kill file" them).

   b) Kill files work by finding posts having certain identifiable attributes
      in the header or message body, such as the From: address -- but as the
      spam on a.r.s. shows, we've got a moving target that will resist kill
      files.  Any organization with enough money can keep getting throw-away
      accounts that cannot be traced to the organization.  They can also alter
      the wording to foil kill-files searching for words in the message body.
      Thus, those using kill files will continually see unwanted SPAM getting
      through their filters, requiring constant modification of their kill
      files, which means their kill files will get so unwieldy that they take
      longer to work effectively.  The end result is that it may cause many to
      simply give up on the newsgroup rather than trying to fight the
      onslaught using kill files.  It's like using a spray bottle to fight
      a raging forest fire.

      And don't forget the new people in the future who will visit the
      newsgroup. Unless they are unusually motivated or knowledgeable, they
      will judge the newsgroup's purpose based on the content of the spam and
      not the real discussion.  Thus kill files won't even be considered by
      them since from their reckoning the newsgroup's purpose has already
      been decided (and their kill files will be empty to start out!)  Only
      those already established on the newsgroup will consider using kill
      files.  Thus, those who flippantly believe that kill files are adequate
      to solve the problem are being short-sighted and even selfish, and not
      considering the effect on new subscribers to the newsgroup.  Free
      expression is destroyed when new subscribers turn away because of the
      spam.

3) MODERATION -- There are many who believe that a solution to a lot of
   problems on Usenet is to require all newsgroups to be moderated.  The
   arguments for this are many, but few realize that moderation can have a
   profound stifling of free expression for certain subjects.  It also puts
   the burden on moderators, who are now vulnerable to attack, and any
   organization which does not like discussion on a certain moderated
   newsgroup can put pressure on the moderator.  This, of course, would be a
   threat to the free expression we now enjoy on Usenet.  And it would take a
   while for moderation to be implemented even if the Usenet community
   decides now that it should be done.

4) HUNT DOWN THE SPAMMERS -- This is being done, and should continue to be
   done to make life miserable for the spammers, but at the bottom line it so
   far has not reduced, and certainly not eliminated, the spamming.  The
   reason for this is that the spammers seem to have a virtually unlimited
   supply of new accounts.  They are probably now acquiring new accounts as
   fast as they are being pulled.  There is no reason why this can't go on
   for months or even indefinitely.

5) CANCEL THE SPAM POSTS -- This certainly should and is now being done.
   However, because we have a moving target, and thousands of posts, issuing
   cancels is not a trivial exercise.  In addition, many sites don't honor
   cancels.  And, finally, the spammer can simply overcome the cancels by
   continuing to repost over and over again as fast as the canceler can do
   its thing.  The delay time between the arriving of a spam post and the
   effect of cancel will guarantee enough posts will hang around to clog up
   the newsgroup and render it nearly useless for discussion.

6) LAW-ENFORCEMENT/LEGAL ACTION -- This spamming is clearly a disruption of
   electronic data communications, and in the U.S. may be a Federal offense
   (if an organization is behind it, it could also be RICOable or lead to a
   class action lawsuit).  But the DoJ/FBI will not investigate this until
   enough ISP's themselves request it -- they've shown in prior complaints
   from individuals to not be very interested in investigating.  And legal
   action cannot be taken until you get the conclusive evidence required to
   take the spammers to court.  Even though we're sure who's behind the spam,
   it cannot easily be proven in court since you have to first find the real
   people behind the accounts (which is not easy, especially if they keep
   moving around -- it'd take the FBI to do this), and then when you find
   them, to connect them to any organization (this can also be very hard.)


CONCLUSION
==========

It is my opinion that the massive spamming on a.r.s. is a major threat to
Usenet, and the Usenet community needs to be very concerned.  The hopefully
partial list of solutions I outlined above (do you have more ideas?) may not
be adequate to stop the spam and protect a.r.s. from oblivion.  However, if
we as a cyber community join together as one voice, we may be able to force a
resolution in favor of freedom of expression for all.

I offer one way in the next section by which you can raise your voice, and it
is as easy as sending a blank e-mail message.  Of course, I urge you to take
other actions as well if you are in a position to do so.  Become involved on
alt.religion.scientology for starters!  There's still good discussion taking
place, though you'll have to wade through the huge piles of spam.


SIGN (via e-mail) A STATEMENT PROTESTING CoS SPAM!
==================================================

If you are now concerned by what's happening, I offer one way by which you can
do something to show your concern.  I've drafted a short statement protesting
CoS spam which you can sign via e-mail if you agree with it.  After a month or
so, an independent third-party (maybe someone in the news media) will verify
my tally of the signatures and the number will be posted, as well as sent to
the news media and possibly even law enforcement.  Of course, CoS will see the
tally of signatures since their intelligence organization continually monitors
the Internet.  Here's the protest statement:


"We, the undersigned, looking at the evidence, have concluded that the Church
     of Scientology (or one of its many affiliated organizations) is officially
     behind the massive, highly disruptive and immoral spamming of the
     newsgroup 'alt.religion.scientology'.  It is a serious and grave threat
     to freedom of expression on the Internet.  We therefore call upon the
     Church of Scientology to immediately cease this action, to publicly
     disavow it, and to work with the Internet community to prevent this from
     reoccuring."


If you agree with this statement, send e-mail, no later than June 30, 1996, to:

*******************************

     petition-1@netcom.com

*******************************

Before sending a message to the above e-mail address, you MUST read ALL
following "fine print".  If you don't, your signature may be lost or I simply
cannot or will not use it.  Also, if you forward this post, please keep all
the information (above and below) intact!  If you fear retribution for your
signature, please read item #8 below -- you have nothing to fear as your
signature will be kept confidential.

1)  This is NOT a vote.  If you don't agree with the above statement, your
    only recourse is NOT to send e-mail to the above address.  Or, to put
    it another way, sending an e-mail message to the above address, no matter
    what your views or what you say in the message, is an AUTOMATIC AGREEMENT
    with the statement.  You have been forewarned.

2)  Each reply sent to the above e-mail address will be authenticated by an
    automatic mailing back to you (it will also emphasize point 1 above).
    This is to prevent forged e-mail addresses being used to try to either
    inflate the tally or to discredit the signature gathering process.

3)  Leave the e-mail message blank -- I won't read what you write anyway.
    If you have a point to make, it is better you post it to the relevant
    Usenet newsgroups (and which I highly encourage -- the more public
    discussion on this matter, the better.)

4)  Note that in the signature e-mail address the character after the '-'
    is a 'one' and not an 'ell'.

5)  Your e-mail address will be extracted from the From: lines in the header
    block of your message.  So be careful which account you use.  It is
    recommended you avoid using any government and military accounts -- using
    your work account may also be unwise depending on your terms of agreement
    with your employer providing the account.

6)  Please only sign once (but do ask your friends to also sign it!)

7)  The e-mail address to send your signature "petition-1@netcom.com' is NOT
    the same as my personal e-mail address.  If you do send your agreement to
    my personal e-mail address it'll probably get lost.  If you don't get an
    automatic reply within a few days of submitting your signature, it may
    mean your signature got lost.  And if you try to sign by simply replying
    to this post in your newsreader without changing the To: line to the
    e-mail address "petition-1@netcom.com", your reply will not be sent to the
    right place!

    In summary, be very careful which e-mail address you use -- it MUST be
    'petition-1@netcom.com' and not any other !!!!!

8)  To protect those who do e-mail sign the statement, I will not post the
    list of e-mail signatures, nor will they be released to CoS nor any other
    party except the person who will independently verify the tally, who will
    be sworn to secrecy on the matter (if it is a person in the news media,
    they will be covered under Press protection).  I will keep the signatures
    triply DES-encrypted on any media I store them on and the encrypted list
    will also be kept by another person I trust (but who will not have the
    decryption keys).  I will only further reveal the names on the list if I
    receive a valid court order to do so.  The list will not be used for any
    junk-mail, though I may e-mail those on the list in the future should any
    *major* event occur related to Scientology activity that has grave and
    profound ramifications for the Internet, such as this spam attack.


--> AND DO ADD A LINK FROM YOUR WEB SITE TO THE SCIENTOLOGY CRITICS PAGES!
==========================================================================

There are many great sites on the Web that summarize the many attacks so far
on the Internet community by CoS, most of them motivated, in my opinion, by a
desire to suppress all discussion critical of them.  These sites also talk
about Scientology in general which makes for a very sobering "wake up"
experience for those not familiar with this controversial organization.

The primary Web site describing the attack on the Internet is by Ron Newman:

http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/home.html

(You can also go to Scientology's official Web site from the above link, so
you can read the other side of the issues -- CoS refuses to reciprocate,
though.)

Also check out these other three Web sites which, in turn, have links to many
Web sites which discuss Scientology from many perspectives:

http://home.pacific.net.sg/~marina/misc/arshtml.htm   (great index)
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~av282/
http://www.demon.net/castle/x/clam/index.html

It is IMPORTANT if you do add a link to one or more of the above sites, or
any other Scientology-related site, to inform me when you have done so.  That
way, at some future time, if the links change in any way, I can quicky
contact you with updated information.  Our goal is to get at least 10,000
links, and preferably 100,000, world-wide -- please help us -- link to one
of the above sites today!


FINAL WORDS
===========

Hurry, please e-mail your signature to the protest statement right now!  And
be sure to send it to petition-1@netcom.com, and NOT to my e-mail address as
seen in my .sig below!

Thank you.

Jon Noring

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