From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 05:40:35 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Anguilla - commercial and mailbombing policies
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960814073103.12075A-100000@offshore>
Message-ID: <JsPNsD1w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Vincent Cate <vince@offshore.com.ai> writes:

> 
> Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM <dlv@bwalk.dm.com>
> > 
> > A while back, when Vince first started advertizing his site, I asked him
> >a few hypothetical questions, and he said roughly this: If client X posts
> >something to Usenet from Vince's site, and if Y dislikes X's article so
> >much that he mailbombs X, then Vince would pull X's plug. (I have the
> >exact quote saved.) I lost interest right then. I'm not surprised that
> >Vince acted dishonorably by pulling a client's plug with no warning for a
> >very flimsy reason. 
> 
> That question was about commercial ads, and I said "As long as I am not
> mailbombed I don't care about how you post.".  I did *not* say I would
> pull the plug (full exchange below).  From your other questions it looked
> like there was no chance of you being a customer so I did not fully
> explain. 

This is known as "creative editing". No, my question was not about "commercial
spam", but about controversial Usenet posts in general. Since you seem to have
my original e-mail, you have my permission to quote it in full.

> If mailbombed then it goes toward your traffic.  You get 100 MB/month of
> traffic with a domain name, and if you go over that amount of traffic the
> cost is $1/MB.  If you have prepaid by check, and I don't know who you
> are, and your account goes below $0, I would cut you off till more money
> came in. 

I happen to be the owner of severallisteerv mailing lists, one of which is
fairly active. A few days ago someone forged subscription requests to all
three lists from a dozen notable personalities, including John Markoff,
Joshua Quittner, Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corley), et al. My understanding
is they were subscribed to several hundred mailing lists and some of them
had their mailboxes filled up.

It takes very little effort to send someone 200MB of e-mail these days. I
think I got several times that last time I got mailbombed by Nikki Sandru.
Do you customers realize they they might suddenly owe you hundreds of
dollars for the receipt of junk e-mail sent by some prankster?

This is another proof that Vince is a dishonorable man. An hnorable sysadmin
would protect his users from mailbomb attacks and make sure they are junked
or bounced. He wouldn't charge the victim money for being attacked.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps