From: Casey Iverson <iverson@usa.net>
To: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Message Hash: 08c9aedafb950a4ef0c7d76bbb1c41b5f5096a6d642f90d977067124a3e94474
Message ID: <3.0.16.19970120094321.429718ae@pop.netaddress.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1997-01-20 14:52:01 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 06:52:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Casey Iverson <iverson@usa.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 06:52:01 -0800 (PST)
To: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Dr Vulis's crypto experiment (Re: IMDMP: SOURCE CODE RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT)
Message-ID: <3.0.16.19970120094321.429718ae@pop.netaddress.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Dimitri is a low life piece of Russan shit who is trying to distroy this
list because he has serious mental
problems or he is a tool of the NSA.
What part of his vicious personal and anomyous attacks against members of
the list 'are not being read
correctly'?
What part of his calling everyone on this list that won't put up with his
deliberate abuse, "fagots", 'are not being read correctly'?
If you don't get it, you are a *really dumb fuck* or a KTOM tool.
At 09:42 PM 1/16/97 GMT, you wrote:
>
>It's occured to me recently that Dimitri's posts are not being read
>correctly, it is not the content which is the point, nor the
>superficial lack of crypto relevance.
>
>Dimitri is an intelligent guy, and has a high level of crypto
>expertise (he has a PhD on a cryptography topic). It is my belief
>that his posts can only be understood in a "meta" sense -- he is
>engaged in a highly complex cryptographic experiment. People who read
>and respond to his individual posts are the unwitting subjects in his
>experiments. His posts and the responses to them are actually the
>data-set for a thorough cryptanalysis of mailing list threats. His
>current topic under investigation is Denial of Service (DoS) attacks
>on mailing lists.
>
>Denial of service on mailing lists is a complex business, and requires
>expert human input to be done properly.
>
>Dimitri has systematically explored these types of posting behaviour:
>
>1. Posting only crypto relevant material.
>2. Interspersing crypto relevant posts with hand personalised flame bait.
>3. Interspersing crypto relevant posts with bot generated flame bait.
>4. Interspersing crypto relevant posts with news stories.
>5. Posting only non crypto relevant material.
>
>The alert reader will recall these phases of posting style (currently
>we are in sub experiment 5, the other phases have occured over a
>protracted period of intensive experimentation, and some newer readers
>may have missed earlier phases).
>
>There were other experiments which may or may not have been part of
>Dimitri's series of DoS experiments:
>
>6. Subscribing the list to itself (testing list resilience to recursion)
>
>7. Forging posts to carefully selected newsgroups with
>"cypherpunks@toad.com" as the sender (this indirectly adds user
>"cypherpunks@toad.com" to many direct marketing lists as direct
>marketers make use of email addresses scanned from newsgroups).
>
>8. The "UNSCRIVE" and other spelling variations of "unsubscribe" epidemic,
>and ensuing instructions and discussion
>
>9. Subscribing the list to other lists
>
>10. Bot generated flame bait posted anonymously (with ascii art)
>
>>From the post I am following up to the reader will observe an oblique
>reference to the transition from phase 4 of the experiments to the
>current phase, phase 5 (the reader will also note references to experimental
>results c and d described below):
>
>Dimitri Vulis <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:
>> One memorable "censorship" incident occurred when the lying cocksucker
>> John Gilmore (spit) forcibly unsubscribed me from this list because he
>> didn't like the contents of my submissions - or did you forget already?
>> Look up Declan's disgraceful writeup on Netly News archives.
>>
>> At that time most valuable contributors to this list (such as myself)
>> resolved not to contribute crypto-relevant content to a censored forum.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>More widely read cypherpunks will know that Dimitri has performed
>similar experiments in other fora -- his systematic experiments in
>numerous USENET newsgroups resulted in the his receiving the
>prestigious KOTM ("Kook Of The Month") award.
>
>His main experimental results to date with the cypherpunks mailing
>list series of experiments have been:
>
>a) many cypherpunks publically announcing kill filing him
>
>b) numerous cypherpunks suggesting censoring him (a particularly
>interesting result considering the libertarian leanings of many on
>this list)
>
>c) the outstanding experimental result of being forcibly unsubscribed
>from the list, and of being barred from resubscribing by John Gilmore.
>(creator of alt.* USENET newsgroup hierarchy, and well know freespeech
>advocate)
>
>d) another interesting, incidental experimental result was provided by
>Declan McCullagh in his Netly News piece in prematurely, and entirely
>unwittingly, publishing some of Dimitri's expermiental data-set.
>
>e) the main experimental result: the list shortly moving to a
>moderated form, seemingly at the request of Sandy Sandfort, with
>agreement from John Gilmore.
>
>These experimental results are quite significant, when taken in the
>context of the anti-censorship, libertarian, pro-freespeech
>environment of the cypherpunks mailing list. Dimitri should be
>congratulated on his outstanding work.
>
>I await with interest the last phases of Dimitri's experiment, when
>the cypherpunks list becomes a moderated forum. My suggestions for
>interesting experiments during the moderated phase are:
>
>1. Testing the limits of Dale Thorn's anti-censorship sentiments (for
>those who don't read Dale, he is subscribed to "cypherpunks-unedited"
>in preparation for the moderation).
>
>2. Testing Sandy Sandforts rejection criteria.
>
>3. Testing Sandy Sandforts rejection rate for long crypto relevant
>posts interspersed with irrelevant flame bait.
>
>4. Testing Sandy Sandforts rejection rate for posts with flame bait .sigs
>
>I hope Dimitri's selfless efforts in furthering understanding of DoS
>attacks on mailing lists is properly acknowledged when he publishes
>his findings on completion of his experiments. I also hope that
>Dimitri will document his recommendations for mailing list
>configuration and management in light of his experiments.
>
>Adam
>--
>print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
>)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`
>
>
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