From: Jeff Burchell <jeff@fat.doobie.com>
Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 06:06:04 +0800
To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Subject: Re: Continuing spam from vulis
In-Reply-To: <v03102802afb4ec9eeaff@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.970530140104.9455M-100000@fat.doobie.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Fri, 30 May 1997, Tim May wrote:

> (I've removed 9 of the addresses from this response.)

Thanks, those were the addresses that Mr. Pomes sent his message to
including my employer and the abuse address for my employer's provider.
Since he was accusing me of being unresponsive, I figured I should
probably send my response to those folks as well.

> And just who is "the operator of the cypherpunks list"

At the time it was whomever was moderating the non-flames list, before
that it was probably John Gilmore, because he runs toad.com where it used
to be hosted.  I haven't been on cypherpunks since I was in college, or
really paid much attention to it.  I can probably dig through my mail
archive to find out exactly who I corresponded with, because my memory for
names is horrible, but frankly I'm lazy, and don't really want to do this. 

> And why
> would he or she or they have anything to say about blocking remailers?

Standard Policy.  Some people don't want to get anonymous mail, and my
remailer (and all others to my knowlege) has the capability of blocking
mail sent to particular addresses. If the address is a mailing list, I
require the maintainer of the list to actually request the block. 

Most lists have a single person (or group of people) who informally "run"
the list.  Often it's whomever is administrating the machine that is
acting as the list exploder, sometimes a list moderator, etc. etc. 

> Neither May nor Gilmore nor Hughes have any say over blocking remailers,
> blocking use of remailers, etc.

Admittedly, I did pull those names out of mostly thin air, as they are the
people who I feel can speak most authoritatively for the wishes of the
list.  Cypherpunks is an unusual example of a list without an authority
(or with lots of authorities, depending on how you look at it). 

But, really, in the unlikely event that I got mail from one of those three
asking for the cypherpunks list to be blocked, I would be likely to honor
it. I seriously doubt that this would ever happen, though. 

> I mean no disrespect to Jeff, but even getting involved in the slightest
> way in debates about remailer traffic and what should/should not be blocked
> is what can only be called a "conceptual error."

Agreed (and no disrespect taken).  My posting was a quick comment stating
why I refuse to tell my remailer not to mail to the cypherpunks list. 
Shit, if any mailing list should be anonymous-mail friendly it should be
this one.

> Ideal mixes, which today's remailers are of course only an approximation
> of, do not pass and reject messages based on content, or even on sources
> and destinations. The ideal mix is a soulless black box executing certain
> protocols.
> 
> (Practicality may dictate that a remailer place certain minimal, and
> hopefully publicized, constraints on the process, e.g., no sending to
> whitehouse.gov, no sending to hundreds of addresses, whatever.)

Exactly... The reason that blocking by source or destination exists is to
keep the remailers operating, and the remailer operators out of court.  In
an ideal world, everyone would be comfortable with the concept of
anonymity and blocking techniques would be unnecessary.  Right now that
isn't the case, and I don't see this changing for the better anytime soon.
So, I have to have policies like "if you want a block, send me mail from
the account you want blocked, if you want a mailing list blocked, then get
whomever is in charge of the list to contact me."

I don't (and can't) block anything based on content... it's either all or
nothing.  In other words, I can't tell the remailer not to send anti-Tim
May postings unless I tell it not to send anything at all.  I know better
than to think that you or most cypherpunks readers want this.

We're on the same page, Tim.

-Jeff

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When they came for the 2nd Amendment, I said nothing, for I owned no gun
 Then the sixth was next to go, and I remained silent, as I was not on trial
 They took away the fourth, and I said nothing, as I had nothing to hide
 And then they came for the First,  and I could say nothing."