From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 02:50:03 +0800
To: freedom-knights@jetcafe.org
Subject: Re: forged cancels (Re: Entrust Technologies's Solo - free download)
In-Reply-To: <19970809121202.56371@math.uiuc.edu>
Message-ID: <geL7ae110w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Tim Skirvin <tskirvin@math.uiuc.edu> writes:

> "Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM" <dlv@bwalk.dm.com> writes:
> >>>> 	Not accepted ones.  They're treated as rogues, and asked to stop
> >>>> it, and you know it.
> >>> Net.Scum like [...] Tim Brown,
> >> Tim Brown is not an accepted canceler.
> >
> > As challenged, I've listed 3 dozen "spam cancellers" caught slipping cancels
> > forged for "non-spam" among their "spam cancels".
>
> 	And how many of them are considered accepted cancellers?

None of them are considered "accepted cancellers" by me.

If your news server processes cancels, then it processes the cancels forged by
this scum whether or not you consider them "accepted cancellers".

You seem to imply that there's a choice whose forged cancels to process, which
is not true in general (unless one aliases out the site used to forge
cancels).

You also lied when you claimed that Jan Isley only forges cancels for articles
cross-posted in "his" local alt.* hierarchy, Ehud Gavron only forges cancels
for cross-posts in "his" az.*, etc - not that this would have been an excuse,
but all of these scumbags have been caught forging cancels for articles posted
only in unmoderated "big 6" newsgroups once, as documented on their respective
Net.Scum pages.

> > What difference does it make whether Tim Skirvin considers someone an
> > "accepted" or "rogue" canceller?
>
> 	Because there's rules set up around the concept of 'accepted
> cancellers' to ensure accountability and at least limited choice.  I find
> these things important, because they reduce the danger of cancels
> significantly.

Fact 1: Tim Skirvin, his friends, and and their "rules" are irrelevant,
impotent, isolated, and ignored.

> 	Tim Brown broke the rules blatantly.

Fact 2: Tim Brown, Jan Isley, Chris Lewes, Bob Curtis, Ehud Gavron, and the
rest of the self-appointed "spam cancellers" break the rule that says you
should forge cancels for articles you didn't post. As for _your_ rules, see
Fact 1 above.

> > Tim Skirvin is under no obligation to disseminate the information that he
> > feels shouldn't be publicly available ("security through obscurity").
> > However since he chooses to present himself as the author of the "official"
> > FAQ on usenet Cancels (actually, substantually plagiarized from the Cancel
> > FAQ that David Stodolsky used to post), a more honest way to deal with the
> > questions he doesn't want to answer would be to either omit the question
> > altogether, or to state that he doesn't want to answer the question.
>
> 	I've already answered this (look at the most recent version of the
> FAQ, Dimitri), but I would like to say that there is no plagarization in
> my FAQ.

Anyone can compare David Stodolsky's "Cancel FAQ" with Tim Skirvin's "Cancel
FAQ" and verify that substantial portions (most of the technical discussion on
how cancels work; the discussion of why people issue cancels; et al) have been
copied without attribution. (Tim Skirvin also flames Stodolsky in his FAQ.)

---

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