From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 03:38:51 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Bill Stewart kills babies after he molests them. Honest! /
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19971203091239.007e4410@206.40.207.40>
Message-ID: <TR77ge3w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



David Honig <honig@otc.net> writes:

> At 07:53 AM 12/3/97 EST, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> >Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> >
> >> The real problem, besides the emotional distress some people feel
> >> at the abuse they get in response to forged postings,
> >> and the potential loss of reputation capital, is that people
> >> keep trying to call their ISP to get them shut down,
> >> and some ISPs do this sort of thing, squashing abusive-sounding customers
> >> first and asking questions later.  Ok, soon-to-be-ex customers...
> >
> >Yes, this is one of the problems. Earlier this year pedophile Chris Lewis
> >from Northern Telecom forged a bunch of spam e-mail to look like it came
> >from dm.com (my domain).  I got about 500 obnoxious e-mails, which I
> >semi-automatically responded to, and had a rather unpleasant conversation
> >with the assholes at my upstrea (PSI): "If you prove that this e-mail didn't
> >originate at your site, you will not be held responsible".
> 
> If you could find a competant jury you would be able to show breach of
> contract
> had they done anything, because they should know better than to believe
> forgeries.
> Admittedly this is a major hassle you should not have to endure.
I suspect that if the assholes at PSI pulled my plug and I sued them for
breach of contract, the case would never get to the jury.  A judge would
toss it.  You see, I'm an ISP.  Most ISP's contracts with their backbones
say explicitly that the backbone can pull the plug any time it wants to
for no reason and with no warning.  There are very few backbones and they
all talk to each other and basically have a cartel.  it's not like if you
don't like PSI's standard ISP contract, you can go to Sprint and get a
better one; they're a cartel with very little competition. Indeed, it's
highly unusual even to have a language requiring the backbone to give a
notice before pulling your plug.

I might have a good cause of action against Chris Lewis, but the asshole is
in Canada. (I found out the forger's home address. I hope someone blows his
fucking brains out, for he surely deserves to die.) In what court would I
sue him (for interfering with my contractual relations with PSI)?

If you're an individual user and check your contract with your ISP, you'll
likely see that the ISP too can pull your plug any time it feels like it for
no reason, and doesn't even have to turn over to you your files, e-mail, etc.
If a forger (like Chris Lewis) forges something objectionable in a user's
name and the ISP has to spend a lot of time responding to the complaints,
it's not unusual for the ISP to get rid of the controversial user even though
the user hasn't posted the traffic that's causing the complaints.
If there was more competition in the field, the ISP would have to demonstrate
abuse by the user to pull the user's plug.

---

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