[governance] Senate OKs Immunity for Telecoms

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

On Sun, February 17, 2008 8:38 am, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> It is sad that on this list a very good person has been directly defamed
> and insulted.  I have known John Gilmore for years.  He is neither "raving"
> nor a "lunatic".

Yes, that's why he calls paul vixie (say) a blackmailer. Sure.

Spam filtering is his huge, huge blind spot - ever since Verio terminated
his server for being a persistent open relay that kept getting abused to
send spam, viruses (at least one virus - if not more - that had
gnu.toad.com hardcoded into a list of open relays to send through, back in
the sobig/sober days..).  Anything at ALL that gilmore posts about spam
filtering is not sensible or reasoned. It is shrill, screaming abuse. Not
very coherent abuse either.

The EFF is good when it comes to protecting people preserve their civil
liberties, and their tactics might even work very well indeed when used
against an autocratic government [though I must say moveon's "General
Betray Us" campaign left a bad taste in my mouth - and in the mouths of
several people who have given to the EFF for years).

Their tactics are far less good or sensible when it comes to vicious
political campaigns against ISPs - private companies that filter spam on
their own networks - with best effort in mind (oh yes, if moveon.org
decides to invite one of our support role accounts - read by a staff based
out of hong kong - to march on the white house in DC, I do wonder if
they're going to pay about 10 people airfare + hotel for that...).

Some of their most vicious campaigns so far have been against people I
know and respect for their clue level, and their commitment to protect
their users privacy .. by filtering spam.  Admins walk a very fine line
between filtering spam and letting valid email through..

But when it comes to a case like John's .. allowing his server to send out
several thousand pieces of spam for every single legit email sent out
through it by (one of his own examples here, I think) John Perry Barlow
traveling in Africa and needing an smtp mail relay [wot, no webmail, no
smtp auth, no ssh tunnels etc etc etc?] - he really shouldnt be surprised
that several ISPs started blocking his email, or that Verio canceled his
hosting.  Whatever he has posted on spam filtering after that has been
shrill abuse, and most of the EFF's posts about spam filtering after that
have been propaganda with little or no reference to the truth, if at all.

Tim Lee (Technology Liberation Front)'s perspective on that - google it
up, I think it was linked off my circleid article above.

If the EFF stuck to going after repressive government policy - fine.
Great. When they go after (say) Comcast for their traffic shaping .. no
particular skin off my nose, though they're using pretty much the same
inflammatory and loaded language ("forgery" etc). They open their mouths
about spam filtering, they tend to put their feet in it, fast. And I tend
to call them on it.

ps: dearaol.com - the EFF campaign against goodmail that I reacted to by
comparing EFF's tactics to Karl Rove's - is dead in the water. Quietly
fizzled out after less than a few months of activity, and I think the
domain itself is parked or squatted upon by now.  Going out "not with a
bang, but with a whimper"  as TS Eliot put it in "The Hollow Men"

suresh


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