Subject: RE: [Asrg] AOL vs the Internet -- Are they opting out?

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 14:24:38 -0400

The responses I got (only 2) remind me of the concept that free speech is
only allowed as long as you don't abuse it. For this list I must point
translate this phrase to point out that restricting free speech to what is
allowed ain't no free speech. It's heartening to see the reaction in Hong
Kong to the attempts to make sure they don't get too much freedom.

I don't really think I need to respond to the suggestions that we should
limit email to approved messages via approved channels containing approved
content but might as well make a futile attempt. But I realize this is a
religious war between those who know good from bad as absolutes and those
who don't see them as invariants. 

Static IP addresses are bug. But putting that aside, Requiring me to only
send mail through approved channels is like requiring that I ask permission
to use free speech and file with all the authorities so I can be punished
for saying the wrong things. Telling me what path I'm allowed to use is not
just restrictive, it's not the Internet! But if you believe they can't be
forged, you're setting yourself up for a disaster.

To respond to another letter I don't need, I don't want an ISP and I must
not be required to have an ISP any more than I must not be required to send
my phone calls over the legacy PSTN for no purpose other than creating a
billable entity out of nothing - I just want to have my packets find a path.
If I'm driving down the road I'll use whatever access point is available. I
can't use an ISP that requires my packets follow a physical path any more
than I can be assured my water molecules will not go the wrong way through
the ocean.

As to no HTML -- that only applies to lists of people who eschew expressive
typography. But it will help reduce spam as will other measures that reduce
the expressive power of language

This is reminiscent of the efforts to prove programs correct by so reducing
the expressive power of the programming languages as to render the program
inscrutable to humans but at least you could use a mechanical procedure to
demonstrate the equivalence between two inscrutable strings of characters.

We can kill email and its expressive power in order to save it.

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Feenberg [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 07:25
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [Asrg] AOL vs the Internet -- Are they opting out?

Use your ISPs mail server and get over it.

If users can't have the help of their ISP to deter spam, they will be
greatly disadvantaged in the fight against it. 

The "consent model" model means you need the consent of the user to send
them mail. They need to be free to have help making the decision to accept
mail, from their ISP or others. Merely delegating responsibility to
another is not a loss of freedom, for them, or for you. 

Since the IP address of the connecting host is the only non-forgable
identity information the receiving ISP has, they are not likely to accept
mail from dynamic addresses if they want to supress spam at all (other
than content examination).

It isn't overly restrictive to ask you to send your mail through a mail
server with a permanent IP address. To retain subscribers AOL needs to do
its users will seek out ISP that do better. That is the users protection
from AOL misbehavior. If AOL is prohibited from acting on the user's
behalf, few users have the wherewithall to handle this themselves.

There is no concept of freedom anywhere in the world (except for inside
spammers brains) that requires users to accept mail from you or anyone
else. You may send such mail as you like. Receipients choose, directly or
through agents, what to accept. You need to accept that and move on.

You also need to stop posting HTML to mailing lists.

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 [email-masked] wrote:

> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> 
> 
> I found this in my SMTP log
> 
>  
> 
> The IP address you are using to connect to AOL is a dynamic,
> 
> IP address.  AOL will not accept future e-mail transactions,
> 
> I've only been skimming this list (5000 messages are a lot to catch up
> on. But this action by AOL is like prohibiting free speech to save it.
> Killing email by going back to the PTT model is effectively opting out
> of the Internet. I say a little more about this at
> http://www.frankston.com/?name=AolVsInternet.
> 

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

---

From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 18:13:51 -0400

[email-masked] wrote:
> allowed ain't no free speech.

  Free speech is a totally separate topic from establishing a consent
framework for communication.  In addition, any idea that "free speech"
is some kind of "right" is directly contradictory to establishing a
consent framework for communication.

  That is, if I don't consent to listening to your "free speech", you
have NO right to force me to listen to it.  So I've allegedly
"restricted" your "free speech", but that's *your* problem, not mine.

> content 

  If "approved" means "consented to by the recipient", then it would
appear you're opposed to the charter goals of establishing a consent
framework for communication.

  If "approved" means "some third party to the communication", then I
would agree that such approval is contradictory to the charter goals.

> just restrictive, it's not the Internet!

  So you don't consent to my declaration that I consent to accepting
email only from a whitelist (i.e. particular path).  Why does that
make me nervous?

> billable entity out of nothing - I just want to have my packets find a path.

  You're stuck on the concept that the only consent is the consent of
the sender.  If you want the recipient to accept your messages, you
MUST establish a mutually agreeable framework: i.e. mutual consent.

  Alan DeKok.

---

From: Kee Hinckley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 18:14:19 -0400

>allowed ain't no free speech. It's heartening to see the reaction in Hong

AOL is not restricting free speech.  They are restricting where you 
can speak from.  That's a common practice in realspace as well as 
cyberspace.  I don't know of any ISPs that provide floating IPs and 
no mail server, perhaps there are some.  But fundamentally AOL is 
saying that if you want to speak to their users, you need to do so 
from a static location--either yours or your ISPs.  I have a hard 
time of considering that even a step down a slippery slope, let alone 
a restriction.

>Static IP addresses are bug. But putting that aside, Requiring me to only

That's a philosophical conclusion.  From a technical and historical 
standpoint it would appear that static IPs would be the norm and 
dynamic are a side effect of limited IP availability.

>not be required to have an ISP any more than I must not be required to send

Which is fine, but in that case you'll certainly have a static IP. 
The problem you are describing is a side effect of what you want to 
happen with regard to IP addresses, it has very little bearing on 
current internet usage.  AOL's restricting is annoying, but smaller 
ISPs and companies have been implementing the same restriction for 
years.  Yes, it's lousy, and it's a pain.  But it has nothing to do 
with free speech.
-- 
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/          Anti-Spam Service for your POP Account
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/   Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 18:43:19 -0400

I already wrote a long response and don't want to repeat the points and will
write about the IP address fallacy in an essay I'm working on. The point
about the static IP address is indeed technical -- there is no need for them
and they only work in the 1980's static Internet.

I do want to emphasize that it is a free speech issue. Arguing that if I
were diligent enough I could work around such impediments is not the
response any more than "separate but equal" was in the US in 1954. But AOL
does have the right to not listen except that they are also purporting to
provide their customers with access to the Internet and they are not. AOL
does not own its users but because the .Com disaster their users are not
really mobile.

---

From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 08:55:43 -0400

[email-masked] wrote:
> I do want to emphasize that it is a free speech issue.

  As a Canadian, I see the American understanding of "free speech" as
a religious issue, and one which will never be addressed outside of a
religious forum.

> But AOL does have the right to not listen except that they are also
> purporting to provide their customers with access to the Internet
> and they are not.

  And that's a matter of contract between AOL and their customers.  If
those customers have no choice or alternative, then it's a matter for
the local justice system.

  Either way, it has nothing to do with the net.

  Alan DeKok.

---

From: Walter Dnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 22:52:25 -0400

On Sat, Jul 26, 2003 at 02:24:38PM -0400, [email-masked] wrote
> The responses I got (only 2) remind me of the concept that free speech
> is only allowed as long as you don't abuse it. For this list I must
> point translate this phrase to point out that restricting free speech
> to what is allowed ain't no free speech. It's heartening to see the
> reaction in Hong Kong to the attempts to make sure they don't get
> too much freedom.

  Tell me... what would your reaction be to a sound-truck going through
your residential neighbourhood at 2:30 AM blaring "HALF-PRICE VIAGRA" ?
Would you rave on about their "freedom of speech" ?

> I don't really think I need to respond to the suggestions that
> we should limit email to approved messages via approved channels
> containing approved content but might as well make a futile attempt.
> But I realize this is a religious war between those who know good
> from bad as absolutes and those who don't see them as invariants.

  Let's make a deal... I won't tell you what to do, and you don't me
what to do.  I won't tell you that you *MUST BLOCK* the 99% penis-pill
and viagra and porn and toner-cartridge spams that comes from dynamic
IP address ranges, and you don't tell me that I *MUST ACCEPT* the 99%
penis-pill and viagra and porn and toner-cartridge spams that comes from
dynamic IP address ranges.

> I don't want an ISP and I must not be required to have an ISP

  I want an ISP and I must not be required to accept the 99% of garbage
that comes from dynamic IP addresses.

> As to no HTML -- that only applies to lists of people who eschew
> expressive typography.

  I long ago eschewed my 16-colour Crayola set in favour of pen and ink,
but I do not find my expressive ability reduced.  And a question for
you... what exactly is "HTML" anyways ?  Theoretically, there's supposed
to be a standard, somewhere out there.  But companies love standards so
much that everybody wants to have their own.  Ever tried writing
anything more than a simple webpage without employing separate hacks for
Netscape 4.X, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera ?  Do you *REALLY*
want to see an internet where usenet postings and email are "best viewed
with browser X running plug-in Y at 800 X 600 resolution" ?  And let's
not forget that "the most popular web-browser/email/newsreader" has
an annoying tendency to auto-execute stuff it shouldn't.  Each time
Microsoft plugs one security hole another one seems to pop up.  One nice
thing about text-mode usenet and email clients is that opening
attachments is not an "adventure".

> We can kill email and its expressive power in order to save it.

  Doctors occasionally have to amputate gangrenous limbs to save a human
life.  I, unfortunately, had to amputate South Korea, Taiwan, China,
Nigeria, South America, and large chunks of US IP address space out of
my email universe in order to maintain a functioning inbox.

-- 
Walter Dnes <[email-masked]>
Email users are divided into two classes;
1) Those who have effective spam-blocking
2) Those who wish they did