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

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 20:01:53 -0400

I won't belabor the free speech issues since they tend towards the religious
and I can't respond in a short discussion. Protocol and code can constrict
us and Lessig does indeed warn us against the danger of accepting the
implicit restrictions and policies built into such mechanisms. This is a
case in point.

What I will respond to is your statement that I am somehow going through a
lot of extra work to sneak past my ISP. That is offensive and utterly wrong.
My ISP is whimsical and changes the email addresses of its millions of
subscribers whenever it decides to -- continental cablevision ==> Mediaone
==> JoesDryCleaningAndInternetService => ATTBI => Comcast. They also have
problematic policies when I want to send email other than via their approved
wires and I accidentally connect via my neighbor's access point or through
the wrong path on my Dual WAN they just won't deal with me. The whole point
of the Internet is to avoid being at the mercy of benevolence of those that
demand to do me good.

If it is illegal to implement my own services then the Internet is a
criminal activity. So be it.

If AOL chooses to fight the Internet then I feel I have a responsibility to
limit the damage they do. If you choose to make it hard for me to send mail
to you and you want mail from me then it's in your interest for me have the
incentive to cater to your rules.

-----Original Message-----
From: Kee Hinckley [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 10:38
To: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: [Asrg] AOL vs the Internet -- Are they opting out?

At 6:43 PM -0400 7/26/03, <[email-masked]> wrote:
>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

The fact of the matter is that you did extra work to *not* use your 
ISP's mail server.  And you probably do extra work to run a server in 
a dynamic IP environment (and the very act of running such server may 
well violate your ISP's terms of service).

AOL also requires that incoming mail not look like spam and not 
contain words that they consider spam-related.  Presumably you've 
avoided doing that, despite the fact that it violates your speech. 
Some ISPs require that your IP address resolve to something before 
they accept your email.  That requires you to do extra work as well.

As Lessig has pointed out quite well, protocol defines law on the 
internet.  The current protocol, with no "added" restrictions, also 
restricts your ability of free speech.  AOL's "new" restriction is no 
different than any other SMTP check of the sender.  *Any* change to a 
protocol can be seen as a restriction of speech, because by 
definition a protocol defines how you may speak.

So in a sense, I agree.  The internet restricts your speech, and 
anti-spam measures do so more.  Then the question becomes whether a 
particular protocol change is particularly restrictive.  I think the 
answer in this case is clear.  AOL's restriction does not keep anyone 
from communicating with AOL users, nor does it require users to do 
anything additional to communicate with AOL users.  All it requires 
is that some people who *did* do something additional, now need to 
undo it or find a different ISP.

>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.

They are perfectly mobile, there are plenty of other ISPs.  What 
there aren't (and have been before, during or since the .com peak) or 
other ISPs who will hold their hand as thoroughly as AOL.  Their own 
reluctance or inability to learn to use their machines keeps them in 
AOL's gated community.  There are lots of users like that (yesterday 
we lost a potential customer because they could figure out how to 
follow instructions on changing two fields in their Outlook 
configuration to use our service... we see lots of them).

AOL users are users who have specifically decided to give up freedoms 
in exchange for security.  What's scary is that there are so many 
people who believe that's a good trade-off.

-- 
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.

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

---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 20:35:56 -0400

At 08:01 PM 7/27/2003, [email-masked] wrote:
>.......
>.......

Quote from this reply:
.......THEY ALSO HAVE PROBLEMATIC POLICIES.....

This is something that the ASRG can address by developing BCPs that then 
can be promoted to the rest of the Net. There isn't much else we can do 
beside that aside from taking these issues into account when evaluating 
solutions. I believe that was already addressed in the "Technical 
Considerations" document, section 4.2, "Burden":

"Effective mechanisms must place some kind of burden on senders and 
receivers. Hence a challenge for spam control mechanisms is to require 
enough of a burden to be effective, but not so much that it makes email 
unacceptably painful to use."

Within the consent framework, I have to agree with others that the ISPs 
should allow users to exchange consent information. This would also be part 
of a BCP.

Yakov

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 23:38:17 -0400

ISPs allow?

Since the concept of separating access from service is controversial on this
list I don't want to divert people into that issue so I'll simply note that
one should not presume the existence of a third party providing a service.
One can choose to use a third party but such third parties are not
fundamental -- they are just vendors providing a service for those who would
rather buy from someone else even when it is already available on their
machines -- at least for outgoing on XP and Unix. Incoming on XP requires
SMTP=>POP and that isn't hard. I have a fancy one and might write a simple
one just to be helpful. IIS already provides most of the base mechanism. But
there are too many other diversions.

Again, I'm simply pointing out the distinction and don't want to get into a
long discussion.

-----Original Message-----
From: Yakov Shafranovich [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 20:36
To: [email-masked]; 'Kee Hinckley'
Cc: Dave Crocker; [email-masked]
Subject: 7b. Best Practices - Mail Administrators (was RE: [Asrg] AOL vs the
Internet -- Are they opting out?)

Quote from this reply:

Yakov

---

From: Walter Dnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 22:53:56 -0400

On Sun, Jul 27, 2003 at 08:01:53PM -0400, [email-masked] wrote

> If AOL chooses to fight the Internet then I feel I have a
> responsibility to limit the damage they do.

  AOL is fighting off a billion-plus spams per day.  A lot of it comes
from hijacked home machines.  What gives you the right to demand that
AOL clients "eat their spam" ?

> If you choose to make it hard for me to send mail to you and you want
> mail from me then it's in your interest for me have the incentive
> to cater to your rules.

  You are setting a price for accepting your email.  In order to accept
your email, I would have to accept email from any and all valid and
routable IP addresses on the internet.  Upon consulting my reject logs,
I come to the conclusion that your price is too high.

  I've seen your home page.  It's fine and dandy that *YOU* have been
using the internet (and its predecessor) for a third of a century.  At
the risk of being labelled elitist, let me point out that the vast
majority of end-users on 24X7 brodband connections don't have a clue
about how to secure their PC against compromise, are probably still
trying to find the {ANY} key, and have no business running on such a
connection.  That doesn't mean they're idiots, it simply means they lack
specific technical knowledge.  I don't know how to fly a Cessna.  That
doesn't mean I'm an idiot, it simply means that I lack specific
technical knowledge.

  Another thing to remember is that this is not your father's internet.
A third of a century ago, DARPANET users were mostly white middle and
upper class males, either military researchers, or civilians doing
research under contract for the military.  They all had security
clearances, and were paid at such a level as not to require secondary
income from Make-Money-Fast, Penis-Pills, Viagra, and other such sales.
Today, almost anybody can connect to the internet.  This includes
ruthless criminal gangs who hijack the home computers of clueless
newbies in order to pour out spam for Make-Money-Fast, Penis-Pills,
Viagra, and other such garbage.  The sad reality is that the internet is
a lot uglier today than when you first started on it, especially the
email that comes to you from dynamic IP addresses.  Hiding your head in
the sand won't work.

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

---

From: Steven F Siirila <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 10:51:46 -0500

FWIW, the University of Minnesota also, by default, blocks all email which
originates from dynamic IP addresses.  This behavior can be changed on a
per-user basis.  We've had little to no complaints and a lot of support for
this.

-- 

Steven F. Siirila			Office: Lind Hall, Room 130B
Internet Services			E-mail: [email-masked]
Office of Information Technology	Voice: (612) 626-0244
University of Minnesota

---

From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 12:28:19 -0400

Walter Dnes <[email-masked]> wrote:
...

  Can we agree that discussions of "free speech" are explicitely
outside of the scope of this group?

  Alan DeKok.