Subject: Apologies for the irony (was Re: Principles of Spam-abatement)

From: Nathaniel Borenstein <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 16:55:55 -0500

I apologize in advance to anyone who might see this as spamming the  
entire IETF list, but this may be the only way I can be sure of getting  
a message to Paul.  And I doubt that I'm the only one who'll appreciate  
the irony here.

Paul:  I don't know whether or not you want me to be able to send you  
personal mail -- I'd hope so, but if not please imagine for a moment  
that you do.  Further imagine that you *aren't* serving as your own ISP  
(i.e. you're not technical, you're not using the "real" Internet, you  
can't afford an expensive connection, whatever.)   I call you on the  
phone or fax you the bounce message below and ask you how I can get  
email to you.  What do you do?   It's a serious question, and it's not  
primarily about property rights, it's about our right to choose to  
communicate with each other.  -- Nathaniel

PS -- Are you really rejecting all mail from comcast.net?  Just  
curious, that's a lot of people.  And if it's guppylake.com, it would  
have been nice if someone had told me when I was blacklisted, seeing as  
how I'm the administrator.  -- Nathaniel

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <[email-masked]>
> Date: March 12, 2004 4:06:08 PM EST
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Returned mail: delivery problems encountered
>
> A message (from <[email-masked]>) was received at 12 Mar 2004  
> 21:06:05 +0000.
>
> The following addresses had delivery problems:
>
> <[email-masked]>
> 	Permanent Failure:  
> 553_Service_unavailable; 
> _Client_host_[204.127.198.35]_blocked_using_reject-mail.vix.com
> 	Delivery last attempted at Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:06:07 -0000
> Reporting-MTA: dns; comcast.net
> Arrival-Date: 12 Mar 2004 21:06:05 +0000
>
> Final-Recipient: rfc822; <[email-masked]>
> Action: failed
> Status: 5.0.0  
> 553_Service_unavailable; 
> _Client_host_[204.127.198.35]_blocked_using_reject-mail.vix.com
> Diagnostic-Code: smtp; Permanent Failure: Other undefined Status
> Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:06:07 -0000
>
> From: Nathaniel Borenstein <[email-masked]>
> Date: March 12, 2004 4:06:04 PM EST
> To: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Principles of Spam-abatement

[body of original message omitted -- nsb]

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 15:55:09 -0700 (MST)

> From: Nathaniel Borenstein 

>                                                            ...    you  
> can't afford an expensive connection ...

>                                                         ...   it's not  
> communicate with each other.

If the second were true, the first would be irrelevant.  That the first
is relevant shows the "right to choose to communicate" is nonsense,
except in the same sense as the costs of gasoline and real estate
limit your right to travel, live, and work where you want.

> how I'm the administrator.  

I suspect it is Comcast, but in the same hypothetical, contrary to
facts spirit as your other questions, let's assume that it is
guppylake.com.  How would you be entitled to or even just expect
notification?  If I set my (non-existent) caller-ID filters to reject
phone calls from you, would you be entitled to or expect a notice?
Even if you were a telemarketer, why would you care?  What if Qwest
did the rejecting for me?  I suspect your answers for the two media
differ and that you have not considered your position on Internet
access except from an emotional sense of entitlement and of hurt
and outrage at being snubbed by various blacklists.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Mar 2004 02:58:34 +0000

[email-masked] (Nathaniel Borenstein) writes:

> that you do.

I do, I do, I really do.  Really.  (I only wish that it were possible.)

> Further imagine that you *aren't* serving as your own ISP (i.e. you're
> not technical, you're not using the "real" Internet, you can't afford an
> expensive connection, whatever.)  I call you on the phone or fax you the
> bounce message below and ask you how I can get email to you.  What do you
> do?  It's a serious question, and it's not primarily about property
> rights, it's about our right to choose to communicate with each other.
> -- Nathaniel

I'd tell you what I tell other AT&T Worldnet users -- switch ISP's, find
someone who has an abuse desk and who rigorously defends their digital
reputation.  Or if necessary, put your e-mail at a more distant location
and use IMAP and tunnels to "appear to come from" a more reputable
location.

> curious, that's a lot of people.

I think of them as AT&T Worldnet, who once upon a time had a pleasant and
effective abuse desk, and who worked as diligently to keep spam from getting
out as they did to keep it from coming in.  I was very sad when that changed.

From 2001-05-07 through yesterday I have received 893 spams from your /16.
(The number would be much higher if I weren't blackholing parts of the block;
but I do not keep long term records of mail I never received.)

> And if it's guppylake.com, it would have been nice if someone had told me
> when I was blacklisted, seeing as how I'm the administrator.  --
> Nathaniel

Two things.  (1) It's not a blacklist, it's a blackhole list.  Senator
McCarthy popularized one; MAPS popularized the other.  One has to do with
trying to prevent you from finding new consenting adults to associate with;
the other has to do with preventing you from reaching already-nonconsenting
adults.  And (2), since I no longer publish a blackhole list and this is
just my own private one, I would only notify the owner of a listed network
if it suited my private purposes to do so, and in the case of AT&T Worldnet,
I've already determined that they aren't listening to me, so it would not
have suited any private purpose of mine to notify them about it.
-- 
Paul Vixie

---

From: Tom Lord <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 21:06:35 -0800 (PST)

> From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>

    > If the second were true, the first would be irrelevant.  That
    > the first is relevant shows the "right to choose to communicate"
    > is nonsense, except in the same sense as the costs of gasoline
    > and real estate limit your right to travel, live, and work where
    > you want.

The essence of your analogies to gasoline and real estate seems to be
that all of these problems are of a sort that a person having and
willing to spend more money could work around.  The essence of your
morality, it follows, is that since a person of means can choose to
work around them, then there is no further societal interest in the
problems -- they are non-problems.  I suspect that if we discussed the
issues at length, you'd be incapable of not using a phrase equal or
equivalent to "efficiency of markets" with all of the depth of meaning
given to it in a freshman economics course.

It doesn't matter to you how the problems are created or why.  The
material differences between the commodities you compare matter not.
It doesn't matter what the problems imply for the overall health of
society.  It doesn't matter what the foreseeable or probable evolution
of the problems is in the future.  It doesn't matter what individual
human choices determine or could change these problems.  You say:
Those who can pay may and nothing else matters -- solution enough.

That's awfully tidy.  Certainly saves taking a systemic view of human
society -- messy swamp of uncertainty that would be.  By gosh I think
that by analogy you've found a nice little calculus for generating
"solutions" to: lack of access to potable water, edible food, fuel and
energy in other forms, shelter, health care, education, privacy,
personal safety, and security in old age.   You should run for
office, or something.

I think, though, that nsb is thinking about the problem like an
engineer.  I know, I know... what craziness such wacky idealism as
engineering can lead to.  You know there's that nutty sense that
engineering skills are a form of power which is separate from
political and economic power -- that if in possession of such skills
there comes a responsibility to apply them and relate them to other
forms of power in a manner commensurate with the privilege of
possessing them.  Yadda yadda yadda -- nobody takes such nonsense
seriously, right?  "Once the rockets go up / who cares _where_ they
come down / that's not my department, / says Wernher von Braun" -- Tom
Leher

(Where I come from, there is a name for people with the skills of an
engineer but not a sense of the responsibility.   The name is "tool".)

    > notification?  

I don't see how you could get "entitled" from "would be nice".

I can see how you get "just expect" from "would be nice" but also why
it falls flat on you.

    > If I set my (non-existent) caller-ID filters to reject

Wouldn't that rather depend on .... oh, yeah.... details of
circumstance.  But the "money solution to all problems" spares us from 
thinking about those.   Nsb could just pay for as many additional
outgoing numbers as it takes to annoy you.   And you can just pay to
figure out how to block that effort.

    > Even if you were a telemarketer, why would you care?  

He's not.   What's your "counter-factual" objection to guppylake?

    > What if Qwest did the rejecting for me?  I suspect your answers
    > for the two media differ and that you have not considered your
    > position on Internet access except from an emotional sense of
    > entitlement and of hurt and outrage at being snubbed by various
    > blacklists.

I suspect that your suspicion is childish rationalization of your easy
moral calculus that conveniently spares you from the responsibilities
of engineering.

-t