From: ricardo@paranoia.com (Ricardo Hector Gonzales)
Subject: FAQ: Introduction to Net Abuse
Date: 1996/09/06
Message-ID: <50ofel$lvp@villa.fc.net>
x-boycott: David Lawrence and UUNET
content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
organization: Warriors of Might
mime-version: 1.0
x-boycott2: Florida Datamation (fdma.com)
newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.misc




                       FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
                                       
                          Introduction to Net Abuse

   ---FAQ BEGINS---
   
   Last updated: March 16, 1996
   Author: ricardo@paranoia.com (Ricardo H. Gonzales)
   URL: http://www.paranoia.com/~ricardo/faq.html
   
   NOTICE: This text may not be reproduced in any form for profit without
   the permission of the author. It may be reproduced in any form
   provided that no money is being charged.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
   
  1. What is the purpose of these newsgroups?
   
   The news.admin.net-abuse newsgroups exist to document and discuss
   cases of possible network abuse. This included excessive posting,
   inappropriate cancellation of postings, mail bombing, denial of
   service attacks and other related behaviors. By bringing these issues
   out in the open to discuss their impact, we can best determine how to
   understand and handle these if they do indeed constitute net abuse.
   
  2. Who may participate in this discussion?
  
   Everyone is permitted to participate in this discussion, so long as
   their posts are not in violation of the autocyberretromoderation bot
   policy that was recently approved by a landslide vote in this group.
   If any posts are in violation of this policy, they may be cancelled.
  

  3. What is the autocyberretromoderation bot?
   
   This bot is a mechanism to combat the few individuals who have caused
   great distress to the group and the net by constantly abusing the net
   while congratulating each other for doing so. These people cancel
   posts based on totally arbitrary measures, such as taking secret votes
   as to what header values will result in cancellation and writing FAQs
   so they can claim a justification for censorship.
   
   
  4. Have people accused you of taking a secret vote and writing a FAQ?
   
   Yes, but the facts are different. Instead of taking a quick vote and
   writing a FAQ for the purpose of controlling the group, I created an
   open process that these people could not control the group. More
   specifically, I acted so that no one could control the group in a way
   that was restrictive to open expression on the net. Since I have taken
   a valid vote, written a valid FAQ and am an official representative of
   the news.admin.net-abuse.misc group, I will use this power only to
   censor these people when they step out of line. This means that when
   they begin to censor, they will be hit many times as hard. For each
   post they cancel based on content or their ad hoc rules, the bot will
   cancel dozens of articles in the groups they lead or will target their
   posts specifically. Additionally, I will supplement the bot's work by
   further publicizing campaigns to drop packets from sites they own or
   are associated with. This type of response is reserved for only the
   worst and most persistent net abusers, such as Michael Scheidell of
   Florida Datamation (fdma.com).
   
   The bot is automated and explains itself clearly in its actions. But
   it is also susceptible to suggestion when it is told that people are
   limiting expression on the net and it is aggressive in its retaliation
   for these types of abuses.
   
   
  5. What is in store for the future of the net?
  
   The greatest threat that exists to the net today is the control freaks
   who want to limit postings that they do not agree with or find
   "proper" for groups they think they control. Groups are made up of
   interested people. They are not static entities based around one
   person's personal ideology (except for the possibility of certain
   alt.fan groups founded for the discussion of extremely dull
   personalities). There is no way for one person to determine what
   others reading the group may want to see. What one person interprets
   as a "flame" may be what another finds to be a learning experience
   that provides an alternative perspective shedding light on a viewpoint
   they haven't considered previously.
   
   
  6. How do you propose dealing with massively crossposted articles and flames?
  
   There are two obvious ways to handle this. The first is to use a
   killfile. The second is to use an intelligent newsreader that can
   filter articles based on the header, so that the user can set what
   number of crossposted groups is excessive, thus skipping an article
   that exceeds this threshold. I have a superior method of moderation
   without cancelling than NoCem, but will not be sharing the details in
   the near future unless I find the proper outlet.
   
   
  7. Why do you oppose general censoring of posts?
   
   Because it is impossible to determine what information, even in a
   blatant spam, is useless to all people. 99.9% of posts on USENET are
   worthless to me, but that doesn't mean that I should cancel them and
   deprive others of the right to read them. Using a filtering service
   that is nondestructive to the USENET feed is the only method that I
   endorse.
   
   
  8. What do you propose doing with cancel messages?
   
   All Internet service providers should configure their news software to
   ignore cancel messages and to not propagate that group so that damage
   is minimized from rogue sites that still honor cancel messages.
   
   ---END OF FAQ---