🚀 go-pugleaf

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

This is to note that--after some discussion with Chris Caputo--I am
reproposing (partly by his request) that a UDP be considered on Altopia.
The following issues are at hand which have lead to this:

1) In the email discussion, Caputo has informed me of official policies at
   Altopia which are--at the least--at considerable variance with the 
   Usenet community's standards of net.abuse.  These include:

   * Forgery of "Approved:" headers is seen as permissible for Usenet
     moderated newsgroups outside of "Usenet II".  Caputo has stated that
     he considers this entirely legitimate as--I quote--"there are no
     accepted standards of what is net.abuse".

   * Forgery of Paths--even to deliberately obfuscate the source of a
     Usenet post or to harass innocent persons--is considered legitimate
     for the most part.  Caputo has actually attempted to equate this to
     aliasing out sites or adding pseudosites to spam-cancels.

   * Apparently, based on discussion with Caputo, he does not consider
     attempts by his users to deliberately flood Usenet groups (either 
     alone or in conjunction with other individuals) as a flood unless
     a script is used.  (He also does not consider whether a user is in
     fact doing this with other persons, considers "morph" accounts as
     separate incidents, and may consider each incident of abuse as a
     separate act [not considering that the person has a history of net.
     abuse]).

2) Caputo has stated--variously by claiming in so many words that Altopia
   is an anonymous posting service and/or claiming lawyers have stated 
   liability problems--will not provide NNTP-Posting-Host to sites, will
   not append headers to sites either in Path or in NNTP-Posting-Host,
   and will not notify sites from whence the user connected of net.abuse
   complaints.  

   (FWIW--I have noted and do note that there are a few Altopia users who
   legitimately use the site as an anon posting service.  There are some
   considerable differences between Altopia and an anon site, though, and
   even Altopia has admitted this.  I suggested that Altopia seriously
   consider setting up a dedicated anon server for those who need it, with
   From: (and/or NNTP-Posting-Host) pointing to alt.net, but he refused.)

   He has stated, in part, liability concerns, and the fact that he does
   not think "there are any standards as to what is net.abuse".  In other
   words, he doesn't care if his users violate AUPs of anyone but Altopia.
   (This is bad, because users who abuse Altopia usually have abused, or
   will abuse, other sites in future from their home ISP.)

3) Altopia has stated that its official policy is not to send any notice
   whatsoever to complainants that a net.abuse situation has been taken
   care of.  Even a simple notice--not giving userid of the person and
   stating "this situation is being dealt with according to our AUP" or
   a ticketing mechanism--is seen as, basically, too much trouble; Altopia
   also has stated, in essence, it's nobody's business but Altopia's 
   whether persons abusing Usenet from its site are dealt with at all.

   They have also stated that, in essence, they can sometimes use
   arbitrary standards to determine whom they will write to or not.
   (They have stated that a nom de plume is one of the factors they use;
   this is ironic, considering Altopia's stance on "privacy of our
   users" and, unlike Altopia users, most pseudonymous accounts are
   tracable.)

Usenet admins:

The email logs are presented for your perusal.  It will of course
ultimately be your decision whether or not Altopia deserves UDP; I think
the email logs may speak for themselves in this case, especially as to
Altopia's rather unusual perspective on what does constitute net.abuse
from their site.

Altopia customers:

Please be aware that several sites may well decide to block Usenet news
from persons using Altopia as a result of the post of logs.  Depending on
your needs, you may wish to take your business elsewhere, as Chris Caputo
admits (in the logs) that he would not listen to his customers' concerns
even were they to demand changes in the policies.

- -- 
- -Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
Fight the Woodside Literary Agency! Support the Jayne Hitchcock HELP fund 
<http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6172/helpjane.htm> * Boycott Internet 
Spam! <http://spam.abuse.net/spam> * Ban Spam Now! <http://www.cauce.org>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3a
Charset: cp850

iQCVAwUBNG/k3z0Jz30h6bOhAQFl7gP+KtryyVQCptuGcoFnq6CAGrODaUjBsptA
PXA98rM7LDGJfl5+eKS/O/dPO9Brq04tpnINMxW/awy5klCsYEfcOMEy79i8+Ilv
1IgNgFRi8s/YztKfKgeyiMpJkpDLUr4MBb6GEbw/vgbhAIobS6r33b1CKmF5ZX6t
vLZ1lW6S12o=
=QIB4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----