What I have done regarding Istar censorship

#4

Author: C. Peter Constantinidis
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 00:00

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I originally posted a post in tor.general with a copy of my letter of
protest, a few comments, and a method of how existing istar/inforamp
customers can hack around to suit their needs a little better. (But
crossed it to a nonexistent group, now fixed).  I read a message from
Chris Portman just now that says shell no longer exists.  If this is
the case the following partial repost won't work anymore without
additional work.  But if it does, the machine name is
shell.inforamp.net, or diane.inforamp.net or some other name now, but
there has to be a machine somewhere for changing passwords, etc. that
is logonable.

Today, as a followup to the 4 methods, I wrote to winternet.com
(info@winternet.com) and asked them to yank their newsfeed to
inforamp.net.  I told them exactly what was going on with the
censorship, etc. where they could read more about it (tor.general),
etc.  I know for a fact that winternet's newfeed is the largest
incoming feed into inforamp/istar (probably 75%), and winternet
yanking it, will definitely hurt istar's news service.  It is possible
this will happen, because in the past they yanked their feed to io.org
because Mike Horwath got angry at all the pissed off people
complaining about bad io.org service.  If you write, and the feed to
istar gets cut off from Winternet, do not worry. I know at least one
other isp in Toronto does still have a winternet feed, which is
interlog.com so when you vote with your wallet by leaving istar,
that's one place among others you can go to. Getting the winternet
feed cut would be an effective one-two punch at giving corporate
management a big black eye.

As for the partial repost, here it is:
>Four things I remember offhand how to do on istar they don't want you
>to do, there used to be more, but I don't remember offhand right now:
>1) Need that extra time to ftp but don't have many hours left of ppp?
>     Log on directly through unix shell using your modem program not
>     your tcp/ip stack.  Unix shell usage is not metered or
>     billed.  (At least not when I used their 'services' last)
>2) Don't like their web page 1 meg dir. limit, transfer restrictions?
>     Log on to the unix shell, make a directory called public_html
>     in your user directory.  Make sure the permissions in it are
>     executable and readable.  Your user directory itself must be at
>     least drwx--x--x to work.  Stuff your index.html file in
>     public_html which of course, is readable.  When giving out your
>     url, refer to it as like http://shell.inforamp.net/~yourusername
>     (or diane.inforamp.net, or whatever other machine you have access
>       to and that it will work on.)
>3) Don't like the fact they won't let you change your name?
>    Simple, run chfn at the unix prompt.  Change your name to whatever
>    you want. This does NOT affect your billing.  You continue to be
>    billed monthly under the name you subscribed as. It is merely to
>    prevent full names going out on the newsgroups if you don't wish
>    to attract the attention of threatening wackos. Of course, they
>    have zero ability to enforce real names on slip/ppp postings. They
>    are anal with unix as you can see.
>4) Don't like the fact you're not allowed to compile files? 
>     Run screen? No problem, search on the web you'll be able to
>     locate the binaries for the specific SunOS version of GCC
>     (type uname -a at the unix prompt to find out what you need to
>      be looking for), ftp the binaries over to your account. Set it
>     up. Voila, you're now able to compile screen, etc. Do so, and
>     then rename the compiled file to something else so the snoops
>     with root wont be that much wiser. And remember to edit the
>     header so it dumps the temp files somewhere else other than
>     the temp. directory, otherwise you have to be removing it
>     manually after you're done running screen so they don't see.
>     (because it creates a temp. dir. with your username)

C. Peter C. (yu156589@yorku.ca) Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Re: What I have done regarding Istar censorship

#5

Author: Bob Daniel
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 00:00

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> On Sat, 13 Jul 1996 05:07:27 GMT, yu156589@yorku.ca (C. Peter
> Constantinidis) wrote:
> 
> >Today, as a followup to the 4 methods, I wrote to winternet.com
> >(info@winternet.com) and asked them to yank their newsfeed to
> >inforamp.net.  I told them exactly what was going on with the
> >censorship, etc. where they could read more about it (tor.general),
> >etc.

In article <31e8404c.5490248@news.istar.ca>, galivan@inforamp.net wrote:
> 
> Im not sure which is worse. iStar's deletion of the 20 some odd
> groups, or this attempt to censor the inflow of news to the remaining
> groups (over 10,000) in an attempt to "get even." Both effect the
> users more than the company. 

I am sure.  Istars "censorship" is (for me) a philosophical annoyance,
but at present is (at worst) the very thin edge of an unpalatable wedge.
Screwing up the rest of the feed would constitute a very REAL annoyance.
Don't do us any favours, pal.
 
> 
> Personally, I find this action as irresponsible as iStar's actions
> were to begin with. 

And with no corporate skirts to lurk behind, this 
rather smelly cheese stands alone.

-- 
Bob Daniel              rgd@inforamp.net
Toronto, Canada         http://www.inforamp.net/~rgd

Re: What I have done regarding Istar censorship

#3

Author: Brian Tao
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 00:00

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In article <31e72be9.7805319@newshub.ccs.yorku.ca>, C. Peter Constantinidis <yu156589@yorku.ca> wrote:
>
> It is possible this will happen, because in the past they yanked their
> feed to io.org because Mike Horwath got angry at all the pissed off
> people complaining about bad io.org service.

    This has never happened to my knowledge (and I should know, since
I run the news service at IO).  All Winternet did was stop providing
NNRP access to io.org customers, which was an act of courtesy in the
first place anyway.  We have always been (and still are) exchanging
news with Winternet.

    In any case, winternet.com is in big doo-doo right now.  Two of
Winternet's owners IO'd Mike Horwath and his staff just before the
American Independance Day (some readers here will appreciate the use
of "IO" as a verb... ;-) ).  If you ask the current staff at Winternet
to turn off the feed to iStar, either they won't know how to do it, or
they'll end up buggering the entire server.

> If you write, and the feed to istar gets cut off from Winternet, do
> not worry. I know at least one other isp in Toronto does still have a
> winternet feed, which is interlog.com so when you vote with your
> wallet by leaving istar, that's one place among others you can go to.

    You seem to think the Winternet news server is the end-all-be-all
of Usenet.  It is not, although I agree that Mike runs a great
service.  iStar, Interlog, IO/ICAN and every other major ISP in town
have redundant feeds.  We also feed each other so if even a major feed
is cut, none of us are screwed.
-- 
Brian Tao (BT300, taob@io.org, taob@ican.net)
Senior Systems and Network Administrator, Internet Canada Corp.
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"

Re: What I have done regarding Istar censorship

#6

Author: galivan
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 00:00

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On Sat, 13 Jul 1996 05:07:27 GMT, yu156589@yorku.ca (C. Peter
Constantinidis) wrote:

>Today, as a followup to the 4 methods, I wrote to winternet.com
>(info@winternet.com) and asked them to yank their newsfeed to
>inforamp.net.  I told them exactly what was going on with the
>censorship, etc. where they could read more about it (tor.general),
>etc.  I know for a fact that winternet's newfeed is the largest
>incoming feed into inforamp/istar (probably 75%), and winternet
>yanking it, will definitely hurt istar's news service.  It is possible
>this will happen, because in the past they yanked their feed to io.org
>because Mike Horwath got angry at all the pissed off people
>complaining about bad io.org service.  If you write, and the feed to
>istar gets cut off from Winternet, do not worry. I know at least one
>other isp in Toronto does still have a winternet feed, which is
>interlog.com so when you vote with your wallet by leaving istar,
>that's one place among others you can go to. Getting the winternet
>feed cut would be an effective one-two punch at giving corporate
>management a big black eye.

IStar cut 20 odd newsgroups and now you request Winternet, the best
feed,  to cut the feed for all the ones that are left

Pretty big step to take on your own without any regard for the wishes
of anyone else isn't it? 

I've been at IO when Winternet was there, I'm not a big Interlog fan
either. Your actions, if acted upon by Winternet, may adversely effect
by ability to get proper feeds in the groups that are left. I must
remain at iStar while looking for another non iStar fed ISP in the
area with a good feed.  

Im not sure which is worse. iStar's deletion of the 20 some odd
groups, or this attempt to censor the inflow of news to the remaining
groups (over 10,000) in an attempt to "get even." Both effect the
users more than the company. 

Personally, I find this action as irresponsible as iStar's actions
were to begin with.

🚀 go-pugleaf

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