🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <YCKDXCAdxuG3EwXN@swarb.demon.co.uk>,
  David Swarbrick <david@swarb.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <slrn7hkru7.ag.Sherilyn@sidaway.demon.co.uk>, Sherilyn
> <Sherilyn@sidaway.demon.co.uk> writes
> >In article <7fd8h4$6cg@bonkers.taronga.com>, Peter da Silva wrote:
> >>In article <1928@thanatos.win-uk.net>,
> >>Paul Burridge <osiris@thanatos.win-uk.net> wrote:
> >>>Had Demon done what he reasonably asked of them, they would have
> >>>saved *themselves* a lot of trouble.
> >>
> >>What he asked of them was not "reasonable", it was a pointless waste
> >>of time, since it did nothing to prevent the spread of the objectionable
> >>material.
> >
> >I hate "me toos", but I think at this point it's worth recognising that,
> >as a practical matter of limiting propagation of a libel, Doctor Godfrey's
> >request of Demon Internet fell far short of a reasonable request.
>
> It was a request to them to cease to participate in its redistribution.
> How anyone can get any effective measurement of the result is a
> different matter.

Yes, I guess I'll rise to the challenge :)

The posting was made on 13th January, and propagated worldwide, reaching
Demon Internet via its incoming transit feed, and being propagated from there
to Demon Internet's peers.  This would have occurred, most likely, in a
matter of seconds.  Thence, Demon Internet's customers, and any other people
who had read access to Demon's news server system, could request the article
by message-id or receive it by subscribing to soc.culture.thai.  Other USENET
providers receiving a transit feed from Demon via peering arrangement would
make it available to their customers in a similar manner, passing the message
on to more of their peers.

A followup by an innocent third party (not a Demon customer) repeated the
libel or a substantial part of it, apparently taking it to be a posting
originated by Doctor Godfrey himself, rather than the forgery it was.

On 17th January, Doctor Godfrey faxed Demon Internet.  Demon did not act on
the FAX, and the posting would have expired in the normal course of events
(according to Justice Morland's summary which lists "about a fortnight")
about 27th January.  So for about 10 days, Demon knowingly published a libel
against Doctor Godfrey.

Had Demon Internet deleted the posting from its news server system, Demon
Internet subscribers subscribing to soc.culture.thai after the deletion would
not have seen the original posting, though they would have seen the follow-up
in which the libel was repeated (the follow-up is still stored in the Deja
News archives).  Non-Demon customers, including those whose news providers
received the posting from Demon's transit server via the normal news peering
arrangements, would still see their news provider's copy of both the original
posting and the follow-up, unless Doctor Godfrey had also contacted those
providers and they had cooperated.

On the other hand, had he issued a cancel for the posting, the majority of
all news servers, including Demon's, would have deleted the posting from
their spool; the follow-up would have remained, however, unless he could
persuade the third party who posted it to issue a cancel.  Had he done so, he
would have severely limited propagation of the libel.

An alternative to cancelling the original posting himself would be to get his
system administrators to do it for him.


Sherilyn
/server irc.powerchat.net
/join #catch-22
No ops, no kicks, no bans.  Just talk.

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