FWD: USENET wars!

["Ken L. Holder" <kholder @ shell.liberty.com>]

>Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 15:24:35 -0400
>To: f--@c--.com (Matthew Gaylor)
>From: f--@c--.com (Matthew Gaylor)
>Subject: Zonpower versus the Robo-Moderator A tale of bots, Net-Kooks, a=
nd the
> cryptographic cutting edge
>
>Copyrighted material sent with permission of Web Review Magazine:
>http://gnn.com/wr/
>
>Matt-
>
>###
>
>Zonpower versus the Robo-Moderator A tale of bots, Net-Kooks, and the
>cryptographic cutting edge By Andrew Leonard
>
>http://www-e1c.gnn.com/gnn/wr/96/04/19/edge/index.html
>
>The NeoTechs released their "takeover manifesto" on March 19 to the Usen=
et
>newsgroup alt.philosophy.objectivism. No longer would the "ersatz"
>Objectivists who lorded it over "a.p.o" be allowed to sabotage the glori=
ous
>heritage of Ayn Rand -- the greatest philosopher since Aristotle. Instea=
d,
>the  extension of Neo-Tech into Zonpower would "pave the way for the
>application of Objectivism to all areas of conscious life." As a
>consequence,  "commercial biological immortality" would be waiting for u=
s
>just around the  corner.
>
>Meanwhile, the denizens of  alt.sex.plushies, a normally  gentle group o=
f
>people devoted  to discussing their love of furry  creatures, became fed=
 up
>with  spam and assorted hardcore  alt.sex.trolls. So they  proposed sett=
ing
>up a cancelbot  retro-moderator that would  automatically eliminate
>non-plushie suitable postings -- after they had already infiltrated the
>general Usenet  news feed.
>
>But the keepers of Usenet, the so-called Cabal, pooh-poohed the idea. If
>you want  bot-moderation, they said, go with a robo-moderator -- a bot t=
hat
>checks posts  against a filter before propagating them across the networ=
k.
>Retro-bad, robo-good.
>
>And in still another corner of the spaghetti labyrinth that is Usenet,
>habitues of the  soc.culture.russian newsgroup, driven to distraction by=
 an
>alliance of  Net-kooks, forged postings, and cross- posting insanity,
>decided to take the whole  concept of bot-moderation to the next level. =
As
>of three weeks ago,  soc.culture.russian.moderated has joined the Usenet
>fraternity, complete  with PGP encryption, robo-human moderation
>cooperation, and assurance of  anonymity, should it be desirable.
>
>Anarchy or just doing fine?
>
>Cryptographic authentication has long been seen as the messiah of the
>cyber-millenium -- an all-in-one cure-all that will make the Net safe fo=
r,
>among  other things, commerce, mobile agent activity, and private email.
>Cryptographic  authentication is supposed to be incorporated in the next
>version of Java, and it is a  key part of the concept of digital cash. B=
ut
>it's still a long way from being an  integral part of everyone's daily N=
et
>use.
>
>Which is why developments in  Usenet bear watching. Usenet  may have a
>seemingly  intolerable signal-to-noise ratio,  but in a hundred differen=
t
>nooks  and crannies, Usenet regulars  are experimenting with different
>approaches to age-old problems.  The  soc.culture.russian.moderated  tes=
t
>tube may be a template for the rest of Usenet, and might even represent =
the
>tip  of the cryptographic iceberg for the whole Net.
>
>Cyber-Messiah
>
>John Levine, author of Internet for Dummies, maintains that the majority=
 of
>Usenet's 15,000-plus newsgroups are free from attention-getting
>high-profile  madness. Levine, the moderator of comp.compilers, is credi=
ted
>with writing the  first "robo-moderation" bot more than a year and a hal=
f
>ago, for the newsgroup  soc.religion.unitarian-universalism. Described b=
y
>Levine as nothing more  than a simple "shell script," the bot strips off
>"cross-posting" instructions from  Usenet news headers, and watches out =
for
>indications of spam -- like three  exclamation points in a row in a subj=
ect
>header.
>
>But Levine says his bot hardly  ever has to do anything. "You  see enorm=
ous
>amounts of  yelling and screaming in a small  number of groups," says
>Levine, "whereas the vast  majority just sort of perks along  and works
>great."
>
>Perhaps. But to the unwary  visitor who stumbles into an unmoderated gro=
up
>devoted to religion, culture, or, in  particular, the administration of
>Usenet itself, the immediate impression is that  anarchy and chaos have
>triumphed and their name is Usenet. Bots are both the  answer to this
>problem, and one of its causes. Nowhere does the fever pitch of  debate
>rise higher than in the discourse over bots.
>
>To Bot or not to bot    Cancelbots are the most  infamous target.
>Cancelbots are  programs that take advantage of  the ease with which it =
is
>possible to send a forged  "cancel" message across  Usenet, seeking and
>destroying  posts that have been found  objectionable. In a decentralize=
d
>network such as Usenet, where  the only real power structure is the
>collective decision-making process of  thousands of news administrators =
--
>individuals who have chosen to run the  Usenet news feed on their own
>server -- the question of what constitutes  censorship, or what is
>justifiable "weeding," is an emotional one.
>
>The debates over alt.philosophy.objectivism provide an excellent example
>A.p.o is  devoted to discussing the implications of "objectivism" a
>philosophy based on  Ayn Rand's (author of Atlas Shrugged and The
>Fountainhead) explication of a  moral basis for free market capitalism.
>
>But when a splinter group of Objectivist thinkers -- the NeoTechs -- beg=
an
>dominating the group with extensive posts delineating their ideology (as
>well as the  "bankruptcy" of the establishment Objectivist hierarchy) so=
me
>a.p.o regulars  decided they needed to take action.
>
>These regulars proposed a "robo-moderation" bot that would eliminate pos=
ts
>based  on several different criteria. Cross-posting, the practice of
>sending the same post to  a wide variety of newsgroups, would be banned.
>Cross-posting, so goes the  argument, results in topic drift and endless
>flamewars. Posts that included too  great a proportion of quoted materia=
l
>would also be banned. And most,  controversially, posts that mentioned
>certain NeoTech buzzwords, such as  "neocheater" or "fully integrated
>honesty," would also be aborted.
>
>The Big no-no
>
>To some Usenet veterans, cancelling posts based on content is the number
>one  no-no. But the ease with which a third party can forge a cancel to
>anyone else's  posting makes such an action a practical inevitability. A=
nd
>that's why a number of  people, including the infamous Cancelmoose, (for
>years the most prominent of the  Usenet spam cancellers) believe that
>cancelbots and robo (or retro) moderators are  a stop-gap.
>
>They argue that Usenet won't  stabilize until cryptographic  authenticat=
ion
>is incorporated  into Usenet news software. The  CancelMoose has even
>written his own news server  software -- NoCeM, which  allows news
>administrators to  automatically cancel only those  posts which a truste=
d
>third party  has identified as spam.
>
>Already, there is one mailing list/newsgroup, comp.dcom.telecom, in whic=
h
>all  messages are encoded with a cryptographic string in the header. The
>human  moderator of the list, Patrick Townson, has his own bots statione=
d
>at several  well-connected news servers watching for posts destined for =
the
>telecom  newsgroup. If they don't contain the correct crypto-code, they =
are
>promptly  cancelled.
>
>PGP Power
>
>Even more interesting is the  recent creation of
>soc.culture.russian.moderated.  According to mastermind Igor  Chudov, a
>computer consultant  based in Tulsa, OK, his  robo-moderation system
>incorporates two separate layers  of PGP cryptography. One is  for poste=
rs
>who wish to sign  their own posts with a PGP signature, so as to avoid
>forged cancels. The  robo-moderator checks all such posts with its list =
of
>PGP public keys, to verify  their authenticity. But Chudov's robo-modera=
tor
>also has its own private key,  which it uses to sign posts that it forwa=
rds
>to human moderators, who must  approve posts made by newcomers to the
>newsgroup.
>
>Chudov's scheme sounds complicated, but he says that all the PGP
>machinations  and other security checks are invisible to the user -- she=
ll
>scripts do all the work.  And a comparison of the moderated version of t=
he
>newsgroup to the unmoderated  version demonstrates that at least for now=
,
>the scheme is working.
>
>No ultimate answer
>
>Critics of bot moderation and cryptographic authentication see a number =
of
>problems. First, says Levine, the very existence of a bot challenges peo=
ple
>to come  up with means of overcoming that bot.
>
>His assertion is supported by Richard Depew, who is credited with author=
ing
>one  of the first of Usenet's cancelbots. Depew recently wrote a "bincan=
cel
>bot" which  looks for binaries that have been wrongly posted to Usenet's
>non-binaries groups,  and cancels them. Depew says that a number of peop=
le
>have tried to overcome his  bot, but failed.
>
>More challenging is the problem  of spam, or a "takeover" attempt  such =
as
>that initiated by the  NeoTech/Zonpower cadres.  Authentication won't st=
op
>that --  only specific filters or  cancelbots will combat such  tactics.
>
>Which means the debate over  censorship is unlikely to end, no matter wh=
at
>technological advances occur in the  future. I guess we could have expec=
ted
>that. Still, the steady percolation of  cryptographic tools into the
>infrastructure of mainstream Net culture is a key  development. Right no=
w,
>we are still in a transition period, between the onset of  Net culture a=
nd
>its fully matured form. Will that maturation mean unintelligible  flamew=
ars
>or total cryptographically augmented privacy and security? The answer
>isn't clear.
>
>Yet.
>
>To bot or not to bot?
>
>
>Copyright =A9 Songline Studios, Inc., 1996.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
>
>
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>Matthew Gaylor,1933 E. Dublin-Granville Rd.,#176, Columbus, OH  43229
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>
>
>

----- End of forwarded message from Ken L. Holder -----

--=20
"Everything comes apart, one way or another.      a--@c--.monash.edu.au =20
   Eh-eh-eh!"                                     a--@d--.null.org
                       -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs       http://www.zikzak.net/~=
acb/