On Sat, May 13, 2000 at 09:25:09AM -0600, Jim Nolan wrote:
> This is a test to see where the message winds up. I've been not getting alot
> of Potter mail in the last week and sent mail to the Potter group winds up
> only in the archive and not to the mail list. I am seeking to get to the
> root of this Communist conspiracy.
It's probably actually a libertarian free-market anarchist conspiracy.
Pardon me for this somewhat lengthy and off topic explanation (at 3:51
AM, no less):
I have recently encountered bounced email messages with the following
explanatory text:
>
> ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
><deleted@micron.net>
><deleted@micron.net>
><deleted@micron.net>
> ----- Transcript of session follows -----
>... while talking to delivery01.micron.net.:
>>>> DATA
><<< 550 Banned text appeared in header: 'egroups.com'
>554 <deleted@micron.net>,<deleted@micron.net>,<deleted@micron.net>...
> Service unavailable
[I deleted the actual mail names.]
That is, the ISP micron.net refuses to accept mail that has
'egroups.com' in the "To: ", "From: ", "Cc: ", "Subject: ", or any of
the other dozens of fields in an email header. In particular, it is
effectively impossible for a customer of micron.net to participate in
an egroups email list, except over the web. I don't know for sure why
this is, but there is a reasonable explanation.
Many ISPs subscribe to one or another spam-blocking services, which
sounds wonderful, until *your* service is accused of supporting spam,
and gets blocked by one of the spam-blocking services.
There are two relatively well-know spam blocking services: ORBS
(http://www.orbs.org), and the MAPS RBL
(http://www.mail-abuse.org/rbl/). Being targeted by one of these
services is fairly serious -- it means large portions of the Internet
won't be able to receive your email, and they won't be able to send to
you.
This gives the managers of ORBS and MAPS a substantial amount of power,
and in recent times there have been allegations that ORBS in particular
is abusing that power. One of the ISPs I work with (AboveNet), in
fact, has entered into a war with ORBS, and refuses to send any
traffic to ORBS at all.
The bottom line: there is no guarantee that your email will get from
here to there; your mail moves at the whim of the business supplying
your email.
Another recent message mentioned that people have a "right" to say what
they think, with the phrase "this is a free country" somehow echoing in
the distance.
Paradoxically for such an apparently free-wheeling medium, there is no
such thing as a right to "freedom of speech" on the Internet. Your
email, and indeed all your network traffic, can be blocked, snooped, or
modified in transit. There are no effective safeguards against this.
The Internet is not the US, and it isn't run by the US Government and
it's not a free country. One could say that Big Brother is indeed
watching, but he hasn't quite figured out who he is, or what to do yet.
Anyway, sorry for the off-topic post at -- well, now it's 4:07 AM. Back
to Pottering.
Kent
-- Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be kent@songbird.com lonesome." -- Mark Twain------------------------------------------------------------------------ Porsche Boxter. You and a friend. Nine dream days from Napa Valley to Beverly Hills. Provided by CarsDirect.com. Click to enter. http://click.egroups.com/1/3993/5/_/917698/_/958302678/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: WWPotter@egroups.com Help: WWPotter-owner@egroups.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 17 2000 - 03:27:11 PDT