Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.xcom.net.MISMATCH!newsfeed.xcom.net!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-feed2.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.indigo.ie!not-for-mail From: "P" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: What's happening? Date: 19 Apr 1998 15:50:22 GMT Organization: Indigo Lines: 13 Message-ID: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> NNTP-Posting-Host: ts03-052.dublin.indigo.ie X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1161 alt.out-of-body has started having all of these porn postings lately. does anyone know who moderates this so they can? It's annoying! -- ________ / __ / / /_/ / / _____/ / / /___/ =========================== Remember: Everything is relative. =========================== ###### Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!bignews.mediaways.net!news-lond.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey03.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: gallianoj@aol.com (GALLIANOJ) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Lines: 6 Message-ID: <1998041918013000.OAA01102@ladder03.news.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder03.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 19 Apr 1998 18:01:30 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> im with you, this is some crap... how do we get rid of it? it takes up all the space ! maybe who ever moderates this ng will see our complaints so who ever doesnt want this porn on here please make your position known. thanks ###### Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newshub.northeast.verio.net!news-pen-3.sprintlink.net!news-pen-1.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed1.swip.net!news.get2net.dk!not-for-mail From: "ras2" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: 19 Apr 98 18:52:34 +0200 Organization: email; change 'd**k' to 'dk' Lines: 20 Message-ID: <353A47F2.MD-0.198.ras2@get2net.dggk> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> NNTP-Posting-Host: port35.pulje204.get2net.dk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: MicroDot-II 0.198/CabalOS On 19 Apr 1998 15:50:22 GMT, P wrote: > alt.out-of-body has started having all of these porn postings lately. > does anyone know who moderates this so they can? > It's annoying! Start complaining then. Ask your ISP to get some filters going too, as they can help a lot in keeping the amount of spam on Usenet down. alt.out-of-body is not moderated, so anybody can post anything here. The porn spams here in the last few days have all been from the same spammer using a number of different servers to post through. He's hit every single group, I follow (except for the news.admin.net-abuse.* hierarchy) up to 8 or 10 times each. He must be running out of servers to abuse, so hopefully it will stop soon, but as far as I know, the web site he's spamming for, hasn't been closed yet, so in theory it could go on for quite a while. -R. ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 23:10:30 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 61 Message-ID: <353A6846.D0C257C7@ccw.ch> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> <1998041918013000.OAA01102@ladder03.news.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.27 i486) P wrote: > > does anyone know who moderates this so they can? ras2 answered him: > > alt.out-of-body is not moderated, so anybody can post anything here. GALLIANOJ wrote: > > maybe who ever moderates this ng will see our complaints As ras2 said to P, no one moderates this group. It is free for all to post. No entry test for messages. > so who ever doesnt want this porn on here please make your > position known. You will only make it know to others who read the group, no moderator. And they most likely have the same position. > im with you, this is some crap... how do we get rid of it? > it takes up all the space ! The only 2 possibilities are: - make the group moderated. But this delays messages and makes the group dependant on the moderator reading regularly (all messages go automatically by email to the moderator and are then posted from there _after_ being read and approved by the moderator. Also approval can be faked (I have done that myself, as it is required to post in alt.hackers). - set up an cancelbot (this is an computer that scans all messages as soon as they arrive at it, and posts an cancel message every time a message meets its user specified criteria). But this only catches messages that violate specified criteria, such as being too long, being binary (contain graphics or MS Word files, if desired even also HTML), come from an known abuser (such as Koos or the alt.paranormal crowd), contain registerd keywords (such as XXX or $$$, too many caps in Subject). It also only filters postings that arrive at the cancelbot site (I did not get the porn spams mentioned), also it takes time from posting of the spam until arrival of the cancel, so people reading with unlucky timing will stil get the spam. I am system admin of an University network. If the readers of alt.out-of-body want an cancelbot (despite their limitations) I would be prepared to run one on one of my computers. -- private: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ office: franklin.remove.this@arch.ethz.ch http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/~franklin/ Can a Microsoft allergy be claimed on job health insurence? ###### Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!Supernews60!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail From: Gail Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 18:00:52 -0700 Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com Lines: 65 Message-ID: <353A9E44.20D4ABD2@cidcorp.com> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> <1998041918013000.OAA01102@ladder03.news.aol.com> <353A6846.D0C257C7@ccw.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 10396@206.42.106.177 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; U) Personally, I'd rather put up with a bit of spam, the way I put up with the flame wars, rather than censor or delay postings. Everything seems to come in waves, and go away in waves....... gail Neil Franklin wrote: > > P wrote: > > > > does anyone know who moderates this so they can? > > ras2 answered him: > > > > alt.out-of-body is not moderated, so anybody can post anything here. > > GALLIANOJ wrote: > > > > maybe who ever moderates this ng will see our complaints > > As ras2 said to P, no one moderates this group. It is free for all to > post. No entry test for messages. > > > so who ever doesnt want this porn on here please make your > > position known. > > You will only make it know to others who read the group, no moderator. > And they most likely have the same position. > > > im with you, this is some crap... how do we get rid of it? > > it takes up all the space ! > > The only 2 possibilities are: > > - make the group moderated. > > But this delays messages and makes the group dependant on the moderator > reading regularly (all messages go automatically by email to the > moderator and are then posted from there _after_ being read and approved > by the moderator. Also approval can be faked (I have done that myself, > as it is required to post in alt.hackers). > > - set up an cancelbot (this is an computer that scans all messages as > soon as they arrive at it, and posts an cancel message every time a > message meets its user specified criteria). > > But this only catches messages that violate specified criteria, such as > being too long, being binary (contain graphics or MS Word files, if > desired even also HTML), come from an known abuser (such as Koos or the > alt.paranormal crowd), contain registerd keywords (such as XXX or $$$, > too many caps in Subject). It also only filters postings that arrive at > the cancelbot site (I did not get the porn spams mentioned), also it > takes time from posting of the spam until arrival of the cancel, so > people reading with unlucky timing will stil get the spam. > > I am system admin of an University network. If the readers of > alt.out-of-body want an cancelbot (despite their limitations) I would be > prepared to run one on one of my computers. > > -- > private: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch > http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ > office: franklin.remove.this@arch.ethz.ch > http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/~franklin/ > Can a Microsoft allergy be claimed on job health insurence? ###### Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeeds.sol.net!newsops.execpc.com!posts.execpc.com!gotham-globe.newsops.execpc.com!usenet From: Matt Holmes Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 00:35:14 -0500 Organization: Somewhere OOB. Lines: 18 Message-ID: <6hemtk$6hh@newsops.execpc.com> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> NNTP-Posting-Host: cadezia-116.mdm.mke.execpc.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: gotham-globe.newsops.execpc.com 893050612 6705 (None) 169.207.82.116 X-Complaints-To: abuse@execpc.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (Win95; I) P wrote: > > alt.out-of-body has started having all of these porn postings lately. > does anyone know who moderates this so they can? > It's annoying! > -- Well, apparently there was supposed to be a spam boycott...for two weeks. From what I understand, there is a group of volunteer spam fighters that remove spam on a regular basis. Unfortunatly, they have gone on strike. C|Net's News.Com has an article on it if you are interested: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,20713,00.html/ Take it easy. Matt Holmes Mind Travel Plus http://www.execpc.com/~mholmes/index.html ###### Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!bore.news.pipex.net!pipex!not-for-mail From: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com (Julia Hawkes-Moore) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 22:31:13 GMT Organization: UUNet UK server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNet UK) Lines: 89 Message-ID: <353bcc30.11200910@news.dial.pipex.com> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> <6hemtk$6hh@newsops.execpc.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ao115.du.pipex.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 >P wrote: >> >> alt.out-of-body has started having all of these porn postings lately. >> does anyone know who moderates this so they can? >> It's annoying! >> -- > >Well, apparently there was supposed to be a spam boycott...for two >weeks. From what I understand, there is a group of volunteer spam >fighters that remove spam on a regular basis. Unfortunatly, they have >gone on strike. C|Net's News.Com has an article on it if you are >interested: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,20713,00.html/ > >Take it easy. > >Matt Holmes I found the following information on another newsgroup I follow; I hope it will be of interest to you: All best wishes, Julia Hawkes-Moore. PR MITTON writes: > > The junk on the newsgroups is because the people in the states who > normally jump on the spammers in the newsgroups have gone on strike > becuase they believe that the ISPs should carry out more of this task. To expand on Pete's comments (as I understand the situation): The despammers have been issuing cancel messages for the spams when they occur. The cancel stops the spreading out of the spam message so that, often, it never reaches you. By number, it has been estimated that 30% of usenet (newsgroup) traffic was spam and another 30% was cancels! Very few of the spams (<1%?) actually got through. We previously were only seeing the very tip of the iceberg! The trouble is with cancelling it doesn't address the underlying problem. Spammers are still producing the spam and it is clogging up the usenet. Hence the concerted innaction by the despammers to bring the problem to the attention of the usenet community as a whole. They have said that the strike is for an idefinitite period. A minimum of 2 months has been mentioned. What can we do? 1. Complain about spam to the originators ISP (Internet Service Provider). I know most spammers try to fake their address but often their ISP can be deduced from the headers. Include the full header with the complaint. I don't have a spam reading FAQ to hand. Would some kind person please provide web addresses of FAQs? 2. Find out what _your_ ISP is doing to combat spam. a. Some spam originates from *legitimate* accounts. This is against most ISPs Terms and Conditions of Use - Also known as Acceptable Use Policy or AUP). Complaints should result in the closure of the account. Complaints may also make an ISP think about more vetting of applications for free trials. b. Other spam is injected into the usenet network through *open doors*. These are nodes in the network which accept postings from any source. ISPs should be encouraged to ighten up their security to stop this happening. 3. Find out how to use the killfile on your email software to cut down the ammount of spam appearing (to you) in your chosen newsgroups. I hope this helps. I welcome comments and corrections. -- Barnacle Bill ###### Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-penn.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!203.12.176.153!news.mel.aone.net.au!newsfeed-in.aone.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!news2.melbpc.org.au!not-for-mail From: johnf@melbpc.org.au (John Fitzsimons) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:29:32 GMT Organization: Melbourne PC User Group Inc, Australia Lines: 19 Message-ID: <354e333d.9066638@news.melbpc.org.au> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> <1998041918013000.OAA01102@ladder03.news.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: b2-6.melbpc.org.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 On 19 Apr 1998 18:01:30 GMT, gallianoj@aol.com (GALLIANOJ) wrote: >im with you, this is some crap... how do we get rid of it? >it takes up all the space ! >maybe who ever moderates this ng will see our complaints < snip > This is an unmoderated newsgroup. Regards, John. **************************************************** ,-._|\ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia. / Oz \ johnf@melbpc.org.au, Fidonet 3:632/309 \_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm v http://www.alphalink.com.au/~johnf/ ###### Path: ccw.ch!elna.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!152.163.199.19!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: rschnei578@aol.com (RSchnei578) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: 25 Apr 1998 07:46:50 GMT Lines: 3 Message-ID: <1998042507465000.DAA16975@ladder01.news.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder01.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com X-Newsreader: AOL Offline Reader Thank you -- I was going to write a message and saw yours -- it is so inappropriate so thank you for raising this issue. Gina Marguerite ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:09:34 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 59 Message-ID: <354218CE.9841C09F@ccw.ch.remove> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> <1998041918013000.OAA01102@ladder03.news.aol.com> <353A6846.D0C257C7@ccw.ch> <353A9E44.20D4ABD2@cidcorp.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.27 i486) Gail wrote: > > Personally, I'd rather put up with a bit of spam, the way I put up with > the flame wars, rather than censor or delay postings. Everything seems > to come in waves, and go away in waves....... > > gail > > Neil Franklin wrote: > > > > The only 2 possibilities are: > > > > - make the group moderated. > > > > - set up an cancelbot (this is an computer that scans all messages as > > soon as they arrive at it, and posts an cancel message every time a > > message meets its user specified criteria). Sorry for the late answer, I was overworked this week :-) Here a few clarifications to my original post: possibilities, actually 4, forgot first, discovered third after post: 1 stay as is, readers or their computers must do it 2 make the group human moderated 3 make it automoderated (a computer does moderation) 4 use a cancelbot (a computer moderates "after the fact") delays: 1 in unmoderated obviously none 2 in moderation large (usually 1 day, can be 1/2 day or 2 day) 3 in automoderation small (a few minutes, usually 1-10) 4 in cancelbot none (because it is "after the fact", but unreliable, may not be deleted before someone raeds it) censorship: 1 in unmoderated obviously none 2 in moderation a human does it, can be problematic because personal desires can influence it 3 and 4 in automoderation or cancelbot a computer does it, according to formal rules, these can be posted and approved by the a.oob readers, but this can missfire (computers have no understanding, just rules) I agree with Gail that at the moment the volume of spam and flames does not require us to take measures. OTOH I as we are having a discussion about possibilites I though I would mention this one, as most people do not know of it, and some may like it. -- private: Neil.Franklin@ccw.ch.remove http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ office: franklin@arch.ethz.ch.remove http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/~franklin/ This computer has 2 cats, one in /bin, one on top purring. ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: What's happening? Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:45:44 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 93 Message-ID: <35422147.8B387B93@ccw.ch.remove> References: <01bd6baa$83621ee0$3e947dc2@default> <1998041918013000.OAA01102@ladder03.news.aol.com> <353A6846.D0C257C7@ccw.ch> <01bd6fba$04e8ae80$df947dc2@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.27 i486) P wrote: > > > I am system admin of an University network. If the readers of > > alt.out-of-body want an cancelbot (despite their limitations) I would be > > prepared to run one on one of my computers. > > Maybe just explain what exactly is a cancel bot. Given the part you quoted of my message I assume you may have missed the explanation in it: - set up an cancelbot (this is an computer that scans all messages as soon as they arrive at it, and posts an cancel message every time a message meets its user specified criteria). OTOH perhaps that explanaiton was too little, so here a bit more: A cancelbot is a computer program that runs 24h a day which every 10 minutes or so fetches the newest news from an news server (the same as an newsreader would), this is what makes it an "bot" (short for roBOTic reader), this is also why it requires an 24h connected computer such as the ones I administer. Then it reads (scans) each recieved message and checks if it fits an list of predefined rules such as: 1 From: massive-spammer@spamhost.com 2 Subject: anything $$$ anything 3 Subject: anything with more than 50% upper case 4 Lines: any number larger than 300 5 Content-Type: text/html 6 Content-Type: multipart The exact list is defined in an configuration file of the cancelbot. If a message contains any of the "blacklisted" lines the cancelbot sends out an automatically generated post telling all newsservers to delete (cancel) the offending message. That is why it is called an cancelbot. Main problems with cancelbots are: 1 the rule list needs to be defined and accepted by the a.oob readers 2 rules are unreliable, eg, miss some spams, hits some real messages rule 1 misses new spammers, stops all postes of a banned poster rule 2 and 3 miss less aggressive spammers rule 4 will hit long legitimate messages, does not get short spams rule 5 will kill all HTML posts including ones from user errors rule 6 will stop spams with GIFs but also normal posts with GIFs 3 delay from spam being posted until cancelbot deletes it so some people with unlucky timing will get the spam anyway The delay (point 3) can be avoided with an automoderator: All messages that are posted are automatically sent via email from the first news server that sees them to the automoderation program. This checks them the same as an cancelbot would. Messages that do not fit any of the rules are then re-posted (with an "approval" to avoid them coming back to the moderator). Messages that fit an rule are dropped or posted to a.oob.bot-rejected. Advantage over cancelbot: it is no "delete after the fact", also messages are avaoilable for those that want them, also less network traffic (cancels generate a lot). Downside over cancelbot: a delay from posting by the author until the final posting by the automoderator of 1-10 minutes. The need for an rules list and the missfiring problems are the same. Also the need for an 24h running and connected computer. These 2 can be circumvented by using an human moderator. But this results in large delays (until whenever that human reads news, 1/2 or 1 day usual) and in problems with censorship depending on the moderators whims. These are the possibilities. At the moment I still think that they are nopt required. My preferences: 1 stay as are 2 automoderator (a bit back behind 1) 3 cancelbot (slightly after 2) 4 human moderator (long way back from 3) -- private: Neil.Franklin@ccw.ch.remove http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ office: franklin@arch.ethz.ch.remove http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/~franklin/ This computer has 2 cats, one in /bin, one on top purring.