Digital Bill of Rights

Fri Nov 20 21:08:54 UTC 1998

Bob,
	Buy a clue.

	Noone can blackhole mail directed at you unless it is traversing
their server.  Given the nature of SMTP, this should mean that the host
falls into one of the following categories:

	A machine owned by the Sender.
	A machine owned by someone the Sender has a transit agreement with.
	A machine owned by someone you have a transit agreement with.
	A machine owned by you.

	Of course, in reality, there is an additional category which you
seem to be saying should be forced to carry said traffic, but which in
fact should not:

	A machine not owned by you, the sender, or anyone you have a transit
agreement with, from which you or the sender are attempting to steal service
for the purpose of mail relay.

	The internet is not a federally funded or government enterprise,
and is not a regulated monopoly.  As such, there is no universal service
requirement.  Any person who owns a computer or pays for a network link
has the right to choose how that network link is used.  If they choose
to allow Paul Vixie and his group to assist them in determining sources
from which they don't want to receive traffic, that is the prerogative of
the person paying for the equipment.

	I don't have a right to prevent the USPS from delivering you mail.
However, if I opened a shipping company, I would have the right to refuse
to accept packages with your address as a destination, and I would certainly
have the right to refuse to accept packages from you.  If a group of shipping
companies agreed to subscribe to a service allowing them to share the
names/addresses of abusive customers, then that would be kosher too.

	Noone is treading on your rights, and what Paul is doing is not
the act of a vigilante.  Paul has not forced anyone to subscribe to his
service.  Paul could charge for this service.  The fact that he chooses
to provide this service for free (at significant personal expense, I might
add) is testament to his community-mindedness.  A vigilante is someone who
takes the law into their own hands without consent of the effected parties.

	Paul is merely providing a service which people can subscribe to
which allows those people to choose who they provide or do not provide
service to.  The choices are based on well documented and published
criteria.  It is much easier to get off the RBL than to get on.  Paul
and his team are, in my experience, usually very thorough in their
investigations prior to adding a spammer to the RBL, and they tend to
target as specifically as possible the smallest number of hosts which
will stop the problem.

	If you don't like what Paul is doing, you are welcome to not
subscribe to his list and put the necessary infrastructure in place
to assure that none of the systems in the last two categories is
subscribed.  Then, the only way anyone will block mail to you is if
the sender is using machines that have chosen not to carry the senders
traffic.

Owen

>  In my opinion all this RBL nonsense is
>  vastly more destructive in the long
>  term than a few ad e-mails. You may
>  agree to disagree. That too is your
>  right. However you still may not block,
>  manipulate or deny any mail directed at
>  me. *UNLESS* I explicitly give you that
>  permission. Otherwise - buzz of boys.
>  You're treading on dangerous ground.
> 
>  Bob Allisat
> 
>  Free Community Network _ bob at fcn.net . http://fcn.net
>  http://fcn.net/allisat _ http://fcn.net/draft
> 
>