Don't forget RFG (was: Re: RIPE NCC Executive Board election)

Fri May 15 19:10:49 UTC 2020

I want to thank Joe Greco <jgreco at ns.sol.net> for his kind and generous
comments.  That having been said, I'm not sure that I either should,
or even want to take credit for having kicked off *with a single message*
"a 100+-message flamefest on NANOG".  That was not my intent, and it is
quite clear that those NANOG subscribers who are interested only in
operational matters rather wish I hadn't.

I also feel compelled to state that the satisfying conclusion of the
RIPE NCC Executive Board election, as already reported here by
Terrence Koeman, most probably has relatively little to do with the
recent traffic on this list, and relatively more to do with the recent
traffic on the RIPE members-discuss list, where the candidate in
question displayed all of the same qualities of tact, diplomacy, and
generosity as he has recently displayed here.

Then again, the results of the just-completed RIPE NCC Board election
may perhaps be even more properly ascribed, primarily, to the candidate's
novel approach to campaigning which, according to numerous credible
reports, apparently included the spamming of some large fraction of
the contact email addresses contained within the RIPE WHOIS data base
with his campaign pitch, including but not limited to varuious abuse@
and noc@ addresses, some of which received multiple copies.  (No word
yet on wether or not the candidate has threatened to sue his own campaign
manager over his subesquently sagging poll numbers.)

Moving right along...

As some of you may have noticed, I have sat silently while being viciously
and falsely maligned here, in multiple ways, by the (now former) candidate.
In response, I'd like to just state a couple of things briefly, once, and
for the record, in order to dispel any doubts that anyone may have entertained.

Firstly, I am not now, nor have I ever been an owner, shareholder, manager,
employee, agent, affiliate, client, or customer of Spamhaus.  I have no
business connection to that organization of any kind, nor have I ever
had any such.  Nor are either they or I contemplating any such for the
forseeable future.  Any suggestion to the contrary has no basis in fact
and is quite simply delusional.  Indeed, as anyone who has known me or
as anyone who has read what I have written over 20+ years of fighting
spam can attest, I am, if anything, a frequent critic of Spamhaus.  I
have often gone on the record to assert my belief that that organization
is too cautious and conservative when meating out what I personally feel
would be just rewards to various provably irredeamable spammers and
cybercriminals.

That having been said, the differences between myself and Spamhaus are
only ones of emphasis, not goals, and just like I do routinely with
innumerable other anti-spam and anti-cybercrime organizations, I do
maintain informal channels of communications with Spamhaus, as I also
do with a vast number of other such commercial and non-commercial
projects with similarly aligned goals.

If my many industry contacts render me a sinister and malevolent agent
of some dark and secretive international cabal, then so be it.  In that
case it would appear that I am not alone, at least judging by the broad
attendance of several hundred individuals and organizations at the last
M3AAWG meeting this past February in San Francisco.  All of us are, in
our own ways, working together to keep the wires open and usable for
normal people.  That goal is more important now, in the age of Covid-19,
than it ever has been.  I do not and will not apologize in any way for
doing this important work, along with so many many others.  Someone
must keep the lunatics from taking over the asylum and flooding it
with spam.  That was true even before Covid-19, and it is even vastly
more true now.

Second and lastly, I am neither a racist nor an antisemite.  I will not
dignify these false, baseless, and defamatory allegations any further,
and I most assuredly feel no compulsion to request any of my many jewish
friends, nor any of my POC friends to come to my defense, especially as
I need none.

These scurrilous allegations have been presented without evidence or
factual basis, and have been supported only by tortured distortions of
my actual words, disturbing attempts to unilaterally (and conveniently)
redefine the meaning of the already well-understood and well-defined
English word "race", and by unambiguously malicious innuendo.  I see
no point in getting down and rolling around in the gutter on these points,
especially not with a man whose low regard for the truth has already been
made so abundantly clear and apparent to the subscribers of this very list.
I will have nothing more to say about this, at least not in this forum.

Regards,
rfg