Re: [SLRN] using mixmaster to anonymize posting with slrn

* Alan Connor wrote:
On news.software.readers, in <20060616111809@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Troy Piggins" wrote:

* Alan Connor wrote:
<snip>
[snip]
I never said they were trying to hide from people. Did I?

Yes. You implied that they were using supposed anonymity because
they are political subversives that were being hunted by
Dangerous People.

(like the government and the corporations)

The only people that are hunting them are trolls that can't
do anything but post crap on the Internet.

They could include their physical address, real name, and
image with every article and they'd still be perfectly safe.

I think you extrapolated a little too much there.

Anyone with a few kilobucks to hire an international personal
investigating firm could have them tracked down in a blink.

That's a _lot_ of people. Most middle class Americans could
just charge it to one of their credit cards.

Any government agency, organized crime group, or medium-sized
corporation could track them down in a blink.

They only remain free or alive or healthy because they are no
threat to anyone.

You kinda lost me there. Isn't it easier to add a scorefile
entry? Never mind. I [think I] know what you meant.

What I meant was that these people are not being hunted by
powerful corporations or government agencies.

That's a myth they promote.

They just aren't protected from those entities. At all.

All those anonymous remailers are computers that can
be tracked in the _real_world.

The NSA could come up with their exact location in SECONDS.

These are _punks_.

Do you really think that those punks who run them are going
to stand up to, for example, a dozen FBI agents with
a Federal Warrant? Please!

All their users can do is hide their posting histories from the
people on the Usenet.

They are not the threats they want you to believe they are.

If they were, they'd already be dead or off the Internet
or in jail.

What they post is just GARBAGE.

Nobody reads it. You obviously don't, or you'd know it was
GARBAGE.

Actually, I read articles with subject headers that interest
me. If someone posts from an anonymous remailer but with a
subject heading I'm interested in, then I'll read it. Takes
but a flick of the finger to mark it deleted if I don't like
the content. And most I don't need to.

Post the MID for one.

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=<Message-ID>

I could ...

And I'll post the MIDs for a thousand that were ignorant
garbage.

And NONE of the above will contain content that would require
a person to take special steps to protect themselves.

.... but don't want to waste my time or yours.

They are already well enough protected by their ISPs/NSPs.
[snip]
No. I am not going to describe any of the details. I don't
even know some of them. But I am a _long_ way from any direct
connection to the Internet.

I disagree, else I wouldn't be reading this ;-)

Don't get that at all.

If you were a long way from a direct internet connection, you couldn't
post on usenet. My attempt at humour.

But I don't make a point of being anonymous. That would be
counter-productive, wouldn't it?

And I post under ONE alias and without the "X-No-Archive: yes"
header.

Ah, but how do we *know* that you only use one alias at any
given time? You've changed it over the years, I assume?

No. When I first arrived I was attacked by that punk "Sam"
(sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) and a herd of his sockpuppets. I quickly
learned that I wouldn't have a chance if I tried to meet
the trolls on their own ground.

"Sam" has no idea how I despise him for shitting on my first
days on the Usenet.

If someone sent me an email telling me that he'd die a
horrible death if I didn't read one of his articles, he'd
die a horrible death.

A couple of times I have put other names in the From header,
but included a header like:

X-Realname: Alan Connor

and also made my real identity clear in the article.

But that was a long time ago.

My point is this - what is the difference between you using
an alias and someone else's connection (ie no real links to
_you_), and someone who posts using a single word common
name like Mike/David/Fred, or someone who posts via a
newsserver/gateway that hides their real source?

Don't take offense. I'm not throwing you in the same pool as
spammers/trolls.

Looks like you are to me.

No. As I said, I consider the _content_ of the post to be the troll
material, *not* the poster's name or network.

Be thankful that I didn't decide to become a troll, Troy.
I'd be the worst nightmare you ever encountered.

I'd be able to drive you from the Usenet if I didn't like
your X-Face.

:-)

(nice pun, eh?)

I don't use X-Faces... oh, wait. I get it.

Ok, google groups advanced search for an author named Mike will
turn up shitloads of hits coz it's common. So? What's his/her
posting history got to do with it?

Well. Maybe they schitt all over your favorite groups last week
with 15 sockpuppets and drove you crazy and spammed 10,000
others.

Why do I have to keep repeating the obvious here?

I know how you feel...

If it's a reply to a post
of mine, I'll read it. If it's an interesting topic, I'll read
it. Just because they have a single word nym doesn't make them
any different to someone with a 2 word nym, they're just words.

Ibid.

Take each post on its merit.

Ibid.

Of course there are some turkeys who pop up regularly and post
garbage. Doesn't take long to figure them out and deal with
it.

Nope. With your strategy you can't ever deal with it.

You can just blame the victim, as you do below.

I don't blame victims for anything.

The XNA header? Personally I like to be able to search
google's archives to supplement my terrible memory. But
if someone posts without it, so?

Let's see: Why don't they want their posts to go in the
Archives for others to access later on?

What are they hiding?

The Archives are a precious resource and anyone evading them
is an ***.

If you are interested in
the topic, and are concerned about other being able to find
solution in the archives etc, followup with full quote of
theirs.

That's _if_ it happens on a group I monitor.

How about all the people that only access the Usenet through
the Archives?

That's a lot more people than actually monitor/and or post
to it.

Then they'll learn another way to gather information/answers. The
internet is a big place.

Anyone can go to:

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search

and see who I am. No, I am not proud of a lot of it, but I
don't hide from it.

I respect someone who stands behind their words.

Minor correction, they can't "see who you are", they can see
what you posted. You may argue that what you post is who you
are, but not really.

True enough. But I didn't mean it literally.

Like you said somewhere else here, you
could post abuse under one nym and ask nice questions or give
real answers under another.

But I don't. And that's important.

I respect people's killfiles. Even those of trolls.

If I used other aliases, you'd see strangers showing up
here to defend me.

Duh.

Some posters seem to achieve anonymity by posting through
remailers, mail2news gateways, news servers that hide posting
IP addresses, hiding/munging real email addresses, and simple
things like using a nym/alias rather than their real name.

Yes.

That doesn't make them trolls.

True. But that's only one factor.

The issue is not, I repeat, anonymity. It is posting under
MULTIPLE aliases and/or using the "X-No-Archive: yes" header
in order to hide their true posting history.

But how do you know how many aliases someone posts under?

You don't. And you don't play that game, which is just what
the effing trolls want you to do.

What you look for are various signs that they change aliases.

Like XNA and common names, etc...

It's a scoring process, a matter of probabilities. Just
like for spam.

Troll Score

Spam Score.

I know that you know all of this, Troy.

What's your point?

It's the *content* of one's posts that make a troll.

That's not true at all.

It is in my view. We'll have to agree to disagree.

As you wish. You don't have to be a crusader like me.

John Smith is being incredibly abusive and trashes your
favorite group for a week and then vanishes.

Then Alistair Clooney shows up here and wants your help.

He seems to be a real nice guy.

But he's actually John Smith, and you have just helped him be
a better troll.

How did I help him be a better troll? Did he ask for trolling
advice? Did I give it to him? Of course I wouldn't.

One simple example: You help him filter trolls with slrn.

But what he really wants to do is BEAT newsfilters, not
filter trolls.

And anything you teach a troll about newsreaders, etc., is going
to make them a better troll.

So you don't help anyone with newsreader scoring? Or just those with 2
word nyms, fake or not?

The only solution is to practice zero-tolerance for
nymshifters and XNAs.

Or actually read their posts once in a while to see they aint
all bad.

Am I talking to a brick wall?

Name's Clay, nice to meet ya. (engineering pun - clay bricks)

What they are posting NOW may not be bad.

But they are certainly schitting on the Usenet and probably
a million people's mailboxes later on in the day under
different aliases.

There is no good reason to use XNA or mulitple aliases.

You may argue that there are patterns to trolling, and
that they use the above M-IDs or From patterns in high
percentages. This doesn't interest me. I haven't been
trolled. I don't seem to piss off the right people.

It's an art :-)

I'm no artist. I'm an engineer. Everything is straight lines
:-)

You don't sound like an engineer. You sound like a milktoast
liberal weenie.

Would a (?) milktoast liberal weenie tell you to go *** yourself for
getting personal?

They always decide what they are going to do in advance,
and justify it after the fact, with self-serving blinders
on.

No one trolls me, now.

Yes they do.

No they don't. You can't troll someone who doesn't
read your articles.

That's pretty obvious.

Do you harass people through the mails by sending
them blank sheets of paper?

Bet they are just quivering in their boots.

You can't troll someone who doesn't read your articles.

But we have to.

No you don't. You CHOOSE to by being tolerant of trolls.

And feeding them.

So now you are going to blame your lousy troll-filtering
on ME?

No. I am blaming you for increasing the volume of traffic that has
nothing to do with the group. YOu don't read their posts. YOu've told
us a million times. Good. Then don't reply to them.

To use your analogy: if someone harasses you by mail, do you just read
the envelope and not the contents, then send a letter to everyone in the
world saying that you did not read the letter? Oh, and everyone that
you mailed it to can also see the original letter and it was actual a
valid mail anyway. That's silly. Just burn the fucking letter and
leave everyone be.

I don't want to read your posts letting me know you don't download
articles. I know that. It's at the top of every post you make. I
don't care. And rather than killfiling you, because you've helped me
out on occassion, I am asking you not to do it. It's too hard coming up
with scorefile entries that can pick out your "don't download"
notifications but not your valid posts.

Maybe you know that already.

Every time you post an accusation of someone
being a troll and that you haven't read their article, you see
all the traffic it generates. That wouldn't happen if you
didn't post. Don't like the look of someone, please don't
followup.

When you quit feeding them by actually reading and replying
to their articles, I will.

One thing is for sure, the number of followups I make, in total, is a
pretty small fraction of the number of posts you make telling everyone
how you didn't read their post.

Then they'd go away, wouldn't they?

When you do, most definitely.

And they wouldn't be here to attack me and be defended by
wimps like you.

Personal - GFY.

Thanks a lot, Troy.

To be honest, most of the time you make a post like that, the
OP was genuine (unless it was obvious flamebait). And it makes
you look silly. Sorry. Go back and read some.

You are such a sucker: They do that deliberately to make
me look bad.

Hmmm. <bites tongue>
"They" are out to get me. "They" have nothing better to do than post
normal posts by the hundreds in the off chance you will reply to them
and say you didn't download it and accused them of being a troll without
actually reading any of the content yourself.

"They" don't need to make you look bad.

Were you born yesterday?

Nope. I've got the crow's feet to prove it.

Why would they post something to me that is obviously meant
for ME when they know I don't read their articles?

Duh.

Newsflash. Usenet is not *yours*. It is not your mailbox, it is a
public forum. They are posting to everyone. As are you.

I am concerned with the future of the Usenet.

It is dying because of the trolls.

Because people like you are overly-tolerant and newsadmins
make it easy for them.

I don't tolerate trolls. I never followup to them and I delete
them immediately.

You talk to obvious trolls that have been harassing me for
ages. All the time. That's feeding them.

And you help obvious trolls all the time.

In your opinion they are trolls, based on headers only. I actually read
the contents before passing judgement.

There is no legitimate reason to use XNA or change aliases
on the Usenet.

If you want to pretend that you are seeing a sheep instead
of a wolf in sheep's clothing, go ahead.

I'll admit it is easier.

Glass is half full kinda guy, I am.

You exacerbate the problem by posting followups or [OT] pings
to them. That just increases the traffic and pins a very large
target on you.

Again you are blaming me for RESPONDING to the trolls.

They are deliberately harassing me and you know quite
well that they are.

I think that you just have a guilty conscience.

I am trying to help you. I have nothing to feel guilty about.

<snip>

So you go on feeding the trolls and helping them be better
trolls, and I'll continue trying to teach people to identify
them and filter them.

Even if they are posting their Grandma's favorite chocolate
chip cookie recipe at the moment.

I, at least, was not born yesterday.

Take 'er easy, Troy.

You too.

--
Troy Piggins : "My karma just ran over my dogma"
,-o
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