Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!vsi1!octopus!avsd!childers
From: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Maps Subverted
Summary: it should be obvious
Keywords: short term, long term, database, sabotage, commercialism, thievery
Message-ID: <453@avsd.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jan 89 21:03:45 GMT
References: <405@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US> <399@lakart.UUCP> <3661@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Followup-To: comp.mail.uucp
Organization: die Edelstahlratte
Lines: 61

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:

>	I really don't see what the big deal is.  I don't remember seeing a
>copyright notice on the maps, so it seems that anybody is free to use them
>for whatever they want.  And, it sounds like a damn good way to get a high
>quality list of Unix techie types.

That's the short-term perspective.

Now let's look at a long-term perspective. A perspective that includes the
gradual refusal to register machines, for fear that it will be used for an
inappropriate purpose as the computer-mailing-list-vendors of the world
peddle one's name across every doorstep they can find.

I already give false names to a lot of mailing lists, partially to track who
sells their mailing list to whom, but mostly to fuck with their database. So,
I guess we ought to include the possibility of someone doing something along
those lines, to make the mailing-list peddlers' product a bit less reliable.

Now, these false map entries generate false mappings, and mail starts to get
hosed. Connectivity droops. ( No, that's not a typo. ) The UUCP domain falls
apart at the seams.

Well, so much for a publically-maintained, reliable database and connectivity.

=====

Now, while that's a worst-case scenario, there are many possible paths for
things to follow if we allow this one critical first step, the commercializing
of the UUCP map databases, to exist unchallenged.

The people who did this don't care. It's profits to them, they sell the map,
the map sells goods, everyone is happy except the consumer, and since when
has s/he mattered ?

Perhaps this is an opportunity to examine the dangers of public databases,
as this isn't the first time a publically maintained database has been open
to sabotage, and, given the facility of the US Government at ignoring common
restrictions on invasion of privacy and the like, it won't be the last. So
it's not all bad. This might help us avoid future efforts at harrassment.

But, yes, a lot of bad - erosive to what we've worked for - things can happen
if this first step is allowed to exist as an acceptable alternative to the
older, more acceptable method of building mailing databases through hard work.

In many respects, this use of the database without first exposing the idea to
public discussion has all the hallmarks of a person whom knew exactly what
they were doing. It also feels, to me, like stealing from the Usenet.

>Roy Smith, System Administrator
>Public Health Research Institute
>{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net
>"The connector is the network"

-- richard

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