Re: [Asrg] Content filter abuse for censorship

J C Lawrence <claw@kanga.nu> wrote:
> > So Vernon has exposed the true intent of DCC: It's a shared system of
> > filtering material which is objectionable to the participants.
> 
> That's what ___ALL___ public spam filtering systems are, from RBLs to
> blacklists, to razor on down.  Is this a revelation?

  Call me naive, I guess.  People complain loudly when RBLs list
people who haven't spammed, but who engage in behaviours that the the
maintainers of the RBL finds offensive.  This occurs even when the
publicly stated position of the maintainers is that the purpose of the
list is only to block spam.  It seems I was wrong to believe that
abuse of content filtering tools would provoke similar outrage...

  To quote http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/dcc/ ...

   [ information from DCC ] can be used by SMTP servers and mail user
   agents to detect and reject or filter spam or unsolicited bulk mail.

  Dis-ingenious justifications aside, there's no way that a message to
3-4 people about an ongoing conversation can be considered "spam", or
"unsolicited bulk mail."

> <shrug> It seems fairly clear cut from here.  I can stand up, as others
> have, and say, "George Bush is an idiot, don't listen to him!".  Perhaps
> I do this on a mailing list using a machine processable form that some
> people inject directly into their radio tuning systems -- much as Vernon
> is said to have done with DCC.  
> 
> Where's the difference?

  If you request that other people censor their traffic, it's an
attempt at censorship.  If they do censor their traffic as a result of
your request, it's obviously censorship.

  Alan DeKok.
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