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Subject: Re: Addition to my "philosophy"/about free e-mail accounts

Author: Will Singleton

Date: 11:15:24 06/07/99

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On June 07, 1999 at 13:10:58, Paul Richards wrote:

>On June 07, 1999 at 11:36:42, Will Singleton wrote:
>
>>On June 07, 1999 at 10:51:06, Shep wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>I'm not so much into people hiding their identity either, but
>>>I don't see so many cases of abuse on CCC that this kind of action seems
>>>necessary, especially considering the work involved.
>>>
>>
>>Shep,
>>
>>I appreciate your comments, and your participation here.  Checking IDs and
>>restricting free emails would require some work on the part of ICD, maybe quite
>>a lot.  But consider the work that the moderators have to do to deal with the
>>existing problem.
>>
>>You don't see most of the junk we have to dump.  The people who cause problems
>>here do so repeatedly, and make the moderators job very difficult.  We can't
>>tell the legitimate posters from the garbage men.  It leads to a kind of siege
>>state, the moderators trying to hold back the looney fringe.  And good people
>>leave, since they are subject to attack, and the board becomes littered with
>>inconsequence.
>
>Which is why worrying about anonymous posting without worrying about
>anonymous reading makes no sense.  You want to keep the jackoffs out
>at the gate, not let them in and then clean up their poop before anyone
>sees it. :)  Practically it's very difficult.  Apart from the vast
>numbers of free email domains, my experience on usenet is that the
>#1 haven for trolls is your home turf, AOL.  Unlike most free email
>setups which tend to add traceable header information, AOL gives no
>clues whatsoever.  Look at your address, "smocfi@aol.com".  If you look
>on usenet the author name is SMO CFI. Should I send you to the dictionary
>to look up the word anonymous? ;) Now it happens that people here already
>know you, but that won't be true for everyone.  AOL also allows you,
>what, ten screen names per account?  Please.  Not only that but I can
>get the one-month-free disks anywhere, sign on to AOL and wreak all sorts
>of havoc, then trade to another account a month later.  I see it all
>the time.  My gut feeling is to get frustrated and wish that AOL was
>banned from the net.  But then all the normal AOL people would suffer.
>So why doesn't AOL force people to put their real names?  It would be
>nice to reduce abuse coming from AOL.  I suspect it's the same reason why
>we don't require all ISPs to attach the user's SSN to every piece of online
>communication.  Because proving your identity isn't worth giving the
>whole world your personal information, because it can and will be
>abused.  Funny that Europe has greater safeguards for online privacy,
>but it is Mr. Faber from Germany suggesting that we stamp everyone with
>an ID. ;)  Imagine the fun Rolf could have with his endless fascist
>prattle. ;)
>
>Perhaps there is a way to automate some of the moderation to make it
>less of a burden.

You make some good points.  However, we are talking about CCC here, not the rest
of the internet.  And, don't forget, I would be more than willing to provide
proof of identity to ICD.  That was part of Harald's proposal.

Will




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