Re: Publishing node IPs

[Rachel Llorenna <rachies@xxxxxxxxx>]

While I agree with the notion that ISP's banning huge segments of the
Internet from e-mail and other services in an attempt to stop spam is
bad, it's something that is ultimately the choice and responsibility
of the ISP, and we have no right to compel them to change that. I both
understand Verizon's frustration with all the spam that passes through
their network and your/EFF's position in that it takes more away from
users than gives back.

We can only hope that Sender Policy Framework/Microsoft's Sender ID
initiative will prevent this from being necessary anymore.
Unfortunately, many places don't like Tor too much because of all the
abuse, and while I disagree with outright banning of Tor exit points,
we have to accept that in many cases it's necessary.

It would be nice if Tor users had more accountability for their
actions within the network, but that would go completely against what
the EFF is trying to promote with the Tor network: anonymity instead
of just pseudonymity. However, what the EFF shouldn't be trying to
promote is abuse from script kiddies who have nothing better to do
than annoy opers on IRC by flooding and wasting bandwidth (both IRC's
and the Tor network's.)

The only thing we can do is try to convince Verizon that there are
better ways to stop spam than blocking networks completely; but I'm
sure you can appreciate the fact that they get rather tired of dealing
with all that spam. I suppose the user's friends will have to get
e-mail accounts hosted in the US; perhaps Yahoo or Google Mail or one
of the plethora of other free e-mail accounts offered. That, however,
makes Verizon look pretty stupid for blocking Europe, since it's
trivial to get around their restrictions.

On 4/18/05, Chris Palmer <chris@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Rachel Llorenna writes:
> 
> > I think that, above all, the EFF supports choice. It is an
> > administrator's choice (and right) to completely block Tor users
> > should they choose to do so.
> 
> If the administrator is the same entity as the user, yes most
> definitely. For example, me at home with my /28 on my DSL line. Whee!
> 
> But that is not most often the case. It is most often the case that the
> user is a hapless Verizon subscriber who can't get email from her
> friends in Europe because Verizon thought that blocking all of Europe
> for SMTP would be a great way to stop spam.
> 
> EFF most is most definitely against ISPs making important speech and
> privacy choices for users, without consulting users and without their
> consent or knowledge.
> 
> 
> --
> http://www.eff.org/about/staff/#chris_palmer
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Regards,

Rachel Llorenna (frequency)