Re: "Cancelbots", or Big Brother?!

[David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Date: Thu, 30 Jun 94 12:09:55 -0400
From: shap@viper.cis.upenn.edu (Jonathan Shapiro)
To: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu


The New York Times article contained substantial inaccuracies. Mr.
Kessler's reactions sensationalize these inaccuracies and add to the
confusion and misunderstanding.


The netnews software includes a mechanism for canceling articles.
This feature was originally intended to allow a poster to rescind an
article that they had decided they didn't want to have sent or no
longer needed an answer to.  It also allowed the netnews administrator
to moderate the well-intentioned excesses of new users who do not
understand the etiquette of the net.


Cancelling an article across the entire network does not require
breaking in to any machines or writing any terribly clever programs.
Any netnews administrator, at any site, can cancel an article over the
whole net.  This has not led to censorship because building programs
to automatically cancel articles requires more effort than anyone has
been willing to put in to date.  In short, censorship has not yet been
cost effective.


Netnews has been a community self-governed system.  Until the recent
introduction of commercial interests who simply don't give a damn
about the community's opinion, there has been no need for
authenticated administration.  Whether there now exists such a need is
very much subject to debate.


Mr. Kessler assumes incorrectly that email can be cancelled in the
same way.  In current email systems this is not true.  A third party
administrator cannot reach over onto your local machine and cancel
your email, nor is it simple to censor it in transit.




Jonathan S. Shapiro