From: by403@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Spiros Triantafyllopoulos)
Subject: re: Hasan B Mutlu
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 04:22:45 GMT


In article <1992Aug27.034946.23143@tygra.Michigan.COM>,
root@tygra.Michigan.COM (Charlie Root) writes:
>Our site fed anadolu, the site from which Hasan Mutlu posts. As of this
>time, because we are in a temporary location without adequate phone lines
>the feed to anadolu and our other downstream sites are suspended. I don't
>know what route he is using to get out his messages to the net, but it 
>is not through our site. His use of the name "anadolu.MICHIGAN.COM" is a
>temporary misnomer, although it isn't permanently terminated.

The 'temporary misnomer' had been posting (forging) articles thru the
post-usenet@ucbvax.berkeley.edu for several weeks, and kept posting
till (probably) the powers that be at Berkeley pulled the plug,
probably yesterday. History will show whether this will work.

>When his feed gets reactivated, I will inform him that we will not tolerate
>so much crossposting like he has done before. I have been informed that 
>he has posted to groups like news.admin and alt.politics.clinton, which are
>in my opinion, inappropriate places to discuss the Armenian-Turkish 
>debate. 

And I am sure you will expect him to listen. Now, about that bridge in
Zilwakee :-). Seriously, now. He did not listen before, and he has
several accounts canned to prove it. What makes you think he will
listen to you? Will you be willing to remove his account and lose
him as a customer if he does not (when he will not, that is) cooperate 
and act rationally?

Will your site also not tolerate smoke-and-mirror headers, commonly
used by Mutlu and Company? Some pretty conclusive evidence was
presented earlier that anatolia.mn.org was used to send articles to 10
or so news groups, appearing to have originated from
anadolu.michigan.com, but in reality coming out of other hosts... 

>Free Speech is fine, and we support it, but to insure an orderly net, 
>topics must be placed where they belong. 


Free Speech is fine, and we support it also, but to insure an orderly
net, topics must be placed where they belong, and effort must be taken
to ensure that the net is not used as a cheap media for (for lack of
better terms) 'furthering one's causes'. The net did not tolerate the
various headhunters, commercialization efforts, or other abusers.  Is
60 messages a day, each and every one filled with insults, insults, and
more insults, and posted to 10 groups, Free Speech? If so, Bring Back
the Headhunters! Bring back the Commercializers! B1FF, ARF, and B-Cpu
can't be far behind.

>Several sites have tried to email-bomb  Mutlu's site in the past few
>days. The efforts were thwarted and the result was one suspended college
>student and one who, after repeated abuses was THROWN OUT of college.
>Several others are under investigation by their sysadmins.
>
>May I remind you all that email-bombings fall under the Federal Computer
>Fraud and Abuse Act as well as most state laws and laws in most western 
>nations. Our site will prosecute those who tie up our network links
>with terrorist traffic.

I wonder if you'll prosecute people who tie up the net with useless,
forged-headers-galore, crossposted-to-eternity articles, using their
$20 a month subscription to your machine to 'further their cause' via Usenet.
I also wonder if people posting from non-existing, non-traceable
hosts will also be 'prosecuted'.

For the last year at least, Mutlu has easily accounted for half or
more of trafic to soc.culture.(greek turkish soviet), soc.history,
talk.politics.mideast, etc etc etc. Another 25 per cent or so were
articles of people posting Mutlu related material. These articles were
propagated to all over the civilized world, all costing Mutlu 20
dollars a month (or whatever). How about the cost to the rest of the
world? News.lists stats had Mutlu consistenly among the top 10 Usenet
posters, second only to automated weather statistics postings.

>Any e-mail to "anadolu.michigan.com" will end up coming right back to
>the sender as I've deconfigured that site from our mailer. Also, checks
>at our ISP's mailer will alert their staff and we'll bounce that mail
>back to you. At this time, due to problems at our end, YOU CANNOT 
>REACH MR MUTLU AT ANADOLU.MICHIGAN.COM. 

At no time to my knowledge we have been able to reach Mutlu at the
address above.  Mutlu would not cooperate or adhere to commonly
followed practices in Usenet, such as posting to relevant news groups,
following up by e-mail if possible, avoiding cross-posting, and using
non-flammable material for his articles. After michigan.com stopped
providing feed to anadolu.michigan.com, the whole issue of emailing
there is a non-sequiteur as, as we all know, we can't send mail to non
existing hosts.

>Lets all just respect each other's rights and stay away from the nasties. 

In a Mutlu context, the use of the word respect is an oxymoron. He has
not respected any of the policies or principles upon which Usenet was
founded 12 years ago. He has used just about all the tactics in the
book (forger headers, posting from non existing hosts, insults,
intimidation, ignoring pleas to stop, using the net for personal
propaganda, forging host names/user ids, generating tremendous volumes
of repeated material, posting tremendous volumes of copyrighted
material (yea, he references them properly, too)), and everything else
I can think of to 'further his cause' at everyone else's expense.

Sure, he has a right to post. But the rest of the net has a right NOT
to be subjected to the practices above. Enough is Enough. 

I can understand your position; he's your customer and as such you
want to keep him satisfied. But please think of the consequences to
the rest of the net of what Mutlu does thru your system. It is your
right to have him as customer, it is his right to post as much as
he wants to wherever he wants, and it is our (collectively I hope)
right to complain ad infinitum about him.... 

One final point. I (as well as most other anti-Mutlus) don't do this
because "we are net.wheenies and can not cope with the content of
Mutlu's articles", as it was suggested earlier at news.sysadmin.  At
least personally, I don't care a bit about what Mutlu writes, and have
actually come to enjoy his articles and collect his quotations, some
of which I am sure will become mainstream one day. While I appreciate
(some of) his articles for their (frequently) high entertainment
value, I do not appreciate the VOLUME, CROSSPOSTING, or SELF-SERVING
NET USE that Mutlu (and the ghostposters) seems fit to practice.

>Thank you for your attention.

Thank you also,

>John Palmer
>POSTMASTER
>Michigan.COM
>jp@michigan.com 

Spiros Triantafyllopoulos
by403@freenet.cleveland.edu
Newsgroups: news.admin