This is David O'Toole and this is my third attempt to send this
message to this mailing list that I am supposedly an admin of. My
normal email address dto(a)ioforms.org appears to have been
blacklisted despite that address being listed as an admin for the
list and coming from Networksolutions. I also found myself unable
to post to the boston-lisp list a while back, but that was with my
old email address.
The message below contains my explanations for what happened last
month to my sites and so on.
X-NETSOL-Whitelist: Yes
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:43:06 -0400
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-
DAEMON(a)omr9.networksolutionsemail.com>
To: <dto(a)ioforms.org>
Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)
The original message was received at Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:43:01 -0400
from mail.networksolutionsemail.com [205.178.146.50]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<lisp-game-dev(a)common-lisp.net>
(reason: 550 This message scored 1.8 spam points.)
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to a.mx.common-lisp.net.:
>>> DATA
<<< 550 This message scored 1.8 spam points.
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable
Reporting-MTA: dns; omr9.networksolutionsemail.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; mail.networksolutionsemail.com
Arrival-Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:43:01 -0400
Final-Recipient: RFC822; lisp-game-dev(a)common-lisp.net
Action: failed
Status: 5.2.0
Remote-MTA: DNS; a.mx.common-lisp.net
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 This message scored 1.8 spam points.
Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:43:06 -0400
------- Forwarded Message
X-Authenticated-UID: dto(a)ioforms.org
From: dto(a)ioforms.org
To: lisp-game-dev(a)common-lisp.net
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:42:57 -0400
Sender: dto
Hello Lispgames community,
I'd like to offer a few words of explanation for what happened last
month to my websites and to my now-canceled Autumn 2011 Boston Lisp
presentation.
In response to my announcement of the upcoming presentation on the
boston-lisp list, I received some off-list responses from a list
member.
I believed these emails to be suspicious because:
1. They contained what seemed to be confidential information about
a
Lisp company, but were sent from one gmail account (his) to
another
(mine).
2. The sender repeatedly expressed interest in my work and goals
and
seemed to want a lot of information about me, but also seemed to
omit information that I openly expressed interest in (i.e. the
software patent linked to on the page.)
and,
3. The first email contained an offer to meet me in person, but I
could
not verify the identity of the other Gmailer.
I very quickly found myself a difficult position: who I was really
talking to, and why exactly should I be giving out the requested
information? Wasn't there already a shitload of information online
about
my beliefs and my projects? Why would it be necessary to meet in
person?
Will OTHERS be contacted and be placed in similar predicaments?
If secret research (or at least unethical patent trolling) is indeed
involved, then you have a right to know. The Lisp community taught
me
how to finally program effectively after years of frustration with
other
languages; I could hardly return the favor by simply sitting on
information that I believe could help other Lispers make a more
informed
decision.
So, rather than try to puzzle it out in the dark and just hope that
no
one else in Lispgames would find themselves "probed" in this
potentially
fraudulent manner, I posted the entire email thread so that people
could
decide for themselves, and then contacted several people who I
consider
to be experts in order to seek advice on my situation.
Thanks to the all-pervading and insecure computer networks that we
(inexplicably) still depend on for everything, we live in a moment
of
supreme civilizational paranoia. The trials and tribulations of US
defense contractors like HBGary provide a case in point. We have
seen an
upswing in the harassment and even arrest of programmers around the
world.
Instead of "you're just being paranoid, David", my various
inquiries led
me to believe that my unease about these emails had been justified
at
least in part. The appearance of a portion of the email exchange on
Cryptome, along with part of a subsequent and related email train,
may
yet make me the subject of a reprisal. (Just visit the EFF website
if
you think programmers don't get harassed for silly shit.)
This is why I shut down all my sites and canceled my Google account-
--
taking my gmail, youtube account, and blogger blog with it. I then
lived
in total misery while I tried to figure out how to proceed, wishing
I'd
never received those emails.
But someone convinced me that hiding my work would not be
productive. So, after taking a number of steps to protect myself,
I've
brought back much of my web presence (on different servers that I
pay
for) and have resolved to continue Blocky development in the open.
I would much rather have given my exciting presentation at BLM than
have
gone through this miserable episode. But that's life. I just want
everyone to know what happened, and that I have a hunch that the
uptick
in the perceived value of Lisp technology might draw unsuspecting
Lispers into the global tech chess game.
Wait, isn't Lisp great for winning games like that?
