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@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@omr9.networksolutionsemail.com> To: dto@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@common-lisp.net (reason: 550 This message scored 1.8 spam points.)

----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to a.mx.common-lisp.net.:

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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@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@ioforms.org From: dto@ioforms.org To: lisp-game-dev@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?