Might just be me but I think that anyone who sends out nasty legalistic demand letters to people who hit 'reply all' on a mailing list should be banned. The action is rude and arrogant for a start, it is intimidating and unpleasant. And I see no particular need to allow such people to make other people tolerate that behavior.
The details of the legalistic demands are irrelevant, nobody has time to read that sort of nonsense.
Spam control is something I have quite a bit of experience of and the reason we rejected approaches like qsecretary is they are a very good way to find yourself being blocked or banned. What the people using them are doing is shifting their spam problem onto everyone else.
On Thu, Sep 4, 2025 at 6:19 PM Michael De Roover <ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If you reply to this notice, you are (1) acknowledging that Professor
> Bernstein does not want to receive bulk mail; (2) confirming that your
> message is not part of a bulk mailing; and (3) agreeing to pay Professor
> Bernstein $250 if your message is part of a bulk mailing.
[MDR] This is ridiculous, /Professor/ Bernstein. None of this is an agreement,
it is extortion by default. You can forget about any of that money. This is
not bulk email, and even if it is, the damages to your mail servers are nigh
guaranteed to not be anywhere near $250. Not only that, how are you even going
to enforce any of that?
Met vriendelijke groet,
Michael De Roover
Mail: ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: michael.de.roover.eu.org
What are ideas but thoughts in our heads,
if we cannot collaborate to make them reality?
-- vim@thonkpad.internal
On Friday, 5 September 2025 00:11:08 Central European Summer Time The
qsecretary program wrote:
> Hi. This is D. J. Bernstein's automated mail-handling program. I've
> received a message from you. The top of your message is shown below.
>
> Professor Bernstein receives many interesting messages. Unfortunately,
> he also receives a torrent of unsolicited commercial mail, unsolicited
> job applications, unsolicited mailing-list subscriptions, forged
> mailing-list subscriptions, etc.
>
> Professor Bernstein has asked me to reject all bulk mail messages. But
> I'm a rather primitive computer program, and I'm not sure whether your
> message is bulk mail.
>
> If you reply to this notice, you are (1) acknowledging that Professor
> Bernstein does not want to receive bulk mail; (2) confirming that your
> message is not part of a bulk mailing; and (3) agreeing to pay Professor
> Bernstein $250 if your message is part of a bulk mailing.
>
> I won't look at the contents of your reply. A simple OK is fine, as long
> as it's sent to the address shown above. You don't have to include a
> second copy of your message.
>
> If you do not reply to this notice, your message will eventually be
> returned to you, and Professor Bernstein will not see it.
>
> I realize that this confirmation process is inconvenient. I'm sorry for
> the hassle. I hope that IM2000, Professor Bernstein's new Internet mail
> architecture, succeeds in eliminating these problems. In the meantime,
> we're all suffering because of a few inconsiderate people.
>
> Sincerely,
> The qsecretary program
>
> P.S. Professor Bernstein has asked me to convey his own apologies to you
> if you're someone he knows. I'm sure he'll tell me to accept subsequent
> messages from you without confirmation.
>
> If you're replying to a message that Professor Bernstein sent you, the
> problem is probably that the return address in your message isn't the
> same as the address that Professor Bernstein has on file. I'll let
> Professor Bernstein know that he should add your new address.
>
> P.P.S. If you're a legitimate mailing-list manager, and you've received
> what appears to be a subscription request from djb@xxxxxxxx: That
> request is a forgery. Professor Bernstein uses different addresses for
> his mailing-list subscriptions. Please remove djb@xxxxxxxx from your
> mailing list. Do not reply to this message.
>
> Note that high-quality mailing-list software confirms each subscription
> request with a secure cryptographic authenticator; supports tracing by
> returning a complete copy of each request, including Received fields;
> and supports filtering by adding a Mailing-List field to every outgoing
> message, including confirmation notices. If your software does not have
> these features, upgrade!
>
>
> --- Below this line is the top of your message.
>
> Received: (qmail 1059732 invoked from network); 4 Sep 2025 22:11:30 -0000
> Received: from e1.nixmagic.com (HELO nixmagic.com) (116.203.235.171)
> by cr.yp.to with SMTP; 4 Sep 2025 22:11:30 -0000
> Received: from thonkpad.lan (wlan0.thonkpad.lan [192.168.10.23])
> by nixmagic.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 647DEDD5D3;
> Thu, 4 Sep 2025 22:11:28 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Michael De Roover <ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Salz, Rich" <rsalz=40akamai.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, ietf@xxxxxxxx
> Cc: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@xxxxxxxx>, "ietf@xxxxxxxx" <ietf@xxxxxxxx>,
> Tom Beecher <beecher@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Complaint to AD regarding further censorship of MODPOD list
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:11:28 +0200
> Message-ID: <6360124.lOV4Wx5bFT@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Organization: thonkpad.internal
> In-Reply-To:
> <CAL9Qcx5mV-F5Rn8dzNnJ1V_VWh+gD9uEMaf73qUTritx3WFfEw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> References:
> <20250904201426.627553.qmail@xxxxxxxx>
> <MN2PR17MB4031A3BD973A9097A9E18561CD00A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.outlook
> .com> <CAL9Qcx5mV-F5Rn8dzNnJ1V_VWh+gD9uEMaf73qUTritx3WFfEw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> On Thursday, 4 September 2025 23:58:17 Central European Summer Time Tom
>
> Beecher wrote:
> > Accusing the IETF of being a "criminal organization" , while also asking
> > the IETF to listen to your complaints is a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's
> > see
> > if it pays off for ya.
>
> I will admit to have stopped reading the PDF once I saw "Criminal Antitrust
> law" being mentioned. While I will state that the IETF has a lot to improve
> on with regards to inclusion of small operators (big server men attitude by
> incumbent participants), I do not consider this to be anywhere near an
> antitrust case. There are competing standardization bodies, notably OARC
> for the DNS. And I do not consider IETF to be "not open" to collaboration
> by small operators either, especially on the mailing lists.
>
> Any legal action based on this or any of my previous emails' contents will
> be met with an equal response.
>
> Met vriendelijke groet,
> Michael De Roover
>
> Mail: ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Web: michael.de.roover.eu.org
>
> What are ideas but thoughts in our heads,
> if we cannot collaborate to make them reality?
> -- vim@thonkpad.internal
