From: ptsc <ptsc@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: Newsguy CENSORSHIP test 2
Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2000 21:58:55 -0500
Organization: ARS: Perhaps The Most Malignant Newsgroup on Usenet
Message-ID: <ssre0t0pufmdk7vb7fj2kqqhccrne0rm9v@4ax.com>
On Mon, 06 Nov 2000 21:53:32 -0500, ptsc <ptsc@my-deja.com> wrote:

> Send your NON tax-deductible gift to
> Ernie Erma
> 5934 N 15th Rd
> arlington VA 11106
I have not tested the exact filter that is censoring these posts. However, posts with Arnie Lerma's address mentioning stamps do not propagate.

A few changes made it "acceptable" and it propagated.

I posted about eight of these with various changes and this is the only one that propagated. This means that newsguy is operating with secret filters.

I hate to say it, but it's true.

ptsc

From: ptsc <ptsc@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: Newsguy CENSORSHIP test 2
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 12:29:40 -0500
Message-ID: <hreg0t4j434gte60itv2ad3hjc0j0bp1l6@4ax.com>
On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 15:08:45 +0000, Dave Bird <dave@xemu.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Of the "Newsguy CENSORSHIP test" series I got 2, 5, 10, 12, 14,15,16.
Yes, those are the ones that got through. Number 17 was the clincher, which didn't go through. It appears that referring to <rot13>CnlCny</rot13> in the message is an automatic kill filter on newsguy, meaning that one can not even discuss the filter itself, whether or not CnlCny is a sensible term to croak a message, or even whether or not CnlCny are spammers.

This is ridiculous and I'm taking it up with newsguy. I'd also be interested in any other messages which appear to be being filtered, but please do so only on documentable filtering and not based on paranoid suppositions (hi Bernie!) ptsc

From: ptsc <ptsc@my-deja.com>
Subject: Things that are NOT censor triggers
Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2000 23:38:07 -0500
Message-ID: <se1f0tkr29npv1b8nc8pqrmav7leh8h1fj@4ax.com>
Mentioning Arnie Lerma doesn't trigger it.

Mentioning Arnie Lerma's address doesn't trigger it.

Here's the address:

Arnie Lerma 6045 N 26th Rd arlington VA 22207 Mentioning stamps doesn't trigger it.

Mentioning this URL where you can buy stamps for Arnie Lerma and send them to his address doesn't trigger it.

https://www.stampsonline.com/ordering/index.htm Mentioning alerma@bellatlantic.nospam.net which is Arnie Lerma's email address doesn't trigger it, nor does mentioning that you remove "nospam" to email there trigger it.

Mentioning that Arnie Lerma is an Ex-Scientology-Slave doesn't trigger it.

Mentioning the URL for http://www.usps.com doesn't trigger it.

Mentioning that it is a NON tax-deductible gift doesn't trigger it.

Mentioning "snail mail" doesn't trigger it.

If this gets posted, I'm going to make one more minor change, and if I'm correct I'll have figured it out.

ptsc

From: ptsc <ptsc@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: Things that are NOT censor triggers
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 12:33:41 -0500
Message-ID: <43fg0tknkpemmuu0jj2deqdb2gkg7a7jui@4ax.com>
On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 15:30:25 +0000, Dave Bird <dave@xemu.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>>Mentioning that Arnie Lerma is an Ex-Scientology-Slave doesn't trigger it.
>>Mentioning the URL for http://www.usps.com doesn't trigger it.
>>Mentioning that it is a NON tax-deductible gift doesn't trigger it.
>>Mentioning "snail mail" doesn't trigger it.
> Ker-rect; none of those things stopped your post from arriving.
I posted a message identical to this but added the word <rot13>CnlCny</rot13>

and then, the message would not go through. Then I posted the original Arnie Lerma stamps post but changed CnlCny, where it occurred, to Google, and it went through.

CnlCny is the kill filter. By itself. Not even the URL. Just mentioning that such a company exists trips the kill filter. Posting a news story about them would trigger it. Posting something to news.admin.net-abuse.usenet accusing them of being spammers would trigger it. Posting a lawsuit you had filed against them would do it. Mentioning that there is a kill filter on the term triggers it.

This is incredibly idiotic and Newsguy should be told that keyword-based filtering is an Internet joke and has been one for years.

ptsc

Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 23:02:45 -0600
From: No User <no.user@anon.xg.nu>
Subject: The Magic Word on Newsguy
Message-ID: <3ff34329953eaf7eff6a19f2ada1d6e1@anon.xg.nu>
Organization: mail2news@dizum.com
OK, the magic word is "PayPal."

The Arnie Lerma post, unaltered except for deleting the URL for PayPal, as well as the word PayPal, goes through perfectly fine.

If PayPal earned this honor by spamming, then I think we can call the wolves off of newsguy, because they had it coming. Newsguy should however keep closer track of what they're blocking so that they can tell you why a particular post was blocked.

ptsc


From: ptsc <ptsc@my-deja.com>
Subject: Posted to newsguy.general
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2000 11:33:55 -0500
Message-ID: <4nbg0tgf3cbv97tffatpomu5ha8irrcffm@4ax.com>
Hello, back from alt.religion.scientology again. A poster there, Arnie Lerma, had trouble for a while posting a request for stamps to send out information packages regarding the cult of Scientology, and we had a devil of a time figuring out precisely why.

On alt.religion.scientology a lot of the regular posters end up sued, harassed, driven out of house and home and otherwise targeted by Scientology, and at least two of those use a certain service to collect donations. This is only done on the newsgroup itself, is part of the regular newsgroup activitiy, and is not commercial in the sense of seeking a profit. This has been the case on this newsgroup since at least 1995. It is entirely on-topic and not at all unusual for people to be collecting money for defense funds and donations to charitable groups relating to the topic of the newsgroup. The original poster, Arnie Lerma, was told that the message in question was considered "commercial" by newsguy, but not told what the kill filter was actually hitting, which I find quite odd. It would seem sensible to know why an article is being censored and how to purge the article in question of the "offending" content.

The service in question is P*yp*l at http://www.p*yp*l.com Now I am aware that another person was spamming requests for donations to hundreds of newsgroups, which was spam and indeed off-topic to the vast majority of newsgroups to which it was posted. (This user was not an ars participant.)

It appears the word "P*yP*l" by itself triggers the kill filter. Since I'm not certain it will do that on newsguy.general I'm going to post including the term here and "censor" it with asterisks if it doesn't go through.

This use of a single word as a kill filter would make it impossible to discuss the kill filter itself, to find out why articles even mentioning P*yP*l would not propagate, or even evidently for the administrators of newsguy to figure out why the articles were being filtered.

Hence, the ridiculous result that one can not even discuss the filter itself on the newsgroup without triggering the filter. I have tested this extensively with a variety of terms from the article itself, and the only 100% reliable index is that the article will appear if it does not include the word "P*yP*l"

but will not if only that is changed.

I humbly tender the suggestion that this is ridiculous and that pure keyword-based filtering is a poor solution at best. One would even be unable to discuss the fact that one was suing P*yp*l for spamming due to this filter.

Why is this single keyword used as a spam filter when there are entirely legitimate reasons for mentioning it, including discussing the filter itself?

ptsc

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