roundtable: Letters of the `Jlehm' Kind

roundtable: Letters of the `Jlehm' Kind

Letters of the `Jlehm' Kind

Fred G Athearn (fga@world.std.com)
Wed, 8 Mar 1995 09:02:40 -0500 

Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1995 09:02:40 -0500
From: fga@world.std.com (Fred G Athearn)
Message-Id: <199503081402.AA12799@world.std.com>
To: fga@world.std.com, roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Letters of the `Jlehm' Kind

 
     This has turned into a very interesting discussion with
some very good proposals as to how to fight what seem to be
sophisticated disruptions of public discussion lists via public
postings.  It seems clear that such things ARE going on.
 
     However, I have not yet seen a response from anyone else
who seems to have received a "letter of the Jlehm kind". I am
taking about the following situation:
 
     1. A person posts something a bit "political" to a
     group that is not usualy very political -- say for
     example one for K-12 teachers talking about using
     networks in the schools.
 
     2. The poster then recieves back an individually
     addressed e-mail letter that has most or all of the
     following characteristics:
 
          a) It is from someone he does not recognize who
             seems to be a lurker on the list posted to.
 
          b) The subject header says it is in reply to the
             "political" posting.
 
          c) The letter makes no specific reference to the
             posting it claims to respond to.
 
          d) The letter contains a number of vague and
             generic threats that stop well short of being
             criminal -- the subtext is: "I (or we) know
             who you are, what you are trying to do, who you
             work for, and what to do to stop you".
 
          c) The letter is written with a style that
             suggests passion, and perhaps instability --
             the subtext is: "someone who could write this
             might realy act".
 
     Now I urge you all, just for a moment, to shed your thick,
flame-hardened, net-vet hides and put you yourself in the shoes
of a newbie, using a work account, who, perhaps for the first
time, posts something vaguely "political" to a specialized list.
 
     Do you just hit the delete button or do you read the letter
over and over with your heart racing?  Here is someone you don't
know who seems out to get you, your job, your funding, your
reputation, etc., and it is all just because you opened your
mouth and said something that the right-wingers didn't like.
 
     Perhaps the most disturbing thing about letters of the Jhlem
kind is that if they proved to be an effecive tool to squelch
political discussion they could be automated.
 
     Some of you may remember the "Turky Wars" where an automated
system scanned postings and sent randomly selected diatribes to
respond to all discussion of "Trukey".  It would be possible to
do the same thing aimed at "political" posters to selected
mailing lists.
 
     Am I crazy to think that someone might try to do this?
 
     Has anyone seen signs that such an operation is underway
or is having its letters field tested?
 
     If something like this IS going on, how can it be detected
and countered?

Fred Athearn
Paradise Hill
Bellows Falls
VT  05101

(802) 869-2003 (voice) fga@world.std.com (E-mail)

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