• How can I contact the administrator?

    From wong.jim1980@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Fri Aug 24 23:03:00 2018
    Hello there,

    I would like my old posts to be deleted from mail-archive.com. The site administrator of mail-archive.com refused to delete my old posts from the group comp.os.linux.hardware and said that he will do it only when the list administrator of comp.os.linux.
    hardware asks him to do it.

    Is there any way of contacting the administrator of this group?

    Thank you in advance.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From wong.jim1980@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 25 00:14:51 2018
    Am Samstag, 25. August 2018 09:07:40 UTC+2 schrieb Richard Kettlewell:
    I would like my old posts to be deleted from mail-archive.com. The
    site administrator of mail-archive.com refused to delete my old posts
    from the group comp.os.linux.hardware and said that he will do it only
    when the list administrator of comp.os.linux.hardware asks him to do
    it.

    There is no administrator.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    Thank you for your answer. That means that there is no list owner or something similar?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to wong.jim1980@gmail.com on Sat Aug 25 08:07:39 2018
    wong.jim1980@gmail.com writes:
    I would like my old posts to be deleted from mail-archive.com. The
    site administrator of mail-archive.com refused to delete my old posts
    from the group comp.os.linux.hardware and said that he will do it only
    when the list administrator of comp.os.linux.hardware asks him to do
    it.

    There is no administrator.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not. on Sat Aug 25 10:35:37 2018
    Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> writes:
    One of the problems is also that there is a weak
    connection between a person asking to delete a post
    and the fact that this person was the original author.

    In other words, how can you prove you were the author
    of the posts you asked to delete?
    The email address in the posts is not a valid
    authentication mechanism, since anybody can put
    anything there.

    If someone who isn’t wong.jim1980 forges their address, I’d be
    comfortable with wong.jim1980 being able to delete the resulting posts
    as easily as messages they posted themselves.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Piergiorgio Sartor@21:1/5 to wong.jim1980@gmail.com on Sat Aug 25 11:13:32 2018
    On 2018-08-25 09:14, wong.jim1980@gmail.com wrote:
    [...]
    Thank you for your answer. That means that there is no list owner or something similar?


    This is usenet.
    The group "comp.os.linux.hardware" is *not* a
    mailing list.
    There is no (easy) way to delete posts.

    Each server can have a copy.
    And each server can decide to keep or delete it.
    Meaning that each server can distribute a copy
    again and again.

    Usually there is an expire time, after that the
    posts are deleted, but, as written above, this
    can be different from server to server or it can
    be some server decide to keep it forever (archive).

    One of the problems is also that there is a weak
    connection between a person asking to delete a post
    and the fact that this person was the original author.

    In other words, how can you prove you were the author
    of the posts you asked to delete?
    The email address in the posts is not a valid
    authentication mechanism, since anybody can put
    anything there.

    bye,

    --

    piergiorgio

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Piergiorgio Sartor@21:1/5 to Richard Kettlewell on Sat Aug 25 11:58:25 2018
    On 2018-08-25 11:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> writes:
    One of the problems is also that there is a weak
    connection between a person asking to delete a post
    and the fact that this person was the original author.

    In other words, how can you prove you were the author
    of the posts you asked to delete?
    The email address in the posts is not a valid
    authentication mechanism, since anybody can put
    anything there.

    If someone who isn’t wong.jim1980 forges their address, I’d be comfortable with wong.jim1980 being able to delete the resulting posts
    as easily as messages they posted themselves.

    But it could be the other way around.

    Someone can claim posts made with the "wong.jim1980" address
    and ask to delete them, without being "wong.jim1980".

    In theory, the "administrator" should then contact the
    address in the post and ask for confirmation.
    I guess this would be impractical.

    bye,

    --

    piergiorgio

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Piergiorgio Sartor@21:1/5 to Richard Kettlewell on Sat Aug 25 12:35:22 2018
    On 2018-08-25 12:21, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    [...]
    In theory, the "administrator" should then contact the
    address in the post and ask for confirmation.
    I guess this would be impractical.

    Nonsense, it’s perfectly practical, websites do it automatically all the time.

    "website", not usenet server admins.

    Furthermore, it could be a source of DoS.

    One could collect automatically all the email
    addresses and ask for removal of posts.
    The server(s) will then flood email servers, and
    accounts, with requests of confirmation.

    Which then will lead to ignore such requests.

    bye,

    --

    piergiorgio

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not. on Sat Aug 25 11:21:54 2018
    Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> writes:
    On 2018-08-25 11:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    Piergiorgio Sartor
    <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> writes:
    One of the problems is also that there is a weak
    connection between a person asking to delete a post
    and the fact that this person was the original author.

    In other words, how can you prove you were the author
    of the posts you asked to delete?
    The email address in the posts is not a valid
    authentication mechanism, since anybody can put
    anything there.

    If someone who isn’t wong.jim1980 forges their address, I’d be
    comfortable with wong.jim1980 being able to delete the resulting posts
    as easily as messages they posted themselves.

    But it could be the other way around.

    Someone can claim posts made with the "wong.jim1980" address
    and ask to delete them, without being "wong.jim1980".

    In theory, the "administrator" should then contact the
    address in the post and ask for confirmation.
    I guess this would be impractical.

    Nonsense, it’s perfectly practical, websites do it automatically all the time.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not. on Sat Aug 25 11:47:28 2018
    Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> writes:
    On 2018-08-25 12:21, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    In theory, the "administrator" should then contact the
    address in the post and ask for confirmation.
    I guess this would be impractical.

    Nonsense, it’s perfectly practical, websites do it automatically all
    the time.

    "website", not usenet server admins.

    The technique is the same whoever happens to be in control.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Piergiorgio Sartor@21:1/5 to Richard Kettlewell on Sat Aug 25 12:55:00 2018
    On 2018-08-25 12:47, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    [...]
    "website", not usenet server admins.

    The technique is the same whoever happens to be in control.

    It is not a problem of technique, it is a
    problem of baseline.

    As mentioned before, there is a too wide
    baseline to be sure this will be effective.

    Not only this, but posts in usenet could
    be without a valid email address, so who
    will be contacted in this case?

    bye,

    --

    piergiorgio

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not. on Sat Aug 25 12:13:10 2018
    Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> writes:
    On 2018-08-25 12:47, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    [...]
    "website", not usenet server admins.

    The technique is the same whoever happens to be in control.

    It is not a problem of technique, it is a
    problem of baseline.

    As mentioned before, there is a too wide
    baseline to be sure this will be effective.

    If you mean there are many servers, the answer is simple: they can
    choose (or not) to trust a single verification agency. There is plenty
    of precedent for this on Usenet in the form of anti-spam measures.

    Not only this, but posts in usenet could
    be without a valid email address, so who
    will be contacted in this case?

    Nobody. In this hypothetical if you don’t use a valid email address for
    your postings you don’t get to delete them.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Piergiorgio Sartor@21:1/5 to wong.jim1980@gmail.com on Sat Aug 25 18:11:00 2018
    On 2018-08-25 17:52, wong.jim1980@gmail.com wrote:
    [...]
    So, there is no way to be forgotten in the usenet? A server administrator might refuse to delete messages upon requests and you have no chance to have your old messages deleted. You are right that I could ask to delete old posts from somebody else, as
    I cannot prove that I wrote the messages but, why should I do it?

    Again, you seem to miss the point here.

    Let's say I downloaded all your posts, in my
    local, private PC.

    You will never know this, and I can re-post
    everything whenever I want.
    Or I can give them to whoever I like.
    Or I can redistributed them by different mean.

    Now, rest assured I've no posts older than
    20 days, so I guess yours are long gone.

    Nevertheless, someone else can have a different
    approach and keep everything.
    So, even if the admin of mail-archive.com will
    agree to delete your post, there could be others,
    you do not know who, which still have them.

    It is a distributed system, everybody can have
    everything, so it is quite difficult to delete
    all the posts everywhere.

    bye,

    --

    piergiorgio

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From wong.jim1980@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sat Aug 25 08:52:44 2018
    Am Samstag, 25. August 2018 13:13:11 UTC+2 schrieb Richard Kettlewell:
    Piergiorgio Sartor
    On 2018-08-25 12:47, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    [...]
    "website", not usenet server admins.

    The technique is the same whoever happens to be in control.

    It is not a problem of technique, it is a
    problem of baseline.

    As mentioned before, there is a too wide
    baseline to be sure this will be effective.

    If you mean there are many servers, the answer is simple: they can
    choose (or not) to trust a single verification agency. There is plenty
    of precedent for this on Usenet in the form of anti-spam measures.

    Not only this, but posts in usenet could
    be without a valid email address, so who
    will be contacted in this case?

    Nobody. In this hypothetical if you don’t use a valid email address for your postings you don’t get to delete them.

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    So, there is no way to be forgotten in the usenet? A server administrator might refuse to delete messages upon requests and you have no chance to have your old messages deleted. You are right that I could ask to delete old posts from somebody else, as I
    cannot prove that I wrote the messages but, why should I do it?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to wong.jim1980@gmail.com on Sat Aug 25 19:49:41 2018
    wong.jim1980@gmail.com writes:
    So, there is no way to be forgotten in the usenet?

    Correct.

    A server administrator might refuse to delete messages upon requests
    and you have no chance to have your old messages deleted. You are
    right that I could ask to delete old posts from somebody else, as I
    cannot prove that I wrote the messages but, why should I do it?

    It wasn’t designed with this in mind. You could try legal action but it
    could be expensive...

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Queequeg@21:1/5 to Piergiorgio Sartor on Thu Aug 30 10:07:35 2018
    Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.removethis.de> wrote:

    In other words, how can you prove you were the author
    of the posts you asked to delete?

    Cancel-Lock.

    https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-usefor-cancel-lock-01

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lSzL1DqQn0

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Carlos E. R.@21:1/5 to Richard Kettlewell on Fri Aug 31 11:18:49 2018
    On 2018-08-25 14:49, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    wong.jim1980@gmail.com writes:
    So, there is no way to be forgotten in the usenet?

    Correct.

    A server administrator might refuse to delete messages upon requests
    and you have no chance to have your old messages deleted. You are
    right that I could ask to delete old posts from somebody else, as I
    cannot prove that I wrote the messages but, why should I do it?

    It wasn’t designed with this in mind. You could try legal action but it could be expensive...

    And he would have to litigate on every country in the world known to
    have an nntp server.

    wong.jim1980@gmail.com: this is usenet, not gmail groups. Google does
    not own this. There is no central authority, it is a distributed system,
    and very ancient as far computer things go.

    I may be able to cancel a message, but servers may not recognize the
    command or refuse. Some might, some might not.

    And as you can see, many of us do not use real mail addresses, so can we
    prove we are we?


    --
    Cheers,
    Carlos E.R.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to Carlos E. R. on Fri Aug 31 21:36:46 2018
    "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
    On 2018-08-25 14:49, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    wong.jim1980@gmail.com writes:
    So, there is no way to be forgotten in the usenet?

    Correct.

    A server administrator might refuse to delete messages upon requests
    and you have no chance to have your old messages deleted. You are
    right that I could ask to delete old posts from somebody else, as I
    cannot prove that I wrote the messages but, why should I do it?

    It wasn’t designed with this in mind. You could try legal action but
    it could be expensive...

    And he would have to litigate on every country in the world known to
    have an nntp server.

    At most the ones that didn’t expire, which is a rather smaller set.

    Moreover in practice one might well be satisfied with the 99% solution
    achieved by targetting only those with a large audience.

    (But I still suspect it would be disproportionately expensive.)

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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