XPost: dictator.announce

All:

After 7 or 8 years of fun, I've decided to shut down the dictator.*
hierarchy on 15 April 2020. On that date I'll send out a remove group
control message for each group.

The Dictator's Handbook remains available in epub form and in print.
Write me at moc.liamg@71orifaz (backwards for spam protection) if
you'd like epub or pdf copy of the book.

It was fun while it lasted! Thanks to everyone who participated over
the years.

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XPost: dictator.announce

On 2020-02-09 22:36, RS Wood wrote:

After 7 or 8 years of fun, I've decided to shut down the dictator.*

Why?

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XPost: dictator.announce

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

All:

After 7 or 8 years of fun, I've decided to shut down the dictator.*
hierarchy on 15 April 2020. On that date I'll send out a remove group control message for each group.

The Dictator's Handbook remains available in epub form and in print.
Write me at moc.liamg@71orifaz (backwards for spam protection) if
you'd like epub or pdf copy of the book.

It was fun while it lasted! Thanks to everyone who participated over
the years.

Why not just declare it abandoned? Usenet is full of abandoned hierarchies.

--
Neodome

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XPost: dictator.announce

On 2020-03-06, Neodome Admin <admin@neodome.net> wrote:

Why not just declare it abandoned? Usenet is full of abandoned hierarchies.

For the pleasure of doing the right thing, which is shutting down
properly. Usenet doesn't need any new abandoned hierarchies, especially
when I've still got the GPG keys and my health!

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XPost: dictator.announce

It is done.

I sent out rmgroup control messages for all eight groups in the
hierarchy, stopped all feeds, and shut down INN last week. Later today
I'll decomission the server.

Thanks to everyone that participated in the dictator hierarchy. Anyone
still carrying those groups is on their own now :)

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XPost: dictator.announce

Hi,

It is done.

I sent out rmgroup control messages for all eight groups in the
hierarchy, stopped all feeds, and shut down INN last week. Later today
I'll decomission the server.

Thanks to everyone that participated in the dictator hierarchy. Anyone
still carrying those groups is on their own now :)

The rmgroup control articles were not processed by ftp.isc.org:

2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160] <rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpg: Signature made Thu Apr 16 16:10:57 2020 PDT using RSA key ID 8361E3C3 2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160] <rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpgv exited with status 2

Consequently, the hierarchy still appears in ftp.isc.org and:
http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/index.py?see=DICTATOR


The public PGP key seems the right one, corresponding to:
http://dictatorshandbook.net/usenet/news-public.key

It will need manual deletion then on a few systems...

--
Julien ÉLIE

« En fait, je n'ai qu'une prétention, c'est de ne pas plaire à tout
le monde. Plaire à tout le monde, c'est plaire à n'importe qui. »
(Sacha Guitry)

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XPost: dictator.announce

On Sun, 19 Apr 2020 09:03:26 +0200
Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

The rmgroup control articles were not processed by ftp.isc.org:

2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160] <rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpg: Signature made Thu Apr 16 16:10:57 2020 PDT using RSA key ID 8361E3C3 2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160] <rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpgv exited with status 2

Consequently, the hierarchy still appears in ftp.isc.org and:
http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/index.py?see=DICTATOR

Julien - Anything I should have done differently, or could do now?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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XPost: dictator.announce

RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> writes:

Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

The rmgroup control articles were not processed by ftp.isc.org:

2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160]
<rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpg: Signature made Thu Apr 16 16:10:57 2020 PDT using RSA key ID 8361E3C3 >> 2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160]
<rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpgv exited with status 2

Consequently, the hierarchy still appears in ftp.isc.org and:
http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/index.py?see=DICTATOR

Julien - Anything I should have done differently, or could do now?

Did you change public keys? The one I have is 4B1A460A. The key at:

http://dictatorshandbook.net/usenet/news-public.key

also appears to be 4B1A460A (with subkey 2FB10D8D). The key used to sign
these control messages appears to be some other key.

--
Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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XPost: dictator.announce

On 2020-04-19, Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org> wrote:

RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> writes:

Julien ÉLIE <iulius@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> wrote:

The rmgroup control articles were not processed by ftp.isc.org:

2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160]
<rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpg: Signature made Thu Apr 16 16:10:57 2020 PDT using RSA key ID 8361E3C3 >>> 2020-04-16 23:20:03 [17160]
<rmgroup-dictator.asia-1587078626@stalin.dictatorshandbook.net> PGP:
gpgv exited with status 2

Consequently, the hierarchy still appears in ftp.isc.org and:
http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/index.py?see=DICTATOR

Julien - Anything I should have done differently, or could do now?

Did you change public keys? The one I have is 4B1A460A. The key at:

http://dictatorshandbook.net/usenet/news-public.key

also appears to be 4B1A460A (with subkey 2FB10D8D). The key used to sign these control messages appears to be some other key.

The key changed in 2015 when I had to rebuild the server. What do you recommend as the best path forward?

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XPost: dictator.announce

Hi Randall,

Did you change public keys? The one I have is 4B1A460A. The key at:

http://dictatorshandbook.net/usenet/news-public.key

also appears to be 4B1A460A (with subkey 2FB10D8D). The key used to sign
these control messages appears to be some other key.

The key changed in 2015 when I had to rebuild the server.

Why wasn't it updated in the web site then? All trimestrial posts named "Dictator Hierarchy" in news.admin.hierarchies still mention the old key
(even the last one in December 2019).

What do you recommend as the best path forward?

If nobody has the new key, one cannot do much to automatically remove
these newsgroups with control messages...

--
Julien ÉLIE

« A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted".
Next day he received a hundred letters.
They all said the same thing: "You can have mine." »

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XPost: dictator.announce

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

It is done.

I sent out rmgroup control messages for all eight groups in the
hierarchy, stopped all feeds, and shut down INN last week. Later today
I'll decomission the server.

Thanks to everyone that participated in the dictator hierarchy. Anyone
still carrying those groups is on their own now :)

Are you willing to distribute archive of dictator.*?

--
Neodome

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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XPost: dictator.announce

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:

On 2020-04-19, Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org> wrote:

Did you change public keys? The one I have is 4B1A460A. The key at:

http://dictatorshandbook.net/usenet/news-public.key

also appears to be 4B1A460A (with subkey 2FB10D8D). The key used to
sign these control messages appears to be some other key.

The key changed in 2015 when I had to rebuild the server. What do you recommend as the best path forward?

We generally don't stand on ceremony when removing things, and it seems extremely unlikely that this whole conversation is somehow forged. I've
gone ahead and manually removed the groups from the ftp.isc.org active
file, and will drop the configuration from control-archive when I next get around to making a release.

--
Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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XPost: dictator.announce

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 01:45:39 -0000 (UTC)
Neodome Admin <admin@neodome.net> wrote:

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

It is done.

I sent out rmgroup control messages for all eight groups in the
hierarchy, stopped all feeds, and shut down INN last week. Later today I'll decomission the server.

Thanks to everyone that participated in the dictator hierarchy. Anyone still carrying those groups is on their own now :)

Are you willing to distribute archive of dictator.*?

Sure, it will be a .tgz of the spool files I guess, and only current since 2015 since what was posted previously was lost. Blocknews.org and other long-retention servers have the entire spool starting from 2012. Write me at zafiro17 AT gmail DOT com.

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XPost: dictator.announce

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 16:15:11 -0700
Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org> wrote:

We generally don't stand on ceremony when removing things, and it seems extremely unlikely that this whole conversation is somehow forged. I've
gone ahead and manually removed the groups from the ftp.isc.org active
file, and will drop the configuration from control-archive when I next get around to making a release.

Thank you Russ, and for your patience. I dug around in my keyring to
find out where the issue is, and it's been a wetware problem:

Key 4B1A46OA is correct since 2015. The website was updated correctly
etc. Unfortunately the signing key was corrupted on my key ring, and
GPG defaulted to another key with the same email address. That's why
the posts were signed with a wrong key.

You've proceeded in the right way and I appreciate it. I'll be
shutting down the server. My dislike of GPG stems from my endless
frustrations trying but failing to use it without error.

Thanks to you all for your patience, guidance, and company.

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XPost: dictator.announce

RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> writes:

You've proceeded in the right way and I appreciate it. I'll be shutting
down the server. My dislike of GPG stems from my endless frustrations
trying but failing to use it without error.

Yeah, the idea behind it is very good, but we've never succeeded in making
it easy to use. Even today, despite some reasonably decent tools and
libraries for signing things, the underlying libraries and file formats
and whatnot are arcane and tricky to use properly.

I'm personally extremely familiar with them and use GnuPG routinely for
other purposes, and I'm still putting off rewriting a bunch of ancient
tools that badly need to be rewritten.

--
Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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