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The Economics of Spam

moneymanagement — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:22:54 +0000

The dark side of the Web

Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the
costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancellable Usenet
spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at
"lurkers", people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other
irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.

Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email
discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the
mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.

The Economics of Spam

In general, spam is the excessive distribution of messages to as many people as possible.

E-mail is the cheapest form of direct marketing (much cheaper than telemarketing or bulk junk mail through
the post). Andrew Leung (2003) observed observed that the response rate to spam is as low as 0.005% - only 50 in every million people respond to UBE.

But despite this very low response rate spam can make economic sense because the costs of dealing with it
are felt only by those recipients who don't want it.

And CipherTrust (as reported by John Leyden) says that the response rates for pharmaceuticals is 200 per million, for

“Rolex” is 75 per million, and for porn is 50,000 per million! (Under 1 in 100 click-throughs actually yield a sale).

Fighting Spam

This is an example of negative externalities. Private costs and social costs diverge. Spammers are either unaware or don't care about the costs they impose.

Anti-Spam Software

We can reduce spam in our
e-mail InBox by installing add-on anti-spam software on our workstation.
The marketplace offers a wide selection of such software that works in conjunction with our e-mail client software.

The down side of anti-spam software is its expense and ongoing management effort.

A little Help from our ISP

One line of defence against spam can be our Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs that filter spam
have happier customers and avoid clogging their e-mail servers with useless e-mail.

E-Mail Client Filters

Most e-mail client software
comes with features designed to reduce spam in the InBox by searching for telltale signs in the contents of incoming spam. For example, in Microsoft Outlook, we can set up various filters using the Tools > Rules Wizard function.

Since spam is rarely sent directly to us but to a list of undisclosed recipients, setting a filter that looks for specific words in the subject line is a good place to start.
More sophisticated filters can search for undesirable originators or selected properties of documents.

The limitations of the client e-mail filter approach are that the spammers are fully aware of the features of
the Rules Wizard and can send messages with misleading Subject lines and document characteristics that bypass our filters. Also, these filters are not as sophisticated as the add-on software.

Our Behavior

Quite a different approach to controlling spam relies on disciplining our own behavior. We must resist the temptation to participate in surveys, contests and "free" offers. All of these ask us for information that greatly increases the
likelihood that we will be spammed.

Definite Don'ts

Don't ever click on the
Remove button of spam e-mail. Rather than removing yourself from a list, clicking the Remove button actually confirms that you exist. Now the spammer will subject you to more spam.

Don't ever, ever buy anything from a spammer. Aside from the potential for fraud, we are only encouraging more spam.

Don't complain. In my experience there's no satisfaction to be gained. We'll only raise the level of our irritation meter. Move on. Life is too short.

If it's too good to be true...

Needless to say, nobody in Nigeria is really looking for a random person in the US just to do some money laundering.

No national lottery gives prizes to people who don't buy tickets.

You don't get refunds on products you haven't bought.

And no bank or credit company will ever call you up and ask for your PIN. They know it already. They especially won't call you and ask for your PIN if you had your wallet stolen.

Google Groups è un server Usenet

Snake — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:14:53 +0000

Subject: google group su client usenet
From: ivolinux
Newsgroups: it.comp.os.linux.iniziare

Salve a tutti è da un pò che sto cercando ma senza successo in google
come fare a configurare un client usenet (es xpn) per leggere i vari
post pubblicati nei miei gruppi preferiti ( google-group è un server
usenet a tutti gli effetti), quindi se qualcuno mi può fornire un buon
link o meglio condividere la propria esperienza mi farebbe cosa
gradita
Ringraziamenti anticipati e arrivederci

Der Wandel zum Zensur- und Überwachungsstaat

kaltric — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:33:46 +0000

Ein netter Artikel von medienjunkie2.0, ergänzt von truetigger, betreffend anonymer Internetbeleidigungen sowie Willkür und Zensur seitens der Betreiber und des Staates, auf den ich hier mal aufmerksam machen muss.

Mein Kommentar dazu:

Ich selber wurde schon oft in den verschiedensten Communities gelöscht. Gründe? Wurden mir nie genannt. In "privaten" Communities spielen die Betreiber halt gerne mal Gott...
Bei StudiVZ dagegen wurde ich zwar mal gemahnt, das war's aber auch. (Wo anders hätte man mich ohne Hinweise gelöscht).
Ich persönlich nehme diese Communities deshalb auch wirklich kaum noch ernst. In Foren diskutiere ich eh nicht mehr. Meine Meinung verbreite ich nur noch persönlich und im eigenen Rahmen. Da hätten wir wohl das geschilderte "Man-darf-nicht-alles-sagen"-Gefühl erreicht.
Und Deutschland wird nicht nur ein Zensurland, sondern auch ein Überwachungsstaat. Von Kameras an jeder Ecke über Spitzel-Viren und Befugnisse private PCs auszuspionieren bis hin zur ausufernden privaten Überwachung. Hier im Haus haben die Vermieter ohne den Mietern Bescheid zu geben überall Kameras installiert! Da bin ich doch sehr froh, dass ich in 11 Stunden hier ausziehe.
Und wenn ich einmal groß bin, vielleicht auch auswander. :/
(Das autoritätsgewohnte Deutschland war noch nie sonderlich "relaxt")

Internet

twistedone151 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:21:20 +0000

Mike Masnick discusses in techdirt why the recent, Usenet-destroying "stand against child pornography" by ISPs is, in fact, no such thing.

Blocking access to some websites doesn't solve the problem. Those who still produce and make use of child porn will still get it from other sources -- but it will be more underground, making it more difficult for authorities to track down. Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review. For those folks who support network neutrality, this is highly questionable, because it's clearly going against the basic principles of network neutrality -- but in a way no one will protest because they don't want to be seen as siding with child pornographers.

Death of Usenet #usenet

webhat — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:11:30 +0000

My father send me and article on the death of Usenet: R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008. I was Usenet a warez trader at 14, started my own newsgroup in the alt.* hierarchy at 16, a big contributor at 18 and a Usenet administrator at 20. I too loved Usenet with a passion during a long period of my life. My father still does his answer is "I don't think so..."

I too like to proclaim the death of things, but I realize that in essence Sascha Segan is correct. With large US based providers killing of the alt.* hierarchy, or completely killing of Usenet, there will be a mini-death. In Europe this had been happening too, albeit on a smaller scale. Even the formerly hacker ISP XS4all killed of much of the high volume alt.binaries.* when it became too much for them to store. Having once administered a server I disagreed and even called him on this, but I could see his point.

His, my father's and my idea of the child-pornography groups was that it was best to carry the groups, and at my ISP we used to file reports almost daily on the pornographers and distributors which came from our network. Due to Dutch law we were not allowed to actively pursue these possible offenders, and could only respond to information supplied by our customers.

That brings me to another point, the miscreants, the visitors of alt.misc and other alt.*.misc groups. A subculture of Usenet users who targeted newsgroups for takeovers, much like IRC channel takeovers. They destroyed part of the newsgroups by coming into a newsgroup and filling it so full of flame wars that in the end there was no way for legitimate discussion to continue.

I don't think Usenet is dead, but we will miss many of the legitimate new users if this fragmentation continues.

technorati tags: usenet, miscreants, alt, nntp, irc, porn

You mean some bloggers get PAID to blog?

michigantelephone — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:56:18 +0000

Okay, seriously, I'm not that shocked that some people get paid to blog, even though I'm not. Some of us write blog posts when we feel we have something to say, and don't want to be pressured to output so many words per day or week. Also, in some cases, we have other things we need to do. We may have health issues that preclude writing something every single day. And some of us (I think I fall into this category) are "Winter bloggers" - we write during the times when we are trapped inside, with nothing else to do (more than one of my blog posts has originated on a rainy or snowy day).

But for people who want to make a career of it, there are opportunities available. The question is, should one be paid for writing blog posts, and if so, how much? There is an interesting post entitled
Blogging Jobs: How Much Are Bloggers Paid to Blog? in Blog Herald that suggests that many bloggers are seriously undervaluing their services.

I have mixed feelings about this article. On the one hand, I hate to see any attempts to further commercialize the web. The Internet got its start with people sharing information freely, first in Usenet newsgroups and then on early Web pages. Then the corporations moved in and suddenly everything turned business-oriented.

I sort of resent this because in the old days, if I wanted to post an article every now and then to the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup or some other online forum, nobody had any expectations that I was then obligated to produce a certain amount of output, or else risk having my posts relegated to obscurity (there was always the risk that a post would be rejected by the group moderator, but that was another issue altogether). However, when you write a non-professional blog such as this one, it seems that if you don't have at least a post every day (and maybe more like three or four a day) you get very little notice in the blogosphere. But, few individuals can continuously output more than one post per day (especially if you consider only quality posts that are worth reading) and maintain that output over months or years. It might be easy at first, but eventually you begin regurgitating things you've read elsewhere, because you realize you've run out of original ideas for posts. That's when burnout begins to set in.

So that is where you have the other side of the coin - when you have a blogger (and I'm definitely not talking about myself here) that can output a quality post every day - the sort of post that people want to read, and that causes them to come back to your web site every day and/or subscribe to your RSS newsfeed - that blogger needs some incentive to keep up the good work. And since researching and writing a quality web post takes time - time that could be spent in other income-producimng pursuits - it's not unreasonable that star bloggers get compensated for what they do.

I read somewhere (and I wish I had saved the source of this article) that you actually need a minimum of five writers to produce a successful blog. If you have fewer, you simply will not be able to produce the volume of quality articles that keep people coming back to your site. Sure, you can start a blog with only one person, or maybe even two or three, but in time they are going to get burned out. Then you start picking subjects for posts simply because you feel you need something to write about, not because it's something your readers would actually be interested in. I have been guilty of that and I finally decided that it wasn't worth it - if I didn't feel the least bit passionate about a subject, why should my readers? Perhaps better to fade into obscurity than to churn out uninteresting posts.

What I sometimes think that we really need is for someone to start a blog that would be the equivalent of the old Usenet newsgroups - a way that many people could contribute posts on an occasional basis, as the mood hits them, but where there is no expectation of future output. Where the articles may at times appear more like a conversation between the various authors, but at the same time the articles should contain quality information (or at least opinion supported by facts). Unfortunately, instead of getting something like that we get things like Twitter, which only allows messages so short that you can't really say much of anything meaningful.

Then again, maybe I'm just an olde pharte trying to relive the past. But I have to say, I really miss the days when we contributed to newsgroups and online forums with no expectation of pay, and where there was at least some sense of community (you got to know a bit about the other regular participants in the forums you participated in, even if they were semi-anonymous). We didn't need "social networking" sites where we might pick up a whole bunch of "friends", not one of which we know the first thing about - the better Usenet forums were a community unto themselves. Nowadays, there's a separate web service for everything, but none of them are tied together in the way the old Usenet groups were.

And my point is, in the old days, when you posted something in a Usenet group you would often get nearly instant feedback from other group participants. Post a great idea, or a meaningful message, and people would let you know right away. That was your reward for posting. Now people post in blogs, and unless the blog is large enough and well promoted enough to have an active user base (certainly not the case with most individual blogs, although there are a few notable exceptions), you generally get nothing other than perhaps an occasional comment. But if you write for one of the large blogs, you not only get lots of feedback from readers, you also get paid. Therefore, I can certainly understand why, at this point in time, some bloggers are starting to feel like they want to be paid for every word they write.

I'm just not that way, in part because my well of ideas runs dry so often these days. But maybe there's an opportunity here for someone who can figure out how to make it work - modernize the old Usenet news concept, and make it into something that people today would use. And remember that part of that was that people could be as anonymous as they wanted to be, or as well-known as they wished to be - it was up to the person writing the post to reveal (or not reveal) something about themselves. I am totally turned off by "social networking" sites that ask you to reveal everything but your most intimate information before you can participate (for example, it's nobody's damn business when I was born!). Give us the proper balance between blogging in isolation, and the community feeling of Usenet news, and you may just have a winner on your hands!

Anonymous Press Pioneer (APP) interviews Barbara Schwarz

appinterviews — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:32:13 +0000

Anonymous Press Pioneer (APP) interviews Barbara Schwarz

APP: Why do people write about you?

Barbara Schwarz: Guess they have not enough to do - so they make me into one of their hobbies. I never did anything to encourage it.

APP: Some people say that you're famous and a Public Person, and you say you're not?

Barbara Schwarz: I never asked for any public attention. I just asked the government for some records in which I am truly interested. Actually, I am a very private person. I never called the press, and I just posted to Usenet after anti-religious extremists continued to maliciously defame me there and elsewhere on the net. Here is the thing: a Public Person has the means to encounter falsehoods, libel, slander, and defamation about herself in the media. For example, if somebody lies about a presidential candidate, they can talk to the press at any time and inform the media that what's written or said about them is not true, and the media will print their part of the story. But I don't have this opportunity, which makes me in a non-public person. That means that the Salt Lake Tribune and any other paper can lie all about me and I don't reach the same people to explain otherwise. Same applies if such defamation is on established websites. In order to reach the readers of established websites that show up on the top of the search engine, you need access to websites that reach the same readers. My websites are usually very quickly net-lifted.

APP: What is net-lifted?

Barbara Schwarz:
Despite that I don't write falsehoods about others, anti-religious extremists bombard the ISP of my websites or Blog providers so long with false complaints about me until the ISPs or Blog providers remove the website or the blogs. End of my right of free speech. End of that readers hear how my story really is.

APP: You don't like to be famous?

Barbara Schwarz: My experience is that "fame" hurts. People defame, harass, impostor and forge famous people. They want to be like the famous persons and steal their identities. It is creepy, anybody knows where you live, how you look like, and they may come to your home, uninvited…

I can do without that. That many people know you, does not make your life better. It is not that they help you in any way. Ask famous people… Many famous people are very alone. I can do without noise and unwanted attention in my life. As far as people are concerned, I just look for true friends. If they can't be true friends, they should stay away from me.

APP: Who are these people who publish web pages on you?

Barbara Schwarz: I call them obsessed and creepy idiots, and I believe that they are hired, organized and run by the German secret service to destroy my reputation and life. They destroy my reputation to prevent that people believe in what I am saying about the German secret service, its government and its psychiatrists. So, they hire their primitive attack dogs and spread lies about me in the Media, on the Internet, on Usenet, in governmental office, courts, and elsewhere. They did and still do the same to L. Ron Hubbard, his religion and his legacy. Black propaganda is an old German secret service tool.

APP: What is Wikipiggy?

Barbara Schwarz (laughs): I am no fan of Wikipedia, I have very bad experiences with it.

APP: I read somewhere that you contributed to that article. Is that true?

Barbara Schwarz: There are different versions of Wikipedia articles on me. I contributed to none of them. The Wikipiggy gang banned my IP numbers. Jim Wales participated in this. They did not allow that I provide factual information about my own person and life. I don't wish that on anybody. Ex-inmates, children, and anti-religious extremists discuss my life in all public on Wikipiggy, with the purpose to misinform readers and to make me into an outcast of society. This is the purpose of the entire smear in the media and on the Internet. They want people to hate me and to I should suffer worst consequences resulting from that hatred.

These Wikipiggy articles were mainly written by anti-religious extremists who hate Scientology, just as the German government wants it. It is as if the KKK would write about Blacks or Nazis about Jews or Al-Qaeda about America. These extremists don't want to write how I am really are and what I really did. They hate me, because they are insane and intolerant, and that is reflected in their writings about me. I never did anything to them, except defending myself, L. Ron Hubbard, and my religion. This is my big "crime".

APP: I searched Wikipedia for information about you but did not find a Wikipedia article on you. On the other hand, Wikipedia articles on you are on non-Wikipedia websites…

Barbara Schwarz: Around X-mas 2007, some Wikipedia administrators finally removed the Wikipedia article because of statement that Wikipedia administrator Fred Bauder made in March 2007. He asked to delete the article on me with following words: [This article is an] "embarrassment to Wikipedia. It has proved impossible to maintain the article appropriately. Whatever her supposed notability, Barbara Schwarz is not a public figure. Her privacy should be respected".
This statement was posted constantly on Usenet (not by Fred Bauder) but it caught the eye of other Wikipedia administrators. His statement gives you an idea how fanatical the people are who smear about me, as he wrote that it was "impossible" to maintain the article on me appropriately.

APP: Who exactly wrote the Wikipedia article on you?

Barbara Schwarz:
This is the problem. Usually, reporters are held responsible for what they write about others. But because Wikipedia allows harassers and defamers to remain anonymously, it is really hard for the victims of the Wikipiggy defamation campaign to remedy this. However, I know some of the driving forces behind it. It is mainly German Tilman Hausherr, Korey Jerome Kruse as "Vivaldi" who seems to be also "Anynobody". Another suspect is Canadian Kady O'Malley as "Orsini" and some other defamers. Kruse forged me and others on websites and Hausherr backed him up. They are anti-religions extremists. Hausherr and O'Malley are portrayed on the www.religiousfreedomwatch.org.

As far as Kruse is concerned, he cyber stalked, sexually harassed and defamed me on Usenet (with posting ID Simkatu and other aliases) and on Wikipedia. Kruse defames my state of the mind, despite a judge sent HIM to therapy. I made some research on him and discovered numerous criminal records on him. As defense action, I documented the criminal activities and the defamation activities of Kruse and also Hausherr's rotten activities on webpages and posting only facts. But these guys bombard ISPs so long with false complaints till the ISPs/Blogspot providers give in and remove the webpages or Blogspots, despite of facts. They don't even ask you to respond to allegations. They just cut your right of freedom of speech short by deleting your defense. I never would lie about others - even if they are my enemies. This here is not my website but provides some information on Kruse: http://stalkerkoreykruse.wordpress.com/

APP: Tilman Hausherr is the owner of the Snafu-Website?

Barbara Schwarz: Yes, that is him. He lives in Berlin and works as computer guy for Siemens. He wrote much of the trash about me on Wikipiggy, and when a majority of the administrators/editors decided to remove this article he and Kruse whined and objected, tried to raise hell to keep it there to "shame" me with their version about my life. After they lost that battle and the Wikipedia article was removed, Hausherr webbed his and Kruse's own smear about me on his Hausherr's Snafu website. Hausherr is obsessed with Scientology celebrities. He is "profiling" them with the words: "We know who you are and what you are doing." If you ask me, he cyberstalks them by trying to intimidate them for being Scientologists. He was one of the smear scribblers who wrote the Wikipiggy article on me and now webs it under the header "Weird stuff dept.". In other words, he wrote the weird stuff himself, he is the weird one.

APP: I found no record of you being born in Deggendorf, Germany…

Barbara Schwarz: They have no records because I am not born there, and my defamers are lying by saying that I am born in this town.

APP: Hausherr is a German secret service agent?

Barbara Schwarz: He denies it but his actions say otherwise. He tries to conceal his ID and just webs a picture of himself as small child on his defamatory website. This alone indicates that he is afraid of the spotlight himself but smears just about anybody else whose religion he hates. The German secret service Bundesverfassungschutz (OPC) is going actively after Scientology. They even say so on their official German website. I read a report on the Internet in which Hausherr's wife Ilse supposedly stated that Hausherr travels "in secret mission" to the USA. He also posted that he finds it a great idea to hurt the American tourism. After the law, he should not be allowed to enter the United States for secret German missions. Anyway, it is 100 % documented that Hausherr and German government employee Ursula Caberta y Diaz work very closely together.

APP: Who is Ursula Caberta y Diaz?

Barbara Schwarz: You find information about her on the www.religiousfreedomwatch.org and on http://www.alarmgermany.org/newpage12.htm. AlarmGermany is a website that published that Caberta told to the LA Times that she is glad to be called the new Goebbels. It was published that as a German official, she accepted USD 75.000 from a private anti-religious extremist to go after the religion Scientology. Yes, it blows your socks off…

APP: Does Korey Jerome Kruse work for the German government?

Barbara Schwarz: What I know for sure is that he has a very cozy relationship with Hausherr. He was born in the USA. An American judge called Kruse an habitual offender, and a Google search reveals quite some of his run ins with the law. He also wrote bad checks. However, there are also postings about him on the Internet, which are so over the top that nobody would believe them, e.g. claiming that he is a convicted Nazi spy who worked several years in aerospace, etc. I am convinced that he posts these over the top postings himself (like an secret service agent) to distract from his real criminal record and past. The idea behind it is to pose as victim of a defamation campaign and to make people dismiss his real criminal record by coming across these over the top information about him. Once people read that Kruse is a convicted Nazi spy, they of course don't believe it and dismiss also the factual statement of an American judge who ruled that Kruse is a habitual offender.

APP: What about the AHBL? What do they want from you?

Barbara Schwarz [laughs]: Don't get me started on the AHBL. The AHBL is an anti-free speech movement and tries to control the Internet. It belongs to abusive transsexual BRIAN J. BRUNS aka BURNS aka "Bri", "Brielle" or "Brielle-Jillian", born on 06/24/81 who is a registered sex slave. Bruns is the owner/webmaster of the abusive AHBL ("Abusive Host Blocking List") website and the SOSDG ("Summit open source development group"). He is a CONVICTED FELON. - Felon Indictment # I-1577-02,S-2423-02 and SAPD. - Police Report # 05071019 – INMATE: BRUNS, BRIAN # 445064. The AHBL SOSDG is allegedly "non-profit" but stops free speech, blackmails ISPs and defames people. Bruns lies that the ABHL is non-profit. He hosted the sex pages of his master "Lady-Arielle" who offers one hour of his/her perversion for over $300,-- profit on the SOSDG server! Arielle and Bruns had sexually perverted videos on YouTube. Bruns actually HACKED the computers of his former employer Access Highway (http://accesshighway.com). Bruns was many months incarcerated and has a FBI file.
Here are links with more information on him:
http://criminal-brian-j-bruns.blogspot.com/2007/12/brian-j-bruns-criminal-court-history.html
http://groups.google.com/group/rattle-users/browse_thread/thread/920c521a661d867a
COMMACK MAN INDICTED FOR HACKING
http://www.co.suffolk.ny.us/da/press/2002/06_26_02.htm
Bruns attacks and defames me because he is above the law.

APP: ABHL (Bruns) wrote that you "terrorized" Usenet newsgroup NANAE. I goggled your name but did not find many postings of you done to this group. I found numerous postings in which Bruns and his friends attacked you. So, what is his problem?

Barbara Schwarz: The "terror" is just in his twisted head. On the registered sex slave website, he posted as "Brielle" that he is cutting himself. Brian Bruns is a convicted felon, a defamer, a liar and he hates that people have a right of free speech. His problem is that he is a criminal who wants to control the Internet. He does what he accuses others of. Since years, he and his friends try to ruin the business of Rick Scoville (Freespeechstore) and defamed and forged his now diseased 80 years old father who never had anything to do with them. Bruns friend Andrew Kirch posted a mafia threat against me on Usenet. As far as I know, these two are the entire "board" of the ABHL. The AHBL goes also after upstream Internet providers if the ISP does not obey their demands to cut the free speech of what they perceive as their personal enemies.

APP: Who is behind the Holysmoke and the Skeptic Tank websites?

Barbara Schwarz: David aka Shydavid and Frederic Rice are very abusive twin brothers who are consumed by hatred against Scientology. You can learn more by reading what the www.religiousfreedomwatch.org wrote about them. The RFW published a PDF document in their Section that belongs to Dave Touretzky. It says that Dave Rice suggested to kill members of the FBI. I don't think the RFW made it up. They wrote that Dave Rice actively sought the means of terrorism.

Frederic Rice had or still has a plan, the layout of a "deprogramming station" on his website, which had a room that was designed to rape people who should be stripped from their religion. These guys are really dangerous scum. No wonder that they defame me on their websites and on Usenet with all kinds of sock puppets. I have not one classy enemy – not one of them.

APP: What about Anonymous?

Barbara Schwarz: You are anonymous.

APP: I mean, what do you think about the masked Anonymous who picket the Scientology organizations?

Barbara Schwarz:
They create a lot of noise and tension. In Germany people threw in windows of the Church of Scientology. Decades earlier, they did this to the Jews, and it led to the Kristallnacht. Anonymous are a bunch of religion hating people who are clueless about who L. Ron Hubbard really was and what Scientology really is, and they are too cowardly to show their faces. They just base their information on lies of apostates and former infiltrators and anti-religious extremists. I believe that the German government put these allegedly loosely controlled group up to go after Scientology and Scientologists after the Germans realized that they can't outlaw a religion under their present constitution.

APP: Did you ever go to these picket events?
Barbara Schwarz: Never. [Laughs] I know better things to do with my life but hate marches. What would you say if I tell you that there is a secret code in languages? But don't tell me that I got that from the Matrix, because I have never seen those movies. If you speak the word "picket" out loud, you get a different significance. Picket sounds very much like "Pig is at it." Why would I want to stand in the streets with pigs? I happen to know that much what they claim on their pickets is not true. I saw some of them putting a photo of the L. Ron Hubbard impostor on their pickets and falsely claiming that it would be L. Ron Hubbard. I want to bet that Anonymous is nothing but an anti-religious German secret service movement. I am not on their side.

APP: Does Anonymous target you?

Barbara Schwarz: They don't picket yet in front of my door but numerous people of this anonymous cult write nasty and defamatory stuff about me on the net and lie about me. They sort of merged with the anti-religious extremists. Some of them doctored a photo of mine, some of them defame my state of mind and misinform about my life and actions.

APP: Why does Dave Touretzky claim that you are obsessed with him?

Barbara Schwarz: He claims that I am obsessed with him because I am not obsessed with him. I didn't know who he was when I got one day a USPS letter by an unknown sender. I opened it and saw inside an invoice of a porn shop. It says that Dave Touretzky ordered a porn catalog and porn merchandise. Copies of the porn catalog were attached to the invoice. It was a really offensive and sexually harassing letter. I am proud of my clean mind. I don't want to have dirt and porn in my mind. I am a very passionate and romantic person but perversions are not a part of my personality. In other words, it made me really angry that somebody has the guts to mail me that perverted dirt. The invoice was addressed to the Dave Touretzky, a professor at the CMU, and the phone number under which the porn stuff was ordered turned out to be his office number at this university. I did some research and found that Touretzky is an anti-religious extremist. According to this invoice, Dave Touretzky was indeed sent the porn catalog, the invoice and the porn merchandise. That thing played out on Usenet, and the sex shop owner posted too. He did not deny that Touretzky was one of his customers. A person who made threatened me and defamed me for years, Garry Scarff posted in defense of Touretzky. He wrote that he called the store clerk Adrian and that Adrian told him that they have no customer with the name Touretzky. The store owner posted that they have no clerk with name Adrian…
I never made a statement of fact that Touretzky personally sent me that porn letter - but I kept the letter as evidence. Perhaps the sexual harasser was careless and left his fingerprints on it and his DNA in and on the letter

The RFW has lots of information on Dave Touretzky. What worries me a lot is that he promotes bomb instructions on the net. There is also this a YouTube video by some CMU students:

www.religiousfreedomwatch.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPxKLOjAccE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR_DoZu2ke4

APP: Some people may say that he might order sex toys from this store but that this letter was not sent by Dave Touretzky to you as it would be self-discriminatory.

Barbara Schwarz: The RFW webbed chat records in which Dave Touretzky said that he visits porn sites on the net. Some people should be ashamed of being so low but they are not ashamed of it. It is also possible that this letter was sent to me in an attempt to blame Scientologists of having it sent. Years earlier, I saw indeed porn pictures on the CMU website of Dave Touretzky. He webbed these there.

Touretzky webbed that misleading Salt Lake Tribune article on his website to harass me once more. I don't know what he babbles about a Razor article on his website. It has nothing to do with me. But he also links (recommends) the book of my legally convicted kidnapper Cyril Vosper. I am also personally offended about what Dave Touretzky wrote about L. Ron Hubbard.

APP: What makes you sure that the Church of Scientology did not find that invoice and catalog and mailed it to you?

Barbara Schwarz: How should they find that invoice and the catalog? It was addressed to Touretzky. He does not allow any Scientologist close to him, and it also makes no sense. I am a Scientologist. Why would Scientologists harass another one with porn? It is against our religion. Moreover, I don't have huge access to the media like the celebrities of Scientology. If the Church of Scientology would work with these kind of low methods and would have targeted Touretzky and instigated a campaign against Dave Touretzky, don't you think they would have rather mailed this harassing porn letter to Kristie Alley, Priscilla Presley, Lisa-Marie Presley, Kelly Preston, Anne Archer, Catherine Bell, Nancy Cartright, Jenna Elfman, Juliette Lewis, Sofia Milos, Leah Remini or any other of the many Scientology celebrities? I don't think that they like to be sexually harassed either, and one statement by one of them to the media would have resulted in a large media event. It would have taken this matter out of Usenet, and Dave Touretzky activities within the CMU would have been scrutinized by the media.

APP: What do you think about the Xenu website?

Barbara Schwarz: It is a biased anti-religious website who spreads hate. This is the website of Andreas Heldal-Lund. Just as Dave Touretzky, he recommends the book of my legally convicted kidnapper Cyril Vosper on his website. Lund violated the copyright of Mark Rathbun and another person and used their images on T-Shirts and sold them. I know that Lund is an associate of legally convicted terrorist Lars Gule and lectures with him. I am maliciously defamed and forged by hate mongers on Lund's message board Clambake. Lund blocks people who don't hate Scientology. The www.religiousfreedomwatch.org provides more information about Heldal-Lund.

Heldal-Lund website misinforms about Scientology. It claims that Scientologists believe that they were clams in past lives. I am a Scientologist, and I don't believe that I was a clam in my past life and none of the thousands of Scientologists that I met ever told me that they believe that they were clams in their past lives. Andreas Heldal-Lund thinks he knows it all by knowing nothing.

APP: What happened in the Salt Lake City library?

Barbara Schwarz: Anti-religious extremists bombarded the Salt Lake City library with false complaints about me. There was even one guy who sent forged messages under my name to the library to spam them in order to make them deny access to me to library computers.

APP: Isn’t unconstitutional to deny people access to public computers? Don't they have to treat all patrons equally?

Barbara Schwarz: I was once told by the deputy library director Chip Ward that the library is like the post office. They don't care what message somebody sends, they just forward the mail. Later on, Chip Ward and library director Nancy Tessman simply changed the rules. They gave me three different versions why they denied access to the library computers to me. First was, because I filed FOIA requests or records request from the library, and they didn't like this. The other version was because I posted on Usenet from the library computer, and they don't like this. Then they changed it again and claimed it was not because of my postings to Usenet but because I filed FOIA/requests or records request from the library computer. It all boils down to that they just searched for a justification to deny my rights to me.

APP: FOIA or records request are a part of American system. I never heard that somebody is not allowed to use public library equipment for this kind of purpose.

Barbara Schwarz: The Salt Lake City library denied my constitutional and other rights. They are above the laws. Also, I filed most of my FOIA requests from at home and not from the library. I had not filed a FOIA request for years when they denied access to the computers to me. It makes no sense. It is arbitrariness and lawlessness. They were bombarded with false complaints about me at the phone and in e-mails, but the library should have informed the authorities to stop the false complaint makers instead of kicking the victim of this campaign off the computers and denying her right to access computers. The Salt Lake City library claims that they are open to anybody and don't censor free speech. It is a lie.

APP: But they don't denied you access to the library as such? You still can go there and check books out and research?

Barbara Schwarz:
Yes, I still can spend all day in the library and research and check books out. They just don’t let me near a computer without causing a scene. It is awful to even enter the library under such a condition. How can you research under such conditions knowing that they treat you like a slave without rights? As they poisoned this atmosphere, I rather don't visit this library any longer.

APP: Posting to Usenet is covered under the constitutional right of free speech. Was there a general non-posting rule that you violated?

Barbara Schwarz: Absolutely not. Other Salt Lake City library patrons could and can post all they want to Usenet. Convicted Bruns was still under probation when he sent over 50 false complaints about me to the library ISP UEN and the library to blackmail them into denying my access to the library computers. Nevertheless, they did not call the authorities to get Bruns probation revoked but rather denied my right of free speech. They knew about his criminal records and obeyed nevertheless. A registered sex-slave, a transsexual with a felony record rules the Internet world. It is a shame.

APP: You are kidding me?

Barbara Schwarz: I wish it would be just a joke but unfortunately, it is the reality.

APP: What on Earth are you writing and posting that results in such a censorship?

Barbara Schwarz: I am writing and posting the truth and my memories.
And that is what crooks don't like. Again, my intuition tells me it is all organized by the German secret service.

APP: You admit having filed thousands of FOIA requests?

Barbara Schwarz: I filed FOIA requests from mid/end of the 90s to 2001. Please order the FOIA logs from all federal agencies and count the number of FOIA requests which are recorded in their FOIA logs. My count of FOIA requests in these logs of all federal agencies are in the low hundreds.

APP: Who came up with the "thousands of FOIA requests"

Barbara Schwarz: Some officials within the U.S. government. They made the number up to find an excuse to deny my right for records. Fact is, reporters filed a lot more FOIA requests than I did. But I got all the "fame".

APP: What kind of records did you request from the feds?

Barbara Schwarz: For example, records on Mark Rathbun, his attorney, his family, L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, myself..

APP: Some people claim that you asked records that did not exist.

Barbara Schwarz: They are lying.

APP: Some of these people wrote that you did not pay your FOIA fees.

Barbara Schwarz: This is a load of bull, because the first 2 hours search time and the first 100 pages of records are free for any FOIA requester. If an agency has more records, they have to stop the search after two hours and 100 pages free records and have to ask you for permission to go ahead with more search and have to ask you if you are willing to pay. I never authorized any agency to incur any fees for me.

APP: But the U.S. government claims that you didn't pay FOIA fees to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Barbara Schwarz: The VA incurred these fees without my permission and the U.S. Dept. of Justice knows about it and covers it up. It is criminal to incur costs for a person. It is like having to pay for gas that you did not pump and did not ask to be pumped.

APP: Why did they do it?

Barbara Schwarz:
Well, they HAVE the records or at least some of the records that I requested. In order to deny them to me, they figured out a lawless method to stop me getting them. They want me to pay the fees that I did not occur. Moreover, these VA fees are not actual FOIA fees or records or search fees. They are "fees" for one of their students having looked in my file. It says nowhere within the FOIA law that somebody has to pay these kind of "fees". You just have to pay for search time and for records. If a student wants to satisfy his curiosity, no FOIA requester has to pay for that.

APP: When did this happen?

Barbara Schwarz
In fall of 2001.

APP:
And you filed no FOIA requests anymore to the feds since that time?

Barbara Schwarz
That's right. They denied the right to me by figuring out an illegal way to stop my requests.

APP: How much do they claim that you owe?

Barbara Schwarz:
USD 303.30

APP [laughs]: Only 303.30 Dollars? Why didn't you just come up with the money and continue to ask for records that you were looking for?

Barbara Schwarz: Because I would have paid for fees that I did not incur; I would have paid fraudulently fabricated fees. Also, as soon as I would have paid these, they would have incurred other fees. It happened before. The FBI field office in Salt Lake City were the first agency who applied this criminal trick. They incurred fees without my consent by mailing me duplicate records that I did not request, and those records that I needed, they did not mail me. The fee was around USD 17. I paid this amount to the FBI. After I had paid the money, I asked the FBI field office in Salt Lake City to mail the correct files to me but not to incur again any fees without my consent. Then, the FBI field office, together with the Office of Information and Privacy (and just about all other federal agency) conspired again against me and used the fabricated VA fees, a much higher amount against me. They said that I have to pay this amount first before they process my request. Nevertheless, some agencies denied processing of my FOIA requests based on the FBI fees that I paid! In other words, even if there would be no cent that I owe, they would not process my requests by wrongfully claiming that I would owe money.

APP: You're saying that you never will get records from the feds because as soon as you pay one fabricated fee that they would issue another fabricated fee to stop your requests?

Barbara Schwarz: You got it.

APP: Why did you sue the federal government? AHBL (Bruns) wrote that you sued the government after you filed bogus record requests and that the government did not have these records.

Barbara Schwarz:
Bruns was an inmate for many months in federal prison, and he is liar and anti-free speech activist. I filed FOIA requests for records in which I am truly interested. I am sure that the feds had at least some of the records that I requested. So, I sent my FOIA requests to them and from their responses, I was able to conclude that some agencies did not search at all, some agencies searched in the wrong records files, some searched in insufficient records files, some searched to wrongfully spelled names, some searched in a wrong time period, some searched only to a few of my subjects. In short: there was not one answer by any agency that indicated that any agency conducted an adequate search. And then I did something, the feds never forgave me.

APP: Now I'm really curious…

Barbara Schwarz: Federal workers have to keep a paper trail of what they do. I filed a FOIA request to any federal agency that allegedly conducted a first search for records that I had requested. In that request, I asked for the search records that they generated during the alleged first search, because I wanted to reconstruct what they did or did not do during their alleged searches. I wanted proof that they processed my requests per the Freedom of Information statutes and that operated within the laws.

APP: And that is unforgivable?

Barbara Schwarz: Apparently. Even the Salt Lake Tribune once wrote in another article that was not about me that officials consider requests for records as "incoming torpedo". These officials are afraid that the public catches them in unlawful acts. The purpose of FOIA is to enable the public to check what the government is up to. As I said, I always operated within the FOIA law and its purpose. So, I asked them for their internal search records and also for records of any inquiry by an attorney of Mark Rathbun or another attorney or an independent counsel who asked for my records. I asked them to provide me with an affidavit that they do not withhold records and in which they explain in what time period and records systems and to what names and spellings they searched.

APP: And they hated this?

Barbara Schwarz: You can bet the farm on it. Because they have a bad conscience. They knew that they denied my rights and conducted no lawful searches and concealed records.

APP: Some Internet people claim that you received no records at all.

Barbara Schwarz: They know better because I posted about this hundreds of times on Usenet. I got some records.

APP: You received records? But if you received the records, why did you sue them?

Barbara Schwarz: Don't try to get ahead of me. I received records but not all that I needed and none of any attorney inquiry, none related to Mark or Marty Rathbun. I received records on Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard and numerous internal search records. These records proved indeed that the agencies did not conduct adequate searches in all records systems but that they searched to wrongful spellings of the names and searched wrong time periods. Some sent their replies to a wrong address or wrong or misspelled name or their letter did not contain a date. It was corrupt.

APP: You're kidding me.

Barbara Schwarz: If I would want to kid you, I would tell you that the agencies conducted lawful searches. I also requested some other records in October 2000 for records on Bin Laden as I sensed that he was up to atrocities. The U.S. agencies did not search his files. And now, this summer, I sense that more atrocities against the USA are in the making. Instead of denying my rights, the US government should use my spiritual abilities to figure things out in time.

APP: Did you get the affidavits that they conducted adequate searches?

Barbara Schwarz: Now I am the one who asks: are you kidding me? They did not mail me the affidavits, because they made no lawful searches and were withholding records to which I was entitled.

APP: And then you sued them?

Barbara Schwarz: No. I filed administrative appeals and explained in much detail to their administrative appeal authorities that the agencies did not conduct lawful searches and did not provide me with an affidavit to give me peace of mind that they don’t illegally withhold records.

APP: And then you sued them?

Barbara Schwarz (laughs):

What is the matter with you? Why are you so eager to sue? I waited patiently for the appeal authorities to study my appeals and to make a decision on them. However, they conspired with the FOIA offices against me and denied adequate searches and affidavits to me. They advised me that if I would be not satisfied, I could sue them in a court of law. In other words: they provoked the legal cases.

APP: And then you sued them.

Barbara Schwarz:

And then I sued them. I asked the courts to compel the agencies to conduct adequate searches and to withhold no records before me.

APP: How many law suits did you file?

Barbara Schwarz: I did not count them, I don't count anything. I just estimate: 100 cases but those include the appeals. But several cases had not just one defendant but numerous agencies as defendants. While some law suits were pending, I obtained approx. hundred different affidavits and none of them - except one - was an adequate affidavit. They contained contradictory information, confusion, even falsehoods and proved again that no adequate searches were conducted.

APP: The Salt Lake Tribune wrote that you rarely appear in court.

Barbara Schwarz: The Tribune is just good to clean your windows with. I acted as my own attorney all the time in court and went to any hearing that any judge ordered.

APP: I'll ask you some questions about that paper later. Right now, I want to know what happened next.

Barbara Schwarz: The courts denied my cases by conspiring with the agencies. I appealed to the Circuit Courts, and they conspired with the agencies and the lower courts and denied unlawfully my legal cases. You should see the stupid and unprofessional rulings that the judges signed. I assume that some idiotic law clerks write these judgments, and the judges just sign without reading what these clerks put on their table. These judges would probably even sign a ruling for their own execution on the electrical chair if a clerk puts it on their tables.

APP: You disagree with the court decisions?

Barbara Schwarz: Of course I do. They ignored the FOIA laws and the case laws, which I cited in support of my cases. In at least two final rulings by the U.S. District Court of Columbia, they called the U.S. Departments, U.S. Depots. Can you imagine how dumb and corrupt these clerks are who actually decide these federal cases? And how stupid and corrupt the judges are who sign these rulings? I never sued any Depot… I cited the U.S. Departments and agencies with their correct names in my complaints, briefs, pleadings and appeals.

APP: And then you addressed the U.S. Supreme Court:

Barbara Schwarz:
No. I filed for rehearing to the Circuit Courts. I pointed the "errors" (the corruption) out and asked for a rehearing/reconsideration.

APP: They did not correct their wrongful spellings in these judgments?

Barbara Schwarz:
That's right. And neither unlawful rulings. These courts are a disgrace to the United States. And this includes also the U.S. Supreme Court. They ignored my Writs of Certiorari until the day they plotted against me very much in the conspirative style of the FBI and the VA and the other agencies and courts. All except one U.S. Supreme Court justice ruled that I should file fees if I want to continue filing Writs of Certiorari to their court, knowing that I could not afford it. Also, if I could afford it, what is the sense in filing long Writs of Certiorari to the Supreme Court justices if they are biased like the lower judges and don't want to grant your rights?

APP: Are you saying that people's rights are not granted in the USA?

Barbara Schwarz: Many people's rights are not granted. I am not the only one claiming so. The organization A Matter of Justice tries since many years to make victims of legal abuse to join together and demand congressional hearing on the legal abuse in the USA.
They claim that the facts of the case do not matter to the court but a well-connected lawyer does. They say that judges are manipulative and that judges must be stripped off their immunity and held accountable for their corrupt actions. They are right – but the next problem lies within the Congress. Once these complaints are brought before corrupt representatives and senators, nothing is cleaned up and effectively changed by them. The corruption, the lawlessness and violation of rights continues...

However, as far as I am concerned, I'll get no justice anywhere. It doesn't matter in which country I go. I am followed around by the fanatical and insane German secret service, which controls just about anything and anybody.

APP: Why don't you hate the USA?

Barbara Schwarz: I don't hate Uncle Sam. To me, Uncle Sam is a closer relative than just an Uncle. German controlled "Americans" are not America. I am America. I am good. I don't hate myself.

APP: Did you try to sue the US government for money?

Barbara Schwarz:

No. I just wanted the records and evidence that they don’t withhold them. Through the records, I also wanted to be sure that Mark Rathbun is not framed and not held wrongfully incarcerated on fabricated charges and that he is not wrongfully convicted by what the Germans set up against him. Because if so, I could exonerate him.

APP: You stated that the U.S. government is infiltrated by the German government…

Barbara Schwarz:

Yes, I did. And I am sticking to it. I say that many officials in the U.S. government have no true American intentions. They might be born in the USA like "American" Taliban kid, or those who disgrace the reputation of the USA in Abu Ghraib or like other traitors, but they act against the interest of the United States. After all that happens to me, after all my bad experiences with the so-called U.S. government, I am saying that it is a secret German colony.

APP: A secret German colony? The Euro goes up, the Dollar goes down… Would Germany do that to its own secret colony?

Barbara Schwarz:
Germans even shot Germans who tried to cross the Berlin wall. I never said that Germany would be good to its secret American colony. Any American would have it better, if the Germans would get out of the USA and take their criminal and perverted influence and rotten ways and methods with them. Google "SEGNPMSS" and learn what they are doing in the USA and any other country on Earth.

APP: Did you ask state agencies for records on Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, Mark Rathbun, his attorney and his family and yourself too?

Barbara Schwarz: Yes. After September 2001, I filed record requests, as permitted by state laws to all states, any agency that might have responsive records. I even filed requests for records to all major universities.

APP: How did this work out?

Barbara Schwarz: State governmental workers are even worse than the federal workers. Most of them don't care what their records law says. They hate records requests, they hate mailing copies of their records to the requester - even if the requesters are entitled to them under the law.

APP: What makes you think that some attorney or the attorney of Mark or Marty Rathbun tried to find you by addressing agencies?

Barbara Schwarz: It is complicated. It is my intuition, and I added many small incidents together.

APP: Salt Lake Tribune, Christopher Smith wrote a few years ago an article about you, and you wrote in a webbed affidavit that he tricked you in meeting him.

Barbara Schwarz: That is right. He came to my door while I was not home and attached a note saying that he came all the way from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City just to talk to me because of the way the Department of Justice would treat me as this could have significant ramifications against members of the free press. He wrote that he wants to write an article about this and that he needs my help and that I should contact him in the Marriott Hotel.

APP: You meet him to help the press?

Barbara Schwarz: Yes. If I would have known that he came all the way from D.C. to smear my private life, I never would have met him.

APP: He never wrote that article to help other reporters?

Barbara Schwarz: Christopher Smith knew very well that the federal employees denied my rights and that the rights of reporters and others are at a risk too. He knew that federal workers plotted against me and may do that also to reporters and other citizens. Writing a confused and incoherent sensational article about what he thinks my private life is was more important to him than helping other reporters who need FOIA records frequently. After we met in a Café, we corresponded for a couple of weeks privately - as friends -before he suddenly turned on me and wrote that nasty article. The Salt Lake Tribune printed the defamation of my character on Mother's day on the front page. Speak about evil….

APP: You don't recognize your own life in this article?

Barbara Schwarz: Of course not! How can I? It is a confused article. That is not my life, and I did not overburden the federal government. He did not check the FOIA logs that would give him an idea how many FOIA requests I really filed. He did not call the Dept. of VA to investigate these alleged fees, but he knew that the feds has records that I requested and that they did not want to give them to me. The headline and the overall tenor of the article is very wrong and so are details.

APP: What about your will to live?

Barbara Schwarz [laughs]:
I am not suicidal. But if I would, how come the Tribune was not able to figure out that such an article, such a hostile defamatory trash article could push a person over the edge? They gave a damn if I would kill myself when they published that hostile article that should make me to an outcast of the society. This article was used hundreds of times or more to harass me on Usenet and still is on websites for anybody in the world to read for no other purpose than to harass me and misinform about me.

APP: Why don't you call Mr. Rathbun? Isn't he a reporter in Texas, Corpus Christi area, running a campaign for Barrack Obama?

Barbara Schwarz:
That is not the person, I am looking for.

APP: Is that the person the Mark or Marty Rathbun you are looking for?
http://images.google.com/images

Barbara Schwarz:
Yes, that is the right one. That's my prince.

APP: What makes you so sure that the Texas Mark Rathbun is not the right one?

Barbara Schwarz:
They are different people and have a different charisma. Also, if the real Marty would be a free man and not wrongfully incarcerated for crimes he never committed, he would contact me.

APP: What if the one in Corpus Christi contacts you? Is he then the real Marty?

Barbara Schwarz:
Nonsense. Only the real Marty is the real Marty. No Doppelganger can fool me. I can recognize the diamond from the glass stone, the Blue Mauritius from the 17 cents stamp and the human from a God. The real Marty knows that I will recognize him. If he would be the person in Corpus Texas or if he would be elsewhere free, he would contact me. He just has to call for my attention on Usenet until I see it, and then I would make sure that he can reach me.

APP: Wikipedia published an article about that gentleman. Are you saying that the Wikipedia combined two identities up in one article?

Barbara Schwarz:
Yes, this is what I am thinking. Just as L. Ron Hubbard was confused with others.

APP: The original Marty does not look like a prisoner in that photo. He wears a fine suit, looks good and clean…

Barbara Schwarz: I agree. But even prisoners sometimes wear a suit. This photos is no guarantee that he is indeed not wrongfully incarcerated.

APP: People who claim that you a former Scientologist are lying?

Barbara Schwarz:
Yes. I am no former Scientologist, I never resigned from my religion. I am a Scientologist, always was, always will be. I am no cultist, I no Freezone-Scientologist, I am a strong-willed, independent, and individual Scientologist in L. Ron Hubbard's sense.

APP:
You are educated, you speak two languages fluently, you are computer literate, you rocked the feds and all state governments, the Salt Lake Tribune attorney says that you presented and handled your legal cases better than many attorneys, and you can explain anything that relates to Scientology. Why are you not employed by the Church of Scientology?

Barbara Schwarz:
Because the German government, their secret service sent and sends German and international infiltrators in the branches of the Church of Scientology to overtake them, to alter the writings of L. Ron Hubbard and to cause situations, which result in a bad reputation of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. I don't get along with infiltrators. I am not at home in infiltrated Scientology orgs. I can't just sit there, say nothing and watch infiltrators destroy L. Ron Hubbard's work. This happened before. Non-Scientologists in the Scientology orgs ganged up on me and denied me access to the Scientology organizations and my religion because I am in their way.

APP: Are you excommunicated by the Church of Scientology?

Barbara Schwarz [laughs]: No. I am not SP-declared and never was. Don't take drugs, are no freeloader, don’t need expensive medical care, have no PTS situation, have no debts. I would be the ideal candidate for a high position within the Church of Scientology, if it would be not infiltrated on orders of the German government and its secret services.

APP: What do you think of people who say that they are afraid of Scientology?

Barbara Schwarz: Any kind of crimes and violence are not any part of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology.

APP: Will you never return to the Church of Scientology?

Barbara Schwarz: I will be back one day but not as little employee that can be ordered around by people in the Scientology orgs that are not even Scientologists. This is my ultimate nightmare, having a superior in Scientology who is a German controlled infiltrator and who wants to give me orders. Under these circumstances, I rather stay private.

APP: Do you believe that L. Ron Hubbard was murdered?

Barbara Schwarz:
Yes, I am convinced of this. But not by Scientologists but by the German secret service doctors who followed him in the USA.

APP: What about the report of the San Obispo County Coroner?

Barbara Schwarz:
I am convinced that the person who died there was an impostor. It was not L. Ron Hubbard.

APP: The FBI called and said that the fingerprints match those of L. Ron Hubbard.

Barbara Schwarz:
I am convinced that they don't have L. Ron Hubbard's fingerprints but those of the impostor in their files.

APP: Why is the Church of Scientology not investigating this?

Barbara Schwarz: They should.

APP: Thank you for this interview.

Barbara Schwarz: You are welcome.

New York's continuing attack on property rights

bile — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:18:27 +0000

As in free speech being derived from property rights.

New York Constitution, Article 1, Section 8: Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.

New York state passes video game labeling law

Video games sold in New York state must clearly label ratings for violent content under a law signed on Tuesday, which rights groups criticized as likely unconstitutional.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said that it planned to mount a legal challenge against the law, signed on Tuesday by New York Gov. David Paterson, as it raised free speech concerns.

The group said that similar laws in California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Washington state have been thrown out as unconstitutional.

The U.S. video gaming industry submits to ratings on a voluntary basis, and the system is similar to movie ratings.

The new law says that is it compulsory for games that are already rated to be labeled and also requires that new video game consoles are installed with parent-controlled lockout features by 2010.

As the article says the industry already has a voluntary rating system which everyone uses and all current and even some last generation consoles have parental controls. This law is pointless besides being unconstitutional. Speaking of which:

Cuomo strong-arms Comcast over Usenet

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has found a novel way to shake down law-abiding broadband companies: accuse them of harboring child pornography and threaten to prosecute them unless they do what he wants. That might just happen to involve writing Cuomo a hefty check.

The latest company to be honored by Cuomo's personal attention is Comcast, which received a two-page letter on Monday threatening "legal action" on child pornography grounds within five days, if its executives failed to agree to a certain set of rules devised by the attorney general.

In the letter (PDF), the Democratic politico says he wants Comcast and other broadband providers to "volunteer" to take actions "surgically directed" only at child pornography and "not at any protected content." (He's targeting Usenet, the venerable pre-Web home of thousands of discussion groups that go by names like sci.math, rec.motorcycles, and comp.os.linux.admin.)

That might be laudable, if it were true. But Cuomo's ham-fisted pressure tactics already have led Time Warner Cable to pull the plug on some 100,000 Usenet discussion groups, including such hotbeds of illicit content as talk.politics and misc.activism.progressive. Verizon Communications deleted such unlawful discussion groups as us.military, ny.politics, alt.society.labor-unions, and alt.politics.democrats. AT&T and Time Warner Cable have taken similar steps.

Cuomo's response: "I commend the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry." (By that standard of responsibility, an entire library should be burned down if a single obscene book happens to be found on its shelves.)

Usenet has been around forever in internet terms (1980) and is still in heavy use. It along with IRC are where all the "really bad" stuff which happens online lives. These services are often hosted by major ISPs but anyone can setup one. These actions only push those performing these acts further underground. At best it prevents the computer illiterate child porn collector from its digital forms. At worst it's restricting thousands from their ability to communicate and digitally peacefully assemble.

È possibile?

Snake — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:16:31 +0000

Subject: [MesNews] e Google Groups
From: Umin
Newsgroups: it.comp.software.newsreader

E' possibile configurare MesNews (o un qualsiasi altro newsreader) per
gestire i gruppi di google?

Print vs. Movies: Differences in Censorship

Kevin — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:27:54 +0000

Continuing through Paul Starr's "The Creation of the Media," his explanation of the growth of the motion picture industry included an in-depth description of the political disputes over the new medium. Facing strong opposition from the self-appointed guardians of morality, the movie makers created internal guidelines of censorship. However, they didn't always follow them to the level of Puritanical morality which some wanted. In addition, the Supreme Court had created legal precedents which weakened the level of First Amendment protection offered to movies as opposed to newspapers and other print media.

"The differences in outcomes between print and screen reflected the different legal and economic conditions of the two media. Not only did the Constitution and the courts afford stronger protection to the press; the far more fragmented publishing industry had no central organization comparable to the Hays Office that could have carried out a neocorporatist form of censorship. The movies became the target of Catholic pressure in the 1930s because key figures in the movement understood that the industry was vulnerable to pressure and because moral reformers, both Catholic and Protestant, had come to believe that the movies were singularly important as a destructive influence."

Is today's media environment more like print or screen? An explosion of online publication and distribution may serve to counteract mainstream media consolidation, but do new media sources really mirror the fragmentation of nineteenth-century news? With the oligopolistic market status of ISPs, no. In fact, Usenet might once have been thought to be fragmented and resilient to censorship, but in recent weeks, it has been severely filtered. The source of control: ISPs who are "voluntarily" censoring Usenet to stop certain child pornographers, just like the Hays Office which was heavy handed and overbearing.

[Other posts in this series here and here.]

Rants in blog comments

Steve — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:58:41 +0000

When are blog comments spam?

I'm not talking about the ads for limos or products I've never heard of. In the case of WordPress those are painlessly removed by Akismet (over 20000 of them in the 18 months this blog has been in existence), which I never see unless I deliberately go to look for them.

But there are comments that have clearly been written before the writer has ever read the blog post they are supposed to be commenting on, and so are not a comment on the post. I haven't reported them as spam so far, but have usually written to the commenter and suggested that they get their own blog and post it there.

The most recent, which I deleted this morning, was a long rant about mental health prisoners in the USA.

Maybe we will see more of that kind of thing, as access to Usenet newsgroups is made more difficult by ISPs in the USA. The alt.religion.christian newsgroup used to be full of rants about that and about something called CPS. But it's easy enough to start a blog on WordPress, so I wonder why such people don't do so.

Write Once, Confuse Everybody

webhat — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:08:19 +0000

I was reading Mashable and discovered SocialMedian, a social news website. It's quite an interesting way to go, rather than being tag or vote oriented it's a subject based news microblog with links. They describe it as socialmedia, but for me that term tends more towards audio or video. It has a feature to create a front page, based on the newsfeeds you are subscribed to, which you can have mailed to you. There are a number of these out there, but I have yet to find one that delivers the combination of news and rss that I want.

I was subscriber to the newsfeed Web2.0 and received this article: Writing Once, Publishing Many Times, Makes Context Critical. It describes the problem that many microblog (twitter) comments suffer from: context loss. For people following the microblog and aren't in the conversation the context is almost certainly lost on them.

The solution: Quote! Instead of just writing "Me too!" You can write: "I also want to have free stuff." It's a fair complaint, but feels like I'm reading a complaint that could have been written for USENET in 1994 when I first got online. I wonder if is Louis Gray top poster? ;)

technorati tags: usenet, microblogging, context, twitter, socialmedia, folksonomy

Perché???

Snake — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:09:53 +0000

Subject: Re: Questo è il mio definitivo saluto
From: Alex
Newsgroups: it.discussioni.varie,it.test

On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:45:20 +0200, Lo ninja dalle Lelli Kelly wrote:

> ... IP *79.13.182.100* ... ha detto:

Perchè rendi pubblico il mio IP??? E come mai il tuo è in MD5???????

INTERNET SÖZLÜĞÜ

okipuki — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:06:21 +0000

Archie: FTP aracılığı ile İnternet’teki dosyalan bilgisayarınıza download yapmadan önce, bulmanıza yardımcı olan bir sistem. Archie hem bir programın, hem de dosya fihristlerini içeren bir sunucular sisteminin adıdır.

ARPA NET: ABD Savunma Bakanlığı'nca 1969'da yaratılan ve İnternet’i atası olarak kabul edilen ağ.

ATM: Asynchronous Transfer Mode. Aynı anda aynı hattan farklı formatlarda dosya tiplerinin (video, ses, veri vb.) gönderilmesine olanak sağlayan, oldukça yeni bir ağ işletim teknolojisi.

BBS: Bulletin Board System. Başka kişilerin mesajlarını okumanıza ve yenilerini asmanıza olanak veren elektronik bülten panosu.

binary file: İkili dosya. Sadece metinden daha fazlasını içeren dosya türü. Örneğin, harflerin yanı sıra formatlama kodlarını da içeren bir resim, kelime işlem dokümanı ya da bir hesap tablosu.

bit: En küçük bilgisayar verisi birimi. Sekiz bit, bir byte eder. Bir byte ise bir karaktere (harf) eşittir.
bitmap: Bir resmi oluşturan çok fazla sayıda nokta (dot). Ekranınız (ve lazer yazıcınızdaki kağıt parçası) her biri siyah (ya da başka renkte) ya da beyaz (boş) olmak üzere küçük noktalardan oluşur. Yeterince uzaktan baktığınızda hu noktaların bir resim oluşturduğunu görürsünüz. Yaygın bitmap formatları BMP, GIF, TIF ve PCX’tir.
bps: Saniyedeki bit sayısı. Genellikle modem hızlarını tanımlamakta kullanılan hız ölçüsü.
browser: Tarayıcı. WorId Wide Web sayfalarında metin ve resimleri (ve bazı durumlarda animasyon ve video filmlerini) bulmanıza olanak sağlayan bir bilgisayar uygulaması. Yaygın örnekler; Netscape Navigator, Mosaic ve Microsoft Internet Explorer'dır.
byte: Genelde sekiz bit'ten oluşan bit‘ler dizisi. Byte'lar bilgisayar depolama kapasitesini tanımlamada kullanılır.
C1X: Commercial Internet Exchange / Ticari Internet Alışverişi. Intemet Servis Sağlayıcıları arasında kurulmuş bir dernek.
client: İstemci. Başka bilgisayarların sağladığı (sunucu ya da 'host' bilgisayarların) hizmetleri kullanan bir bilgisayar. Eğer masamızda bir PC varsa ve siz World Wıde Web'den veri alıyorsanız, PC'niz bağlı olduğu Web sunucunun istemcisi durumundadır.
client/server: Bir istemci ile sunucu bilgisayar arasındaki ilişkiyi tanımlamada kullanılan bir terim.
com: Bir adresin sonunda bu ibare varsa (ali.akpak@sirketadi.com.tr); bu, Ali Bey'in çalıştığı kuruluşun bir eğitim kuruluşu ya da hükümet dairesi değil, bir şirket olduğunu gösterir. Adresin sonundaki ülke kodu ('tr'), 'host' bilgisayarın Türkiye'de olduğunu da gösterir. Sonda ülke kodu olmasaydı, 'host' bilgisayarın ABD'de olduğu anlaşılacaktı.
Country code: Ülke kodu. E-posta adresinin, "host' bilgisayarın bulunduğu ülkeyi gösteren son kısmı. Örneğin, tr ile biten bir adres, host bilgisayarın Türkiye'de olduğunu gösterir.
domain: @ işaretinden sonra gelen adres bölümü.
DNS: Domain Name Server. İnsanların alışageldiği internet yer isimlerini bilgisayarların kullandığı sayısal İP adreslerine çeviren, intenet'e bağlı bir bilgisayar.
download: İndirme. Uzaktaki bir bilgisayardan kendi bilgisayarına yazılım yükleme işlemini tanımlamada kullanılan terim.
dynamic routing: Dinamik yeniden yönlendirme. Internet'te bir hat tıkalı veya kesik ise, mesajın yerine ulaşmasını açık hatlar üzerinden sağlayan yeniden yönlendirme metodu.
e-posta: Elektronik posta. İnternet üzerinden birine gönderilen mesaj.
edu: Bir adresin sununda bu ibare varsa (ali.akpak@aaa.edu.); bu, Bay Akpak'ın eğitim kuruluşunda çalıştığı anlamına gelir.
FAQ: SSS. Sık Sorulan Sorular. Bir haber grubunun diğer üyelerini kızdırmanın en kolay yolu FAQ bölümünde daha önceden yanıtlanmış soruları sormaktır.
file transfer protocol: Dosya transfer protokolü. Her iki bilgisayarın da transferin başarıyla yapıldığını doğrulayacağı şekilde, bir bilgisayardan diğerine veri aktarma metodu. En yaygın dosya aktarma protokolleri xmodem, ymodcm, zmodem ve Kermit'tir. İnternet'in FTP adında kendi dosya transfer protokolü vardır.
firewall: Güvenlik duvarı. Özel bir ağın geçidinde bir güvenlik duvarı bulunur ve bu duvar İnternet’ten gelen ve İnternet’e çıkan veri türlerini
FTP: Bakınız file transfer protocol.
gateway: Geçit. Farklı protokoller kullanan iki ağı birbirine bağlayan bir bilgisayar. Posta adreslerinin doğru yere ulaşabilmesi için genellikle bunları internet standardına çevirmekte kullanılır. Kimi zaman ‘router' adı da verilir.
Gopher: Menüler yardımı ile Internet'teki sunucularda bilgi bulmanızı sağlayan sistem.
gov: Bu adresin sonunda bu ibare varsa (ali.akpak@aaa.gov ); bu, Bay Akpak'ın bir devlet dairesinde çalıştığı anlamına gelir.
host: İnternet üzerinde, tel net kullanarak bağlanabileceğiniz,FTP protokolünü kullanarak dosya çekebileceğiniz bir bilgisayar. Web sunucu ile aynı anlamdadır.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language. World Wide Web'de yayınlanabilecek nitelikte sayfalar hazırlamak için kullanılan bilgisayar dili. Bu dil, yazı tipleri, mizanpaj, grafikler, hypertext ya da hipergraphic bağlantıları ile ilgili bilgiler girebilmenizi sağlar. Web sayfalarının dosya isimleri genellikle 'html" ibaresiyle biter.
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol. Web sayfalarının internet üzerinden aktarılma şeklini belirleyen protokol. Web sayfalarına ilişkin yer kodu genellikle "http:" ibaresi ile başlar.
hypertext: Metnin başka belgelere bağlanmasını sağlayan. Web sayfaları için tasarlanmış bir metin yazma ve düzenleme sistemi.
IP: Internet Protocol. İstenilen bir bilginin bir ağdan diğerine hareketini sağlayan teknoloji.
JPEG ve JPG: Büyük resim dosyalarını sıkıştırılmasını sağlayan bir grafik algoritması. Joint Photographic Experts Grup tarafından geliştirilmiştir; bir resmin yüklenme süresini önemli ölçüde azaltır.
mail server: Internet'te elektronik posta hizmetleri sağlayan bir bilgisayar.
mil: Bir e-posta adresinin sonunda bu ibare varsa, başvurulan bilgisayarın askeri kuruluşlardan biri tarafından kullanıldığı anlaşılır.
MIME: Multipurpose internet Mail Extensions. Dosyaların- metin, grafik, resim, video ya da ses - e-postaya eklenerek gönderilmesini sağlayan bir standart.
mirror site: İnternet'te başka bir sunucunun dosyalarının kopyalarını muhafaza eden bir sunucu. Popüler sitelerin yükünü hafifletmek amacıyla kullanılır.
modem: Bilgisayarınızı telefon hattı aracılığıyla başka bilgisayarlarla konuşturan cihaz. Modem, dahili yada harici olabilir.
Mosaic: Bakınız browser.
Netscape: Bakım browser.
Newsgroup: Belirli bir konu hakkındaki haber grubu. Usenet, haberleri Internet’in her yanına dağıtan bir sistemdir.
newsreader: Usenet haber gruplarındaki mesajları okumanızı ve cevaplandırmanızı sağlayan program.
NSFNET: The National Science Foundation's network. Ulusal Bilim Kuruluşu Ağı; Internet'in araştırma ve eğitime adanmış, ABD hükümeti tarafından finansmanı sağlanan bölümü.
pocket: Bir ağ üzerinden gönderilmiş bilgi grubu. Diğer bilgilerin yanı sıra alıcı ve gönderici adreslerini de içerir.
password: Şifre. Intenet'teki yeriniz, sadece sizin bildiğiniz bir şifre ile korunmaktadır.
ping: Bir ağ üzerinde bir başka bilgisayarla iletişim kurup kuramayacağınızı kontrol eden yazılım. Eğer "pinged back" sinyali almazsanız, karşı tarafla iletişim kuramayacaksınız demektir.
POP:
1. Post Office Protocol: İnternet’teki posta sunucularınca kullanılır. Mac ve PC kullanıcılarının postayı toplamasını ve dağıtmasını sağlar.
2. Point of Presence: Bir Internet servis sağlayıcısına bağlanmak için çevirmek zorunda olduğunuz numara.
PPP: Point-to-Point Protocol. İki bilgisayarı bir telefon hattı üzerinden birbirine bağlar. Internet'e evlerinden bağlanan abonelerce yaygın bir şekilde kullanılır.
protocol: İki bilgisayarın da anladığı bir sistem ya da dil. Örneğin FTP kullanıldığında, gönderici ve alıcı "devam et” , "anladım" anlamına gelen sinyaller alıp verirler. Protokoller İnternet’in işlemesini sağlar.
server: Sunucu. Bir ağ üzerinden başka bilgisayarlara servis sağlayan bir bilgisayar. Bakınız client/server.
shareware: Deneme amaçlı ücretsiz/ programlar. Kullanmaya devam etme isteyenler, kullanıcı olmak için ücret öderler.
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. E-postanın bu" bilgisayardan diğerine aktarılmasını sağlayan protokol.
TCP/IP: Internet'te ağların birbiriyle iletişim kurmak için kullandıkları sistem.
tel net: Internet’te öteki bilgisayarlara bağlanmasını sağlayan bir program.
thread: Bir Usenet haber grubuna postalanmış ve altında cevapları olan mesaj.
Upload: Başka bilgisayara veri ya da dosya yüklemek.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. WWW sayfalarını birbirine bağlamak için ağ kaynaklarını isimlendirme yolu.
Usenet: Akla gelebilecek her konuda haber ve tartışma grupları içeren, konulara göre sınıflanmış bir bülten sistemi.
WWW: World Wide Web. Birçok bilgiyi (genelde bir tarayıcı kullanarak) gözden geçirmenizi sağlayan sistem. Şu anda İnternet’te tercih edilen bilgi sunma ve bilgiye ulaşma yöntemi.

Perché non si trova?

Snake — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:37:59 +0000

Subject: [OT] Mozilla Thunderbird
From: Blisset
Newsgroups: it.sport.calcio.milan

Qualcuno sa perchè con Thunderbird non si trova il nostro newsgroup?