response 107 of 264:

Dec 6 16:21 UTC 1998

Very fine work, steve!  There are a few typos, but leaving them in
may enhance the image of Grex as a bunch of volunteers.

response 109 of 264:

Dec 6 19:18 UTC 1998

   I have added the wording that Marc wanted; it is near the end
of the letter.  You can look at the entire file in ~steve/p2.  The
new paragraph reads:

  As yet we have not received anything from the administrators of
  IIT.  We would appreciate it if several people would contact them,
  and tell them that the staff of Cyberspace Communications would
  like to talk with them, at staff@cyberspace.org.  Being able to
  communicate with the administrators of IIT will directly influence
  our abilities to not ban IIT from Grex, should problems arise
  again.  Thus it behooves student body to make sure that this
  happens.

   I'd like to have this mailed out by 9pm tonight if at all
possible.

response 111 of 264:

Dec 6 19:32 UTC 1998

   If someone wants to come up with a rewording, I'm all ears.  I
personally don't think this paragraph is needed.  I'll sit back and
let the community work on this part.

response 113 of 264:

Dec 6 21:10 UTC 1998

OK, here's my take combining the Steves' approaches...


 MOTD:
   To ALL users from IIT Kharagpur (IP address 164.100.25.83):

 From November 30th to December 6th, Grex has blocked all access from
 your site, after several serious incidents occured which hurt the 
 Grex's ability to serve its users.  To inform all IIT users of why 
 the ban was enacted, access to Grex has been restored while we 
 continue our attempts to contact the administrators at your site.
 Your mailbox contains a further explaination.  Please read this mail 
 immediately.

 GREX WILL REINSTATE THE BLOCK--POSSIBLY PERMENENTLY--IF MALICIOUS
 BEHAVIOR CONTINUES.

Mail to be sent:
Grex's block of access from IIT-Kharagpur

Dear IIT users,

 Over the last several months Grex has experienced severe problems
 with a few users from 164.100.25.83 (Kharagpur).  We were not able
 to get a response from system administrators at your site after 
 many attempts to explain the situation and ask for help.  These problems 
 have been so serious and so frequent that we have regretfully taken the 
 unprecidented action of blocking an entire system from accessing Grex.

 Specifically, several "fork bombs" have been used to monopolize all
 available CPU so that the system is made useless.  Other problems
 include downloads of very large files and the harassment of female users.

 Please understand that Grex is a very small system not affiliated 
 with any university or any government.  It is maintained by
 an all-volunteer staff and by donations from it's paying members and
 by fundraisers.  No one is paid for the work they do for Grex and
 Grex struggles under the burden of an incredibly small budget.  

 Certainly IIT isn't the only site we have ever had problem users from. 
 However, in general, if something like this happens, we complain to the
 administrators of the site and the problem gets taken care of.  At this
 point, despite having sent in repeated complaints, we have received no
 response from the administration of IIT, nor have we seen any evidence
 that they are working to resolve the situation.  Given the large number of
 problems we have had originating from your site, and the complete lack
 of response from the administration there the only way we were able to
 solve this problem was to ban your site from Grex.  This is not something
 we like doing, but we really don't have any alternative.

 Since 1991 we have provided computer conferencing, email and 
 general computer access to the Ann Arbor Michigan area.  In 
 Janurary 1994 Grex became available to the world, and so far 
 people from more than 122  countries have used Grex.

 Grex's openness requires us to trust that our users will not do things
 to hurt our system.  That has been true most of the time for most users,
 though occasionally "vandals" do try to break Grex's security.

 Unforunately, there are a few users from IIT who have been running 
 programs intended to hurt Grex.  This has happened at least four times
 in the recent past.  When such a program is run on Grex it deprives 
 many people thousands of people of the use of Grex.  Even after
 such a program has been removed, its effects continue, as Grex 
 struggles to catch up on all the mail that it missed while the
 program was running.

 There have also been several incidents of a few people from your
 site harassing female users of Grex.

 Finally, many MANY people have been downloading large files,
 often after repeated requests to not do so.

 Grex cannot tolerate this kinds of system abuse.  Our system is too
 small, and the staff has too much to do without the added burden of
 constantly telling users what things are not acceptable use of Grex. 
 It should be obvious that harassing other users is not acceptable
 behavior, nor is running software designed to harm a system.

 We have temporarily lifted the block from your system to explain
 the problems to the vast majority of responsible Grexers from IIT. 
 We recognize that we have caused a great inconvience to a many people
 in blocking IIT.  It was with regret that we took this action. 
 Unfortunately we had to weigh the effect of denying access to IIT users
 against the inconvenience to all our users caused by a few users.

 We sincerely hope that the problems we have experienced will stop,
 so that Grex can continue to keep its open-door policy to the world
 in effect.  However, if severe problems continue to occur and we don't
 get cooperation from the authorities at IIT, we will have to reconsider
 whether granting access to Grex from IIT is in the best interest of our
 other 26,000 user from around the world.  

 We specifically ask for the following from all Grex user, including 
 those from IIT:

  + Do not bring over, or compose, software designed to harm Grex or
    any other system.

  + Do respect the limits of Grex's Internet bandwidth, by not
    using Grex for *ANY* file downloads except to retrieve your
    mail.  

This means:

    - Do not receive files larger than 100K;

    - Do not use Lynx to obtain graphical/audio/compressed files, and
      then FTPing them elsewhere;

    - Do not send mail larger than 100K.

  + Do not harass other users, which includes talking to someone if they
    have asked you not to.  No one on Grex should be bothered
    by others; everyone was the right to use Grex and to expect that
    can do so without being bothered by other Grexers.


 Please help us.  This is something we have never had to do before
 and it has been neither easy or pleasent.  We are hoping that by
 explaining this to you, we can spread the word there about the behaviors 
 that have caused us to take these actions.  If access to Grex is important
 to you, please discuss these problems with your friends and with your
 system administrator.  Unfortunately if the problems continue, and if
 the administration there continues to ignore our requests for help
 the ban will be reinstated until we are convinced that the problem
 users have been dealt with/

 If you have any questions or comments please send mail to 
 staff@cyberspace.org.  There is also discussion of this
 in the "coop" conference, item 47.  The coop conference is the
 place where policy issues are talked of, and ALL are welcome to
 participate.

                                    The Grex staff

response 115 of 264:

Dec 6 21:22 UTC 1998

Why sign it "The Grex staff"?  Why not sign it "the Grex membership"?

response 117 of 264:

Dec 6 21:47 UTC 1998

re 115:
        It's a lot easier for a staff person to be reasonably sure that they're
speaking for the staff, than that they're speaking for the membership.  Even
determining that one is speaking for the board and staff is reasonably easy,
through discussion here and soem e-mail, amking sure you hear form the right
people.  Determining that you're speaking for the membership usually involves
a member vote to be sure of it.

response 119 of 264:

Dec 6 22:36 UTC 1998

Yes, but as the wording of this has now been discussed here, doesn't it
make more sense to say "the grex membership" than "the grex staff"? It
also should really say more to the people who were abusing grex.  This
isn't a response of the cruel and evil grex staff, who don't after all
own grex, it's the response of the grex membership. the 100 odd folks
who basically own the system and have the final say on things.

response 121 of 264:

Dec 7 00:09 UTC 1998

I wouldn't be comfortable with signing it "the Grex membership"
unless we (ack) put it to a vote.  "Staff" is fine with me.

response 123 of 264:

Dec 7 08:02 UTC 1998

   The block was lifted at 3.00am EST.

   It took longer than I had thought it would, sending out 1693
pieces of mail.

response 125 of 264:

Dec 7 14:54 UTC 1998

The motd was 33 lines long, 9 lines more than "standard" screen height.
I just shortened it to 28 by taking out some blank lines. If the IIT
announcement is moved to the bottom, one of the election announcements
will scroll off, simply creating another problem. Perhaps the IIT
announcement could be reformatted and/or slightly condensed to bring
the total number of lines down to 24?

response 127 of 264:

Dec 7 17:33 UTC 1998

Yikes, I should have proofread it better.  It's almost uninteligible...

response 129 of 264:

Dec 7 23:21 UTC 1998

I gather the following, from comments in this afternoon's party:
 
IIT KGP is a *really* prestigious institution, and we've probably embarassed
the hell out of them with the MOTD.  We probably should pull it soon.
 
One party participant said that IIT does not allow its students to 
telnet to other places.  Given the furtive responses to staff inquiries
Steve reported in #0, I'm betting that the address in question is a 
bootleg gateway.   That's speculation, but it smells right.