GETTING SERIOUS INDEED! (mailing list archives)

[Hank Leininger]

On Sat, 12 Oct 2002, Timothy R. Butler wrote:

> > And solved this must be. These mailing list archives are far too invaluable
> > a resource to be hidden from the public! Maybe there is a more stable
> > service available from some other provider?
>
>   There not, I never have any trouble accessing them. Are you sure it isn't
> something on your end?

Actually, As has indeed been blocked.  I occasionally block an IP that
starts slamming us with many connections back-to-back, etc, acting like
an aggressive robot.  MARC is entirely dynamic, perl code hitting a
database for every hit, so floods of requests can bog down the site
dramatically for everybody.  A couple of days ago I blocked an address
from which we got a flood of requests, during which time the server load
spiked.  It doesn't appear that As is a robot though ;)  Aggressive yes,
and perhaps a troll.  He's been ranting at us for a couple of days, and
apparently wasn't satisfied abusing us in private, but wanted to do so
in public too.  So here's how it started:

On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, Aunt Sally wrote:
> What the fuck is this about?! :(
> You ASSHOLE!
> YOU HIDE INFORMATION YOU MOTHERFUCKER!
> WANKER!

Excellent constructive criticism.  And next, this morning:

> HEY ASSHOLE ROBOT!
> I CANT EVEN READ AIMS ABOUT PAGE! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ON ABOUT?!
> YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!

After I provided logs of the incident which caused me to block him he
claimed the logs were bogus and continued the rants.  You may guess why
I haven't been in a hurry to unblock him.  However, this is interesting:

> > I just tested the KDE-Cygwin mailing list at lists.kde.org, just to
> > see whether you had removed that insane block. Well to my surprise
> > the list opened.

> > BUT AFTER NO MORE THAN 10 CLICKS YOU STARTED BLOCKING ME AGAIN!

As, you have indeed found a bug in the blocking code.  I never removed
you from the list.  I'm not sure exactly why the first few hits "leaked"
in just now; I'll put that on my todo list.

> > Hank, would you please give me the contact address to your superior.
> > You are sneaky enough to block even your about/contact pages to
> > prevent me from seeking help from others in your organization.

Right.  I'm after you personally.  Do you find that happens often?

My organization?  MARC is a volunteer project, which I've been
maintaining pretty much exclusively for the past five years in my spare
time, while having a real job and contributing to numerous other
projects.  Aside from some people who have been nice enough to provide
free colo for all that time, and provided some free hardware, it's got
no sponsors, corporate or private, no donations, no banner ads, no
funding of any kind other than a few thousand dollars I've spent out of
my own wallet on hardware upgrades, and no support other than the
thousands of hours I've spent over the years building and maintaining
it, and the occasional laying on of hands by the guys who colo it for
me.

We've been homing lists.kde.org for, I don't know, a little over four
years now.  Still the association is unofficial; they're not responsible
for me/my actions, nor do I answer to them, besides trying to continue
to provide the highest level of service I can to as many people as I
can.  But feel free to complain to them, maybe they'll decide to move
their lists elsewhere.  In any case lists.kde.org is not the only place
to get old KDE list mails; AFAIK there are pipermail archives of all the
KDE lists at mail.kde.org.  Of course it's a more simple interface, no
searching, etc, but it's therefore less resource-intensive.

As I've said to you in previous mails, I'd be happy to remove the block
on your address, if you ask nicely and apologize to my mother.

> > The strangest thing is that you block access to even your own about
> > page, haha.

That _is_ kind of dumb.  Should be fixed now, thanks.

Hank Leininger <hlein at progressive-comp.com>
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