Slashdot Mirror
RoadRunner Co-Opting "Organization" Headers
Dusty Rhodes writes: "AOL-Time Warner cable Internet Provider RoadRunner has begun co-opting the 'Organization' line of Usenet headers, replacing whatever information a user enters with 'Organization: Road Runner - (location).' All RoadRunner customers nationwide, including business customers, have had their organization identity hijacked with no disclosure whatsoever, much less an opt-in or even an opt-out. Nothing in their TOS or AUP. Nada."
The biggest reason I can see is to help cut down on spam. If people try spamming through RR, the recipient will KNOW it came from a RR server, and know where to complain. (Not sure how that HELPS RR, but it's a theory.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Companies aren't there to serve customers.
Companies are there to serve the owners/shareholders. Most of them just want to get the best return on investment they can.
Most people vote for "returns at any cost" with their money, and the companies act accordingly.
When is the last time you've heard people say "oh you can lose a few million this year, just be nice to everyone", until they put a dollar value on satisfied customers, they are going to continue to behave this way because WE make them.
And I don't really care how much RoadRunner screws with their customers, as long as they make money and build my retirement fund for me. Yes it is selfish, but I think that is the way it is.
there's absolutely no "rights" issue here. stop confusing rights with privileges.. you will only dilute this section further.
They are your ISP and you are using THEIR machines, hence they may do as they wish...an ISP has every right (though perhaps not ehtical) to ... do whatever they want to incoming/outgoing data
Are you serious? Given your logic, you seem to think it's alright to replace every other header as well (including the X-Priority, or even the TO and FROM). Why stop there? Why not change the message body as well?
"They are your ISP and you are using THEIR machines, hence they may do as they wish."
They gave up the right to do whatever they wish with their hardware as soon as they started charging you money to use it. An ISP is bound as much to an agreement as a user (if not more so) because of the exchange of money involved, and they should not be able to unilaterally change the terms of the contract without at least informing the customers.
If they didn't add the IP address, it'd be too easy to abuse their server and spam through it. Who says Usenet should be anonymous anyway?
If you do want almost anonymous access, sign up with a pay-for news provider such as EasyNews. They don't add an IP address to messages posted through their system, so it's effectively anonymous. However, they still add a special encoded header line that lets them determine which user account sent the message, but it's only of internal use to them, and someone would probably require a court order to force them to identify the poster.
It's been a long time since anything on the Internet has been truly anonymous...
Let's say I post something to Usenet trolling, blasting Microsoft and making wild accusations against them. However, my "Organization" is "RoadRunner." While it may not mean anything legally, doesn't that at least partially imply that I'm speaking on behalf of RoadRunner, and, thus, making it seem like RoadRunner's official corporate stance is whatever nonsense I just accused Microsoft of?
For example, if you work at IBM (arbitrarily chosen company), and routinely send out mail voicing *your* opinion, you'll likely have something to the effect of "These opinions are my own, and not that IBM," so that people don't twist mail you send to your friend into IBM's official position on the issue.
Again, I don't know if this carries any legal weight, but I think RoadRunner is getting themselves into more than they bargained for. (Picture swarms of angry people blaming RoadRunner for whatever their customers post.)
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suwain_2
Not to pour water on a good conspiracy theory, but are people sure this isn't just a misconfigured nnrpd.conf (or equivalent)? It's pretty easy to do; many nntp sites already add an Organization line if there isn't one present -- all it would take is for some admin to foul up a config line.
Not to downplay the significance of companies doing stuff like this, but this may be unintentional. The article doesn't look like it's double-checked the motive.
Ah, computer dating -- it's like pimping, but you rarely have to use the phrase "upside your head" -- Bender
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this a perfectly correct implementation of organization? Whose NNTP server was used? Roadrunner's server. Whose name should be listed under organization, well I can make a strong argument for roadrunner. I fail to see what harm this does to the consumer, and more importantly what "right" is lost. Most clients don't display the header by defualt. It might help someone report spam. The only downside is if you used public usenet to reply to support postings, and wanted to look profesional, and then a private server would be a much more sensible solution(no propagation time, complete control, etc.)
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
The bottom line here is that, if like the article says, there is nothing in the ToS that guarantees that this wont happen (I start to twitch if I actually read ToS or EULA documents) then I'd say you're at the mercy of the owner of the servers that you use. When I load slashdot, it gives me slashdot content. When I send mail through my ISPs SMTP servers, it adds a header. While the co-opting aspect of this is disturbing, the bottom line is that if you don't like it, run your own NNTP server, or simply use Google Groups or any other alternative news service that delivers what you want, in the way you want it. A lot of people seem to think that Roadrunner is going to get in trouble for this. I just don't see that happenning. I can't even conceive of a way that this could be illegal. But I'm not a lawyer ;)
This too shall pass.
You are exactly correct. This is not really an issue of rights. It's only an issue customer service. A company is failing to provide a service that most paying customers are used to getting. A poor choice on their part, yes, but hardly anything worth marching to the capital steps in Washington over.
In addition to the "Your Rights Online" category, Slashdot really needs a "Big Company Not Treating Their Customers Well" category, because that seems to be what a lot of these stories end up being. Save the YRO banner for DMCA court battles and stuff like that.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The problem is that it business users (who obviously pay more for their access) have also had their organization fields co-opted by Roadrunner. As you said, it is very difficult to look professional when your postings state that you are from roadrunner.
In the case of someone like Hotmail or Yahoo, they clearly state in their TOS that they have the right to add their text to your message. In this case, there was no notification whatsoever. That makes for quite a difference.
One could argue that all of the text of your message (including the headers that your computer put on it) are copyrighted by you. If they change it without authority, they have infringed your copyright. If their TOS mentioned something about it, then by using their service you would give them authority (or a license) to do so. Without that, they should have no right.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this a perfectly correct implementation of organization? Whose NNTP server was used?
This header predates NNTP
The biggest reason I can see is to help cut down on spam. If people try spamming through RR, the recipient will KNOW it came from a RR server, and know where to complain.
But they could just as easily add something like "X-Complaints-To:" or "X-ISP:", etc. Rather than deciding that RFC 850 dosn't quite apply to them. The header is for identification of the poster's organisation. Rather than whatever ISP their employer may use...
If I had a RoadRunner connection for free, then yeah, maybe I could deal with them wanting to plug themselves in my e-mails and news postings.
However, since RoadRunner is a pay-to-use service, aren't they getting money already? Why, yes, they are. And what if part of your organization is required to post to certain newsgroups, and all of a sudden, with no warning, instead of being from BlahCo, it says it's from RoadRunner? Wouldn't you be a touch upset about that?
They can fix it by making it opt out.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
But think about it logically. You may read USENET postings from anywhere on the Net, but you are posting from their server. In this sense, the tagging of the Organization line with their information seems quite proper. Maybe to qualify for your own Organization tag, you need to run your own qualified NNTP server.
And then there is a really damn good reason for doing this. Putting their information on that header also correctly indicates the source of the posting, so it is a valuable tool for tracing a culprit of USENET spam, a task for which I would gladly grant the ISP's the use of that silly header.
Make your silly case when the topic/s are the headers: NNTP-Posting-Host, X-Trace, X-Complaints-To.