11/07/97-1168

COM Scans and Censors Email

USA (VNN) - VNN has received a lengthy message from COM operators in response to the recent VNN story# 1127.

The COM sysop writes:

"Therefore a new type of filter was installed that scans incoming mail for faul language, bulk email software signatures and typical get-rich-quick, MLM and snappy sales talk contents. Mail with such contents is ported to the Sysop. Wrongly filtered mail is delivered to the recipient instantly."

So the sysop of COM confirms that they scan the content of incoming mail to COM with what is called a "Sniffer".

The VNN mail sent below does not meet any such criteria, yet it was filtered out. Could it be that this filter is also used to censor controversial content of incoming mail to COM?

It is ironic that the sysop of COM sends email to VNN explaining why they block email messages coming into COM. When VNN receives email an auto-responder automatically confirms the receipt of the email since VNN editors cannot always answer mail promptly. Interestingly enough the auto-response message from VNN bounces back from COM stating:

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<Varnadi.HKS@com.bbt.se>

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mail2.bbt.se.:
>>> RCPT To:<Varnadi.HKS@com.bbt.se>
<<< 550-mail.bbt.se has rejected your message to <Varnadi.HKS@com.bbt.se>
<<< 550-because our filter refuses messages from <*@*vnn.org>.
<<< 550-If you think your mail was unintentionally bounced,
<<< 550 please complain to <abuse@bbt.se>.
550 <Varnadi.HKS@com.bbt.se>... User unknown
(end message)

Based on this message all mail from "VNN.ORG" is blocked even though VNN has never attempted to mass mail to COM users nor has VNN sent mail that could fall under the other categories listed by COM.

It also states that "550 <Varnadi.HKS@com.bbt.se>... User unknown". How can the user <Varnadi.HKS@com.bbt.se> be unknown if we just received email from him 30 seconds before?

Until recently the COM mail server would bounce mail back saying: "The user does not want any messages from you". We found out later that most "users" did not know that they didn't want any messages.

The COM mail server now has the courtesy to inform email senders that their domain name is rejected - for unknown reasons. It is peculiar that the COM administrators are sending mail to users that they simultaneously block for, unknown reasons. Or is it possible that they don't know which email addresses are being blocked? That raises the question who is in control of COM? Who decides what email to block? Certainly not the users.

Is it that parties need to first seek permission from the "COM authorities" in send mail to someone in COM? Or is it that the "Thought Police" is hard at work here.

Full mail received from COM operators:

With all due respect, but in my humble opinion these speculative questions are uncalled for, as is the upheavel about the COM "email block."

COM is a private, BBT owned Bulletin Board System (BBS) in Sweden and has nothing to do with the US constitution. The free membership provided to ISKCON devotees is a service, not a right. There seem to be many misunderstandings about COM, especially in the US, and I hope that the following facts and history of COM may help solve some of these misunderstandings and show the function of COM from the proper perspective.

COM was started in 1986 in Almviks Gard, Sweden, by HH. Harikesa Swami with the intention to improve communications within the BBT and his zone. Prsnigarbha das translated the text of existing Swedish BBS software into English and soon COM (from 'compurama') was up and running on a DEC PDP 11/45, a huge ancient 16-bit computer with 192KB of memory and a 14 inch 160MB Winchester harddisk.

The phone lines in Almviks Gard were pretty bad, and calling in from other countries was difficult. Somewhere in 1987 COM moved from Almviks Gard to Korsnas Gard, the headquarters of the NE-BBT, and got a total of 5 modems for logging in. In addition there were many direct lines connected to terminals for use in the BBT.

COM then moved from the PDP computer to a 386 PC with a 300 MB harddisk, running XENIX as operating system. Three Datapak lines (X.25 packet switching network) were added. At the end of 1989, COM got it's own Internet domain (bbt.se), and letters could be sent to and received from the Internet. COM would dial up the Internet provider a few times a day and exchanged mail through the UUPC protocol. In those days there were not many devotees on the Internet. The Internet revolution came about two years later.

Throughout all those years Prsnigarbha das constantly improved the software according to the instructions of Harikesa Maharaja, who promoted COM intensly and encouraged many of his godbrothers and disciples, often preachers or managers, to get on COM. When also Jayapataka Maharaja started to push everyone to get on COM, it quickly became a very important means of communication for ISKCON world wide.

In the middle of 1992 Prsnigarbha das became the manager of the New Brahmakunda construction project near Stockholm and his service as Sysop (system operator) of COM was transferred to Dharmaraja das. He still continued developing the COM software in his free time, though.

In September 1992 Ramakanta das from Zurich, Switzerland, joined the COM programmers' team and started working on porting the COM software to the DOS platform (with DesqView as multi-tasking software). In the beginning of December 1992 COM was converted from XENIX to MS-DOS, now running on a 486 33Mhz with 16MB of RAM.

LINK, the BBS of ISKCON Communications (at that time in San Diego), had been using Wildcat BBS software so far, but now switched over to the COM software for DOS and some limited conference networking was set up between COM and LINK. Devaprastha das (at that time Bhakta Dave) was the Sysop.

In October 1993 Dharmaraja das, who also functioned as department head of the NE-BBT Typesetting and secretary to Harikesa Maharaja, handed over his COM Sysop service to Raktambara das. Murari das (at that time Madhava) in the US joined the team of programmers. He did a great job by adding many new features to COM in a relatively short time.

So far, the COM BBS had been running on one 486 computer, hosting five modem lines, 3 Datapak lines, 1 Internet dial-up UUCP line, and about 15 local terminal lines. As COM became loaded more and more by an increasing number of on-line users, it became too much both for the hardware and for DOS. Moreover, the COM software had many bugs because the programmers involved could only work on it in their free time, and nobody had had any time to go through the entire program code to eradicate all the bugs. Prsnigarbha das, who had been given other responsibilities, even resigned from the team of programmers, as did Murari das.

The situation became critical, the users fried. In June 1994 there was a major software crash that destroyed most of the database, imploring Ramakanta das to take the systematical eradication of all COM bugs as his mission. At the same time an ethernet Local Area Network was set up in the NE-BBT, which was of great advantage to COM. A separate server (486 33Mhz) for the COM database was set up and the different tasks were divided over various other computers. Two 386'es answered the five modem lines, one 486 dealt with all the local terminal and Datapak lines, and another 386 did the Internet mail transfers.

With this new hardware setup and Ramakanta das gradually exterminating all the bugs, COM became more reliable than it had ever been.

In August 1994 features were added that allowed forwarding of COM mail to an external e-mail address on a regular basis, and for COM users to send updumps (an updump contains mail to be sent, plus additional COM commands, eg. commands to download files) through e-mail instead of having to call by modem. This relieved those COM users who had access to the Internet from having to pay expensive phone bills.

In November 1994, Ista das started CIS COM in Moscow, the third COM node.

Then suddenly, almost overnight, the Internet became widely and easily available to everyone. Murari das started a World-Wide-Web version of COM, WWW-COM, with a very nice interface that attracted many devotees who simply wanted to read some conference mail here and there and occasionally write a letter. For devotees who had to cope with fairly big amounts of mail daily, however, it was too slow and thus impractical. These devotees remained with COM or LINK.

Since COM allowed forwarding of mail to an external e-mail address many devotees desired to join COM, and the number of COM users increased greatly. As COM keeps all user names in memory while running, DOS (with its 640K program memory limitation) quickly became unfit for hosting the COM software. A stable 32-bit operating system was required that pointed to either OS/2 or Windows NT. Ramakanta das, a true kalpa-vrksa devotee, satisfied all Sysops by making COM versions for both operating systems in an amazingly short time. Meanwhile the COM hardware was upgraded to Pentium computers, and COM became awfully fast.

However, the users were still not completely satisfied. Especially the new users were complaining that the command line interface to COM was old-fashioned and difficult to deal with. That one had to remember so many commands, etc. So Ramakanta das started working on a so-called Off-line Reader program, that would enable dealing with COM mail in a very convenient way. WinCOM was born.

In October of 1996 LINK died a sudden death. There were various reasons for LINK to close down, the two main reasons being that (1) LINK had a hard time to survive economically, and (2) that it wasn't required any longer now that COM in Sweden could be fully accessed through the internet.

Since December of 1996 COM can be accessed through Telnet login, besides the usual modem and Datapak logins, meaning that one can be on-line on COM through one's local Internet provider. The following months saw 23 versions of Ramakanta's WinCOM, the COM off-line reader, with an increasing number of features and a Comfort addon programmed by Raktambara das. In May of 1997 COM got a fixed Internet connection (128 kbps) for the e-mail transfers to and from the Internet as well as the Telnet logins.

But... Before the Net explosion COM had always been something of a private thing, with unwritten rules and regulations that differed considerably from the big Net out there. The massive gulf of new members from the US, often with ideas about COM being something like Usenet or in another way subject to Internet standards, has given rise to occasional clashes with the earlier, mostly European, members of COM. Several conferences died because of that.

Due to the open structure of the Internet the COM community and its Sysops now all of a sudden had to deal with things that never existed on COM before. Formerly, COM abusers were extremely rare and the filter file (yes, it has always been there) had only one or two names in it for many years. Now, that filter file has proven insufficient in dealing with the unslaught of unsolicited junk mail, hate mail and challenging propaganda pooring in from the Net.

No address based filter file can cope with nowadays bulk email software, which has stealth features and creates random sender addresses. In no time such a file would grow out to megabyte size, filled with non-existing addresses. Therefore a new type of filter was installed that scans incoming mail for faul language, bulk email software signatures and typical get-rich-quick, MLM and snappy sales talk contents. Mail with such contents is ported to the Sysop. Wrongly filtered mail is delivered to the recipient instantly.

Being a private BBS offering free services to the devotee community, the COM managers have all rights to restrict access to, or mail from, persons or domains they deem a potential disturbance for the COM community. Those who do not like this policy are free to refrain from membership.

There is no need for criticism or attempts to make COM fit the Internet. Rather, we should all give our blessings to the sincere souls who selflessly developed and maintain this elaborate project day after day, year after year, and thus gave the opportunity to hundreds of Vaishnavas world wide to communicate, and associate.

Your servant,

Varnadi das

------------------------------------------------------------------------

COM, FACTS AND FIGURES
November 1997

A little more than half of the members forward their mail to external
Internet addresses. The other half are still accessing COM through modem
or Datapak.

Current COM version: 3.47.0 for Windows NT
Developers: Prsnigarbha das, Ramakanta das, Murari das
Sysops: Prsnigarbha das, Dharmaraja das, Raktambara das
Current developer: Ramakanta das
Current sysop: Raktambara das
Current co-sysop: Mahaprabha devi dasi
Total members: 1944
Active members: 1373 (logged in during the last month)
Total conferences: 600
Texts in conferences: 130678
COM database server: Pentium 100Mhz, 32MB RAM, 4GB SCSI harddisk
running Novell 4.10
Modem host 1: Pentium 90Mhz, 16MB RAM
running OS/2, hosting 2 modems
Modem host 2: Pentium 90Mhz, 16MB RAM
running OS/2, hosting 3 modems
Local host: Pentium 90Mhz, 32MB RAM
running Novell DOS, DesqView/386 with DOS Extender
hosting 15 serial lines (9600 baud)
hosting 3 Datapak lines (2400 baud)
providing a maximum of 18 simultaneous logins
Inet Mail computer: Pentium 90Mhz, 32MB RAM
running Windows NT
calls ISP every 20 minutes to exchange e-mail
processes the Internet and LAN COM updumps
Telnet computer: Pentium 120Mhz, 32MB RAM
running Windows NT
direct 128 kbps TCP/IP Internet connection
capable of maximum 150 simultaneous Telnet logins
Backup computer: Pentium 100Mhz, 16MB RAM
running Windows 95
makes daily backups of COM database at midnight
makes weekly total backups of COM
Monitor computer: 386 20Mhz, 2MB RAM
running DOS


The monitor computer constantly checks if the other computers are alive and if all modems are functioning properly. If a certain computer is hanging, or a modem is not responding to modem commands, the device is power-cycled. If the device keeps failing, the monitor computer calls the Sysop on the intercom and tells him what is wrong (using a SoundBlaster card and the TextAssist text-to-speech software). In case the Sysop is not around, it sends him an e-mail message on his COM account.

WinCOM software can be downloaded from COM's website at:

http://www.com.bbt.se/