From [email protected] Mon Jun 18 14:39:29 2001
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From: David Ramalho <[email protected]>
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Subject: Re: [Announce/urgent] Chicago remailer forced closing
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Nomen Nescio wrote:
>
> In <[email protected]> David Ramalho [email protected] wrote:
> >  Cross posted into news.admin.net-abuse.email
> [...]
> > Another Hipcrime causality.  Techmonkeys was one of the remailers'
> > that the Hipcrime group was using to flood nana-e and nana-u.
> >
> >  Unfortunately, Techmonkeys could not or would not move quickly to
> > stop the flooding.
> >
> >  Regards
> >  David Ramalho
>
> What is Hipcrime ?
> Why Hipcrime would flood nana-e and nana-u ?
> What are nana-e and nana-u groups ?
>
> What were REAL reasons that Techmonkeys has been shut - down ?
> Please include explicitly details / names, we may help to straight them up.

Good afternoon

nana-e is short for news.admin.net-abuse.email although properly it
should have been written: nan-ae.

nana-u is short for news.admin.net-abuse.usenet although properly it
should have been written: nan-au.

Hipcrime starting in August of 1996 as an e-mail marketing operation.

What made this spamming operation unique was two things.
1. The usage of a Java Bot ( ActiveAgent ) that searched webpages
   looking for mailto buttons to push. This could be done either on
   automatic or manual.
2. The creation of the Hipcrime identity. The first usage of a fake
   identity to push a product on the Internet. Such identities have
   been used in mail, radio and television campaigns.

The spam that was sent, advertised the hipcrime website and a sponsor.
Those who objected to the spam were told that since they had a mailto
in the website, it was ok to send the spam. Besides, the sponsor had a
great product. Long distance telephone calls for 9.9 cents a minute.
Oh yea, Hipcrime was a artist and anarchist so don't bother to complain.

The hipcrime website was hosted in by Geoff White the owner of www.v-site.net
Spam was also sent from his mail servers.

But most of the spam was sent from various anonymous re-mailer servers.
It appears that each ActiveAgent Bot sent the spam to a selected anonymous
re-mailer server.

The Hipcrime spamming operation reached its' peak in the second week of
September of 1996.

On September 11-12 1996 the operators of the anonymous e-mail remailers
instituted blocking procedures against the ActiveAgent Bot. These procedures
were completely successful.

As a result between Sept. 12 - 15 a remarkable exchange of messages took
place in the cypherpunks mail list. On one side were the Hipcrime operators
and on the other was just about everyone else.

I am convinced that the reason the Hipcrime marketing group was using the
anonymous re-mailer servers was due to v-site.net not being able to
handle the flow of spam messages being sent by the Bots. Since the sponsor
was a legitimate company, they need extra mail servers that were legally
accessible.

When using the anonymous re-mailer servers at NO time did the Hipcrime
marketing group attempt to hide either the sponsor or the Hipcrime sites.

After the closing of the anonymous re-mailers the Hipcrime Marketing
Group went into decline. The volume of advertising messages dropped
dramatically. The Hipcrime message was changed. It now informed website
owners not to put their e-mail addresses into the website because it was
a security hazard.

Between Sept 12 to late November 1996 the Hipcrime Marketing Group
attempted to clean up the Hipcrime image by using this new e-mail form.
At the end of November 1996 they were back spamming for the same sponsor.

By the summer of 1997 it was very much over for the Hipcrime Marketing
Group. The sponsor was under going the start of a major shake-up, which
would result in most executives being axed within a year. Proper
accounting procedures were also being put into place. The party was over.

The Hipcrime marketing group was split into two section.
1. San Francisco, CA. operated by Geoff White. Provided the website and
   some of the e-mail facilities.
2. Boulder, CO. operated by P.P. and one other person. They controlled the
   Bots on a daily basis and directly dealt with issues.

This would have been the end of the Hipcrime story except for one
remarkable event. One of the participants in the cypherpunks mail list
decided to support Hipcrime. The fellow has a reputation for being a
kook. So the group that formed around him became known as the
"Kook Cabal".

Please note, I wrote that the "Kook Cabal" formed around the kook; NOT
Hipcrime. Each supporter of Hipcrime has their own vision of just what
Hipcrime is suppose to be. In most respects this was just like looking
into a mirror.

It took almost no effort by the Hipcrime marketing group to assist
"Kook Cabal" and other Hipcrime supporters. Basically the Hipcrime
supporters were self-sufficient in thought and deed.

As for the Hipcrime marketing group, this was great fun. They could strike
back with no effort. All in all, sort of like playing Dungeons and Dragons.

In Conclusion:

Let me make this clear. Hipcrime is an image created for the purpose of
using e-mail as the marketing media. This was a failure.

Because of the "kooks", the Hipcrime image took on new life.

In reality there is no Hipcrime. Just a marketing image of an artist,
an anarchist, a crazy programmer who just happened to know of a good
long distance telephone deal.

Regards
David Ramalho

=============
Taken from an argument in the cypherpunks list. Dated: 12 Sep 1996
<Quote>
Why not put your money where your mouth is, and bet me (any amount),
that spam WILL be socially acceptable by the year 2000.
</Quote>
Reference:
http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.96.09.12-96.09.18/msg00114.html
==============

From: Geoff White <geoffw>
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Virtual Sites Inc. http://www.v-site.net
Date: 26 Apr 1995 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
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organization: InterNex Information Services, Inc.
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And Now...
       From some of the people who brought you InterNex :)

       Virtual Sites Incorporated.

  < snip >

We are specifically interested in working with advertising, PR firms
and entertainment oriented companies.  If you would like to know more
drop me a line at [email protected]
=============

From [email protected] Mon Jun 18 14:38:56 2001
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From: Andrew Gierth <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server,alt.privacy,news.admin.net-abuse.email
Subject: Re: [Announce/urgent] Chicago remailer forced closing
Date: 17 Jun 2001 23:28:58 +0100
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>>>>> "David" == David Ramalho <[email protected]> writes:

[all fairly accurate up to this point:]

David>  The Hipcrime marketing group was split into two section.
David> 1. San Francisco, CA. operated by Geoff White. Provided the
David> website and some of the e-mail facilities.
David> 2. Boulder, CO. operated by P.P. and one other person. They
David> controlled the Bots on a daily basis and directly dealt with
David> issues.

You're not counting the individual (Robert) who actually wrote the
code and posted over the "Hipcrime" signature. Somewhere along the
line he moved from San Francisco to India.

David>  This would have been the end of the Hipcrime story except for
David> one remarkable event. One of the participants in the
David> cypherpunks mail list decided to support Hipcrime. The fellow
David> has a reputation for being a kook. So the group that formed
David> around him became known as the "Kook Cabal".

David>  Please note, I wrote that the "Kook Cabal" formed around the
David> kook; NOT Hipcrime.

Note especially that the "Freedom Knights" mailing list was already in
existence at that time, and prominent Usenet Kooks such as John
Grubor, Steve Boursy, Dimitri Vulis, Dave Hayes, iMplant, Ricardo
Gonzales, and various other less prominent individuals were already
an identifiable group (I don't know offhand when the term "kook cabal"
became popular).

Vulis had already released his "content-blind cancelbot" code, and
various of the kook hangers-on already had histories of net-abuse of
one form or another (rogue cancels, binary flooding, etc.). The
prominent kooks may really have believed that what they were doing was
somehow necessary to "save" free speech on Usenet from the evil Usenet
Cabal (which didn't really exist at the time), but the various
hangers-on mainly used this as an excuse for a bit of net.vandalism.
Hipcrime fitted in with this group very well; spouting "free speech"
while engaging in mass flooding and cancelling.

I doubt very much that Hipcrime's previous supporters in the email
game were particularly involved in this.

Later on, the kook cabal essentially broke up. Most of its original
members have dropped off Usenet completely or reformed; however,
Hipcrime has kept up the "abuse Usenet in order to save it" line,
probably to attract other net.vandals as supporters (e.g. the
"Whiterabbit" individual, who is apparently responsible for the
porting of NewsAgent to non-Windows platforms). Naturally, because
free speech on Usenet isn't his real agenda, he's ignored all attempts
to explain the consequences of his actions (e.g. that methods of
controlling spam have mostly shifted from publicly-visible third-party
cancellation to invisible and unaccountable filtering done by
individual sites).

Somewhere along the line Hipcrime has picked up a certain amount of
support from some of the major Usenet spammers (who naturally are keen
to support anything that interferes with efforts to prevent their
activities). For some time the main distribution site for NewsAgent
was hosted by the Gartman/Stemple spam operation (best known for their
spamming of "rape videos" ads to alt.sexual.abuse.recovery).

David>  In Conclusion:

David> Let me make this clear. Hipcrime is an image created for the
David> purpose of using e-mail as the marketing media. This was a
David> failure.

David> Because of the "kooks", the Hipcrime image took on new life.

I suspect that Robert would have continued using the "Hipcrime" name,
and found some sort of abuse to do, even if he hadn't fallen in with
the kook cabal.

David> In reality there is no Hipcrime. Just a marketing image of an
David> artist, an anarchist, a crazy programmer who just happened to
David> know of a good long distance telephone deal.

Well, the programmer certainly exists, and there is certainly one
specific individual behind a lot of the work.

--
Andrew.

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