Blacklisting is so 20th Century
Sept 15, 2021 16:13:42 GMT -8
Post by Uncle Buddy on Sept 15, 2021 16:13:42 GMT -8
Hey folks, welcome to the 21st century. Did you know that blacklisting of entire populations is still going on, and well accepted, in online forums. Yep. It happens all the time, and it happens to me all the time because I live in the Philippines.
Not every online forum operator is so [insert adjective here] as to blacklist millions of people because of some blacklist, but here's how it works. I'm not an expert on this, since there's nothing I can do it about it, so I prefer to put my energy where it will do some good. But in general, this is my understanding of the situation.
In the Philippines certain Internet Service Providers or ISPs (all two of them, actually) turn a blind eye to spammers, so in effect they tacitly harbor spammers as customers or at least don't do anything to get rid of them. I'm making some assumptions here because I try to protect my health by not researching horrible people and the nasty things they do.
Like blacklisters who think it makes them righteous to blanket-ban entire populations based on the actions of a few.
I'm sure there are more than two internet service providers in the Philippines, but the vast majority of people in the Philippines have to use a wireless connection either because the only computer they have is a smart phone, or like me, they live a few kilometers from town and there are literally no hardwired connections available. I live five kilometers from a city of 150,000 people and there are no phone lines out here. So millions upon millions of people can only get online by using one of two internet service providers: Smart and Globe.
Because these corporations apparently don't cleanse spammers from their customer population, the entire ISP is on a blacklist somewhere, and forums which subscribe to blacklists send messages like this to people like me when we try to join their forum:
Since I've never spammed anyone in my life and have nothing to sell anyway, naturally the first time this happened it kept me up at night, but I've since semi-gotten used to it, because this [insert adjective here] practice is so prevalent, right here in the 21st century among supposedly educated sophisticated people. Many current practitioners of blacklisting probably consider themselves liberal as well as politically correct.
Correction: these self-righteous forum managers are either ignorant of what blacklists do, or else they think they're movie heroes shoving some "service's" version of security down everybody's throats, to save themselves the trouble of running their own forum themselves.
I've managed my own online forum for many years and I've had to delete spam from my forum maybe three times. There is a mechanism offered by proboards.com forums which lets me check both the email address and IP address of the applicant's computer to see if anyone has reported them personally for spamming. This is not a blanket blacklist, it is relatively accurate because it targets individuals who have been reported for spamming, not the whole dad-blamed ISP.
Blanket blacklisting is so 20th century? Nah, not really. Didn't it come to be considered an artifact of the dark ages back in the mid-20th century? But then along came the anonymity of the internet, and now perfectly fair-minded people like "Carolyn" at familytreeforum.com can mindlessly blow people out of their fast lane without knowing anything about them.
I feel I should apologize for posting this, or even delete it. Could it be that this is just road rage. Imagine someone having a bad hair day in traffic, blasting their horn at other cars because they feel safely anonymous...
...and then, clearing the venom from their vision, they realize they are blasting their horn at their boss, their neighbor, their co-worker, or their own grannie.
Have a nice day.
ScottRobertson
Permanantly banned from familytreeforum.com without posting one word on the forum or one item of spam anywhere, ever.
Not every online forum operator is so [insert adjective here] as to blacklist millions of people because of some blacklist, but here's how it works. I'm not an expert on this, since there's nothing I can do it about it, so I prefer to put my energy where it will do some good. But in general, this is my understanding of the situation.
In the Philippines certain Internet Service Providers or ISPs (all two of them, actually) turn a blind eye to spammers, so in effect they tacitly harbor spammers as customers or at least don't do anything to get rid of them. I'm making some assumptions here because I try to protect my health by not researching horrible people and the nasty things they do.
Like blacklisters who think it makes them righteous to blanket-ban entire populations based on the actions of a few.
I'm sure there are more than two internet service providers in the Philippines, but the vast majority of people in the Philippines have to use a wireless connection either because the only computer they have is a smart phone, or like me, they live a few kilometers from town and there are literally no hardwired connections available. I live five kilometers from a city of 150,000 people and there are no phone lines out here. So millions upon millions of people can only get online by using one of two internet service providers: Smart and Globe.
Because these corporations apparently don't cleanse spammers from their customer population, the entire ISP is on a blacklist somewhere, and forums which subscribe to blacklists send messages like this to people like me when we try to join their forum:
www.familytreeforum.com/contact-us
You have been permanently banned by Caroline for the following reason:
Spammer.
You have been permanently banned by Caroline for the following reason:
Spammer.
Since I've never spammed anyone in my life and have nothing to sell anyway, naturally the first time this happened it kept me up at night, but I've since semi-gotten used to it, because this [insert adjective here] practice is so prevalent, right here in the 21st century among supposedly educated sophisticated people. Many current practitioners of blacklisting probably consider themselves liberal as well as politically correct.
Correction: these self-righteous forum managers are either ignorant of what blacklists do, or else they think they're movie heroes shoving some "service's" version of security down everybody's throats, to save themselves the trouble of running their own forum themselves.
I've managed my own online forum for many years and I've had to delete spam from my forum maybe three times. There is a mechanism offered by proboards.com forums which lets me check both the email address and IP address of the applicant's computer to see if anyone has reported them personally for spamming. This is not a blanket blacklist, it is relatively accurate because it targets individuals who have been reported for spamming, not the whole dad-blamed ISP.
Blanket blacklisting is so 20th century? Nah, not really. Didn't it come to be considered an artifact of the dark ages back in the mid-20th century? But then along came the anonymity of the internet, and now perfectly fair-minded people like "Carolyn" at familytreeforum.com can mindlessly blow people out of their fast lane without knowing anything about them.
I feel I should apologize for posting this, or even delete it. Could it be that this is just road rage. Imagine someone having a bad hair day in traffic, blasting their horn at other cars because they feel safely anonymous...
...and then, clearing the venom from their vision, they realize they are blasting their horn at their boss, their neighbor, their co-worker, or their own grannie.
Have a nice day.
ScottRobertson
Permanantly banned from familytreeforum.com without posting one word on the forum or one item of spam anywhere, ever.