[arin-discuss] Dean -vs- Eddy... again.

[Dean Anderson]

I am once again having to respond to irrelevant personal attacks just to 
set the record straight.

I won't respond to the claims in detail, except to say that Dreger
misstates my positions on various (irrelevant) issues, and summarize my
actual positions.  My positions on those issues have been well-reasoned
and have also been vindicated: Open relay opponents turned out to be
liars (not hyperbole--in fact proven in court to be liars and for the
last 10 years, the only ones abusing our open relays. I did write about
the flaws of SMTP-AUTH.  And in fact, RFC2554 (proposed 1999), RFC4954
(proposed 2007) are "proposed standards", plainly still under
development.  Plainly, that was the case in 1999 and was the also case
in 2003 when I last wrote criticism of SMTP-AUTH. These protocol
proposals are still (2008) not so widely implemented that SMTP-AUTH
obsoletes open relays, and that certainly wasn't the case in 1999 or
2003.  And the claim that open relay enables or promotes spam or enables
anonymous email has been debunked as well.

My account about Steven Bellovin is here:
 http://www.av8.net/IETF-watch/People/StevenBellovin/index.html 
My account about John Levine is here:
 http://www.av8.net/IETF-watch/People/JohnLevine/index.html 
My claims about their statements match their statements. You can find
links to their statements on the above pages.

But I won't argue the substance of the arguments here, lest I be accused
of "hijacking the topic". Dreger has misrepresented the facts and my
position on the facts. But I note that having positions on the issues
that Dreger cites does not justify any of the action from NANOG (in
1998) nor that of ARIN in 2008. Also, the issues Dreger cites were not
the ostensible basis of the actions of either organization.  So the new
issues he raises seem to be completely irrelevant, except these issues
probably were the real basis of the NANOG action.  Attempting to win
argument by silencing opponents is not honest or reputable. People of
character and integrity don't do such things. I don't expect Dreger to
agree on issues of open relays or SMTP-AUTH. However, these issues were
certainly relevant to NANOG in 1999, and my positions were well-reasoned
then.

I also note that in 1998, I was already well-established in the Internet
community, with a reputation then for being a moderate, reasonable
person of character and integrity. I was elected President of the LPF by
more votes than were cast for any one of the current ARIN board members.
Indeed, by about 4 times as many people voted for me as have voted for
Paul Vixie.

What is relevant now, relevant to the membership of ARIN, is my
complaints against ARIN the ARIN leadership:

   for their action and inaction during periods of scurrilously improper
behavior at NANOG, silencing reasonable positions while misrepresenting
the criminal laws of our nation, reflect negatively on their character
and integrity.  Most of the Board and Ray Plzak were associated with
NANOG in 1998 and before, and presented themselves as leaders and people
of integrity, yet they did nothing about the scurrilous activities;

   for their fabrication of false claims of per se defamation to justify 
disrupting my membership in ARIN;

   for their assertion of false claims of spam, as further justification 
of capriciously disrupting my membership;

   for the reasons uncovered in the investigation previously reported,
particularly transfering large funds to NANOG, sending ARIN
non-operations employees to NANOG, sending resource analysts to NANOG
where they are placed in ethically compromising positions, etc.


My conduct during this same period, both in the substance of the issues
being debated, and in response to the scurrilous events, has been
entirely honest and honorable and respectable.


On Tue, 20 May 2008, Edward B. DREGER wrote:

> 

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