Glad you find ActiveAgent to be "fascinating". The issue of
"unsolicited" mailings is a thorny one. When people put a
MAILTO button onto their published webpage, they have
published their Email address. This has the effect of
SOLICITING messages from people that they do not know and
could not have expected to hear from.
> Wow. I wonder how much hate mail you got?
Attached is a file of "comments". Please pay close
attention to the ratio of pro-to-con, and also notice
the source of the comments.
> Mind if I forward this to the robots mailing list?
Please do.
> It'd be cool to have an expanded description though...
There's a second attachment, that is the "document"
file supplied with the shareware distribution of
ActiveAgent. It'll clarify a few points about the
AA's operation, and give you some ideas about how
it gets used.
... Robert
What the critics are saying about HipCrime:
Fleurs. Thnx!
jocee@shore.intercom.net (jo campbell)
I don't get it. And what kind of site is this anyway?
Cara Stallone <cara@webwarecorp.com>
Checked out hipcrime. It will take me a few visits to meld with it,
if that is possible. I like it!
Jay Graygor <graygor@haven.ios.com>
Wow what a cool idea. Is Active Agent something I can buy and add
to my web site? Hows it work?
MITCHELL WAITE <mitchell@nbn.com>
You've entered something deep, something you never knew existed.
In the future, there will be times you'll be glad you've stumbled on
what you have. Likewise, there will be times you'll hate yourself
for it.
Cool site. I'd like to add a hotlink/article to HipCrime in the
next construct of Cyber Times. Got any PR blurb you can e-mail me?
Rik Haynes <rik@modified.demon.co.uk>
I must agree that having a website invites unsolicited e-mail, if
only to comment that people have seen the site. I send unsolicited
e-mail to website owners as part of my marketing plan.
Ross Wright <rwright@adnetsol.com>
Congradulations. I had at first thought you were a simple fool.
Now I'm certain you're an idiot.
"E. Allen Smith" <EALLENSMITH@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
I liked your site so much I wanted to send you my $30 in microsoft
money.
caius van nouhuys <caius@blegga.freerange.com>
I don't want see any of this fucking shit in my mailbox just
because I have a mailto link on my Mixmaster page. Is that
sufficiently clear? I don't want the government involved, I
think the net can inflict appropriate punishment.
Lance Cottrell <loki@infonex.com>
I don't really know what Active Agent is.. but if it's pointing
people at me.. I like it.
John Silver <jsilver@execpc.com>
Fuck you. It may be clever, but it's still spam, asswipes.
And I don't appreciate it. Have some respect for hacker principles
and fuck off.
J B Bell <cipher@eschatek.com>
I appreciate your site. Nice job on the money manipulation.
wellvis@well.com (Brad Bechtel)
An invoice for all the costs and damage incured will be sent to you
c/o your internet service provider.
Johan Helsingius <julf@penet.fi>
FYI: I've got a Ph.D. in math/cryptography, I've been on the
cypherpunks mailing list for a year, I think their harrassement of
you really sucks. You have my 100% moral support.
dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
get this crap out-a here
Daniel A. Hartman <hartman@vuse.vanderbilt.edu>
Someone here doesn't like us... didn't like us before Hipcrime went
online, and still doesn't like us. But now at least he's got our
attention.
Jim Ray <liberty@gate.net>
yer site is pretty damn coo I mustsay.
scroo 'em if they can't take a yoke.
Cynsa Bonorris <cynsa@construct.net>
Do you know some clown whose userid is "robert" who might be using
your service to spam the Net? If so, it might be good to suggest he
grow up ...
Hassan Schroeder <hassan@Eng.Sun.COM>
STOP the Insanity. You are breaking all the rules and annoying
everyone with your anonymous email Java toys.
Rita Ann Brosius <brosius3@llnl.gov>
My e-mail address is *paid for*, I subscribe to it for my own
self-interest *only* ... take note that since *I* pay for it, I
consider it as my private territory. If you want to trespass, it
is up to you and for the moment, there is nothing much I can do,
unfortunately.
"Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>
I suspect you may soon be hearing from far worse than I ...
Some punks take their colors seriously.
Rabid Wombat <wombat@mcfeely.bsfs.org>
i share your opinion of those fuckwit cypherpunks. hell, i haven't
found anyone in this scene with a double-digit percentage of
cluefulness.
Daniel Pouzzner <douzzer@lechter.chautauqua.com>
Cypherpunks (myself included) value privacy greatly. Privacy is the
right to be left alone. Actions such as yours only undermine the
fight to preserve privacy...
Ian Goldberg <iang@cs.berkeley.edu>
Sending commercial, off-subject mail to my list without my
permission should be labeled as "theft"...
Merrill Cook <mcook@ecunet.org>
i don't see you sticking your neck out to deal with assholes who
think freedom of speech is secondary to their right not to ever see
mail they don't want.
zinc <zinc@zifi.genetics.utah.edu>
Best of luck on the development of the Active Agent.
Chris Kazor <kazor@earthlink.net>
Very interesting. I really like your twirling logo and a lot of the
artwork. I presume that's the main point of your site - art. The
construction of your site is intriguing and it's almost impossible
to resist visiting the various pages.
Mark Stokes <mstokes@nbn.com>
Look, I don't know what the hell you are doing over there,
but stop it.
Donnie Barnes <djb@redhat.com>
What kinda' CRACK are you on?
Mary South <msouth@ic.net>
Still, like computer virii, the internet worm, all the promised
intelligent agents and nano-mites we've been promised (which the
hipcrime bot could certainly be seen as another precursor of, at
least as far as intelligent agents go), there's a certain abstract
beauty to the scheme, and a certain pathos.
Moltar Ramone <jlasser@rwd.goucher.edu>
tell me about this odd site please
Elizabeth Murphy <elmurphy@calvin.stemnet.nf.ca>
Somehow your email message (unwanted) arrived at my mail box.
I will happily read your Email messages and offer my consulting
services as to their content in a reply to you for a standard fee
of $75.00 hour, $150.00 minimum. Please be advised that any future
unwanted Email from you will be considered a contractual obligation
and solicitation of my services at the above mentioned rate.
Lee H. Stapp <lstapp@swcp.com>
I have been searching long and hard for a program that does this...
can I get this program?
Felix <flex@inet1.inetworld.net>
thanks forpaying attention... i'm in a hurry now but i'll throughly
read you page next time... nice graphics...by the way... the java
applet won't run on my computer...
fatima <amitaf@eiger.com.ph>
I agree with you. It's not just a bug, but a case of inconsistant
implementation ...
Earl Cooley III <shiva@io.com>
Got nice mail concerning my site (www.quintessenz.at) pointing back
to hipcrime. thanx.
Erich Moechel <erich-moechel@apanet.at>
Certainly caught my attention. Some neat graphics.
frank tymon <frank@qnet.com>
Pointing out a flaw is one thing, exploiting it for the sake of
pointing it out is another. But making an engine for its
exploitation publicly available can lead to trouble.
"GBHP" <gbhp@ix.netcom.com>
An unscupulous person or persons is abusing the SMTP daemon This is
both unethical and in some countries illegal.
Adrian J. Chung <ajc@doc.ic.ac.uk>
I did browse through your site looking for "Active Agent," ...
Where you hiding this custom engine at?
Allan Cory <allan@sonic.net>
Your illegal SPAM is not wanted here or anywhere else on the
Internet. TO CC recipients: Please do everything in your power to
see this JERK never touches the Internet again.
David Denney <daud@dimensional.com>
In checking out your site I came across ActiveAgent which sounds
great ... do you know where I could get a copy? Perhaps you might
have a copy yourself, what do you say?
YUSH Ponline <yush@dircon.co.uk>
I suggest "Hipcrime" is an entity that you should hardly be proud
to support.
Philip J. Koenig <pjk@netcom.com>
You have potential, young Jedi, but you turned to the dark side
of the force and joined the evil empire of Spam. Trust me.
ActiveAgent is going to make you more enemies in the web community
than you want.
Greg Bulmash <gbhp@worldnet.att.net>
very clever, having your agent contact us, and tell us we were doing
a "nice job."
Charles Paparella <cp@shore.intercom.net>
I haven't heard of "ActiveAgent" and didn't find it in the search
engines I tried. Is it a search engine or web page?
Lynn E. Feuling <mga60@star.net>
thanks for the email, i think.
patrick <pcheatha@sloc.net>
I would therefore like to request you determine what user initiated
these emails, and take appropriate action against them.
Larry Hastings <funkster@hyperion.com>
I have checked out your homepage and it has some cool stuff on it.
However, I have to admit, I'm not quite sure what the HipCrime
homepage is; enlighten me?
David W. Ayer <isdept@frank.mtsu.edu>
Thanks for the compliment -- although you'll forgive me if I have
this lurking sense that I've been spammed, I don't know whether to
feel pleased or pissed. No matter; checked out your site anyway.
Mike Lee, publisher <Intang@aol.com>
From a 56 year old dummy. Can you explain Active agent to me.
Joe Blackmon <unique@cbus.mindspring.com>
Great job! Guess I'll have to break down and learn to do frames.
John Burik <jburik@mail.fuse.net>
I checked you web page and enjoyed the fractals .. it reminded me
of the 60's .. you might want to run a 60'2 midi stream with it ..
like something from the Doors dude.
Johnny <jtphoto@ix.netcom.com>
Hey - cool site ... Very curious about the ActiveAgent ... you
certainly got my attention and piqued my interest. Looking forward
to hearing from you.
Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org>
I have added your site to my page under "other cool sites".
I like your site design, very nice. Could you e-mail me a blurb
of what your site is all about??
Julian <phaedra@dimensional.com>
Forgot to compliment you on your graphics -- very impressive.
In fact, in comparison our sites look downright plain (perhaps
as one should expect at a government facility).
Marcia Soward <soward_m@NIEHS.NIH.GOV>
Your site. Ne plus ultra ... Active A made my browser freeze like a
schoolgirl who just had her strap snapped ... otherwise ok.
Michael Neff <mneff1@cais.cais.com>
...like your site very much, especially the neural net applet.
Paul May <paulm@parallax.co.uk>
Wow excellent site with loads of wonderful images!!
I can see that I'll have to come back again and again to see it all.
RG Geiger <geigerpp@corecom.net>
Would it be OK to add a link to your site??
Richard Dewitte <fishguru@sonic.net>
HipCrime is slick as snot, good job. As always, it strikes me as
amusing that we need to use a global medim to reach people in the
same city.
Ronald Morgan <rhyzome@zoom.com>
I saw "HIPCRIME" and thought it was really well done.
The site in general reminded me of the times I've spent in
San Francisco. It's cool. Keep it up and have fun.
Tom Grant (eleven27@dimensional.com)
Our attorneys have asked the San Francisco's City Attorney,
the county's District Attorney, the California Attorney General
and the Justice Department to investigate what crimes you have
committed and take appropriate action.
"David C. Loring" <ihcorp@worldnet.att.net>
Well, you certainly got my attention! Whats the scoop?
I'm curious about a number of things ... do you ever do freelance
or contract work? Awaiting your further reply...
zernie@mail.znd.net (Z Ernie Spiegel)
If you think that this is funny in any way you are severely
misguided. You are not funny, this is not in good taste.
This is why people don't like the Internet.
The VINE <info@thevine.com>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HipCrime's Active Agent, a shareware WWW search spider & publicity engine.
ActiveAgent accepts a starting URL, and will examine that site for links,
following them from there to anywhere. Along the way, it will find Email
addresses embedded in the various HTML pages. In effect, Active Agent
crawls from site-to-site, locating and pushing people's "mail-to" buttons.
ActiveAgent does NOT skim newsgroups, databases, or subscriber lists.
It locates addresses on published, accessible WWW homepages, and sends
one (and only one) message to each recipient. ActiveAgent will contact
those people who have invited comment by listing their coordinates in a
"please-mail-to-me" context (i.e. a MAILTO button on a public page).
This shareware version of ActiveAgent will contact only the first twenty-
three (23) addresses found during each run, but will continue to harvest
addresses, to demonstrate its potential for distributing large numbers of
messages.
Due to system-dependencies, importabilities, and security dilemnas in the
Java Interpreter, ActiveAgent can be a very touchy applet to run. The MS
Internet Explorer version3 beta2 is its favored browser, one in which the
the Java SecurityManager has been implemented in a very liberal fashion.
Conservative browsers (such as Netscape Navigator) will require visitors
to browse the page, then reload the page locally. That is, to locate the
ActiveAgent in the browser's cache, and run it from there.
ActiveAgent can be an exciting applet to provide on a public WWW-page,
but many WebWibblers prefer to keep it stashed away on a private page for
their own use. When used correctly, ActiveAgent can generate tremendous
traffic almost overnight. Once several thousand clients become aware of
a particular site, the word-of-mouth continues to bring visitors. It is
this initial "critical mass" that ActiveAgent is intended to attract.
It is interesting to note, that ActiveAgent produces "site awareness" on
a variety of levels. Because "unsolicited" or "unwanted" Email is such a
touchy situation, sites which host ActiveAgent will become the target of
reactionary, sophomoric, and poorly thought out complaints. It is these
complainers themselves who actually inform the most people: by continued
list-postings and discussion group participation, they repeat the message,
over and over, often quoting it in full. The best part part of all, is
that taken on a by-person basis (complainters tend to be overly vocal,
sending 25 or 50 messages each), compliments heavily outweigh complaints.
Although, the raving, angry notes can be a source of great enjoyment.
HipCrime thanks its various detractors, for making so much noise that
traffic will remain high for a long, long time.
Contrary to what one might expect, the more tech-skilled a netizen is,
the more that "person" tends to complain about something new. Experience
shows that "newbies" don't even realize that ActiveAgent's messages are
programmatically generated. Those with some experience realize what's
up, but are glad that they've received some unexpected stimulus.
University professors and their underlings, computer industry workers,
corporate command center personnel, and all the other "gurus" of the
Internet, see the WorldWideWeb as something intellectual, something for
informative use only. No advertising allowed. No junk mail allowed.
No free speech allowed, unless they agree with it.
On initialization, ActiveAgent loads three (3) lists of exclusions, to
help it avoid those "neti-gurus":
SKIPlinks.txt - domains that'll never be visited
SKIPnames.txt - stock names that'll never be mailed to
SKIPaddrs.txt - individual names that'll never be mailed to
These three files are supplied containing those entities which HipCrime
has already encountered. Any new ActiveAgent host should continue to
update these.
SKIPlinks.txt is a list of domain names that ActiveAgent will NOT add to
its search list. It is impossible to crawl over anything in this list.
Some large sites (such as search engines) do not have many MAILTO buttons
and are better ignored. Other sites have 1000's of such buttons, and
will get aggravated the first time ActiveAgent visits them. No problem,
just drop their domain name into SKIPlinks.txt. After all, everybody in
that site has already received the message.
SKIPnames.txt is a list of stock names, things like WEBMASTER or SYSOP.
Usually, whoever made the pages at a given site has some catch-all name
on many pages, but their personal address will appear inside somewhere.
Skipping these ADMIN-type names helps to avoid any duplication which can
occur from sending to SUSAN@host.com and to WEBMISTRESS@host.com. This
exclusion list is also a good way to avoid mail lists. Often list server
names are identifiable (like MajorDomo, ListServ, or containing -list or
somesuch). If a list gets hit, you'll hear about, so just put its name
in the SKIPaddrs.txt file.
SKIPaddrs.txt is the most specific of all. It lists individuals whose
addresses should be ignored. This includes complainers, discussion
lists, basically anyone whose feedback indicates that they don't want
to hear about it. Sometimes lists slip in, when they've been given a
non-list looking name (e.g. BAPA - Bay Area Pinball Association, real
big complainers).
Overall, ActiveAgent is fairly simple to use. Once started, it will
split the browser window into two frames, displaying its controls on
the left, and its directions for use on the right. While crawling,
the right frame doubles as the VISIT frame, allowing the operator to
view the pages that ActiveAgent is searching. This feature makes it
an easy way to locate previously unknown sites on the WorldWideWeb.
A fully functional version of ActiveAgent is available, complete with
Java source code, for $US100 or equivalent (cash, check, or MO only).
Questions, comments, order enquiries, or whatever should be directed to:
hipcrime@HIPCRIME.COM
c/o Stark Raving Math
some new drop address
SF CA USSA 941??-????
------------------------------------------------------------------------