d
d
d
NOTE: This is the unedited version of the story that appeared in the March 27 1998 issue of Network World Canada. The print version was not available from the company website the last time I checked.
Solid Oak Software Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif., is willing to admit it sent approximately 500 e-mail messages to a Web site designer who was critical of the company's Cybersitter Internet filter.
But Marc Kanter, Solid Oak's vice-president of marketing, has said repeatedly the 500 e-mails can't be called an e-mail bomb.
"It wasn't a mail bomb," Kanter said. "It was individual mails that were sent. A mail bomb is sent by an anonymous user all at one time."
Regardless of terminology, Kanter does admit the messages were sent purposely from support@solidoak.com to Sarah Salls, a Web page designer in Greenfield, Mass.
"What happened was a tech support employee was frustrated due to all the responses that he had received. He felt that [Salls] was attacking the president of the company, who he holds in high regard, and unfortunately sent a number of e-mails to that same address."
Salls had e-mailed Solid Oak regarding Cybersitter. Depending on whom you ask, Cybersitter is either a program that helps parents prevent their children from accessing adult-entertainment sites and other inappropriate information on the Internet, or it is a covert censorship tool that deliberately prevents kids from reading about such topics as gay rights, women's rights and alternative religions.
Salls is a member of PeaceFire -- an anti-censorship group of about 2,300 people, most of whom are teenagers. One of the few adult members, Salls joined the group in November 1997.
"I was not a very active member of PeaceFire," Salls said in an interview. "My one contribution to PeaceFire since I'd signed up was designing some "Blocked by SmartFilter" graphics for [the group's Web site.]"
But when she recently read PeaceFire leader Bennett Haselton's Web essay entitled "Where Do We Not Want You To Go Today?" regarding the many criticisms of Cybersitter, she was inspired to act. The PeaceFire site has links to several articles, e-mails, and letters in which Solid Oak has insulted and threatened a variety of people, including Haselton, for criticizing the company.
"I read the correspondence between [Solid Oak president] Brian Milburn and PeaceFire pretty much saying that Bennett Haselton had no right to poke his nose into [the Cybersitter debate], as this was software for parents and Bennett wasn't a parent," Salls said.
"Well, I am a parent. So I guess, since I am a parent and this software is designed for people like me, I can put my two cents in there."
A mother of a seven-year-old boy and six-year-old girl, Salls decided to test the free demo version of Cybersitter to see if the many accusations of undue censorship were true.
Cybersitter is said to block many non-pornographicsites, such as the National Organization for Women's home page and the site of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. According to Salls, the program did block these and other sites that contained no graphic adult material, including Web pages on her own Wiccan religion. She e-mailed Solid Oak to complain about the censorship.
alls said she e-mailed the company four times, each time to a separate e-mail address, because the first three messages were bounced back automatically when the Solid Oak server found the word "PeaceFire" in the message.
Kanter said 12 e-mails were received from Salls, some duplicated to the same address, even though she was asked the first time to not send any more e-mail. He also said that Solid Oak has never received a customer complaint based on the widespread allegations of politically based censorship.
"The fact that some parents don't want their kids going to gay and lesbian sites or to learn about witchcraft, that's their option. The customers choose if they don't want those categories accessible to kids," Kanter said.
Salls said she understands Solid Oak doesn't necessarily have to respond to non-customers, but added "they don't have to attack their critics either."
Shortly after e-mailing her complaint, Salls said she received a copy of an e-mail sent to her Internet provider, Valinet, in which Solid Oak said: "We have asked for your assistance regarding repeated unwanted e-mail from [Sarah Salls]. You have seen fit however to ignore our requests. Since you will not do anything, we will."
About 30 seconds later, Salls said, e-mail began pouring into her inbox. She immediately called Valinet, and when an administrator saw the incoming e-mail, he began blocking any e-mail coming to Valinet from solidoak.com.
"They sent my original letter back to me 446 times," Salls said. "They had changed the title to: 'Re: your crap.' The first 250 said 'Stop sending us e-mail,' and then after that it was just a repeat of my own message coming back."
Solid Oak has been accused of e-mail bombing PeaceFire members in the past. Haselton said the company set up an automated response program on the Solid Oak mail server called Terminator. When Haselton and another PeaceFire member responded back to automated Terminator reply messages, the program sent back 5MB junk files that were subsequently split into about 400 messages by their own mail servers. Milburn has been quoted in Wired! News, admitting to Terminator's junk response, but said it was a 500KB file.
Page last updated June 25, 2001.
Don't like my colour and font style? View this page in your default settings.
Made With Notepad Webring
Home - About - Privacy - Ring Master
Join Now - Ring Hub - Random - Previous - Next
