OT: Email Censorship - RANT

[J Miller]

For the last month or so I have had a number of instances where my emails did not reach their destination. And some that I knew had been sent to me never reached my in box.

Yesterday my wife tried to forward me a joke. It was a very non PC joke, but nothing obscene, or bad. I never got it.
We tried numerous titles in the subject line, nope. Then we tried doing a screen capture and sending it as a .jpg photo. Nope didn't come through. She also tried to send the email to our other two email accounts. Didn't come through.

Finally I got p.o.'d and told my wife to call the techs and find out what is causing the censorship. She did and found out that some default setting had been turned on in the three email accounts. Previously we had all our accounts set up exactly the same way. Anything that looks like spam goes into the delete folder for us to deal with later. But somehow it got changed.
Outdoors spam filter was searching not only the subject line, but the text for anything it considered wrong and then quarantining it. I do not know exactly how long this has been happening, but I'm sure I've lost a lot of emails because of this.

My wife told the tech to release the 16 pieces of email that was being held in my account and they did. 13 of them was her attempts to send the joke, two were from my friend ( one of which was somewhat religious ) and another was a forum email.

To say I was livid was an understatement. I do not abide censorship, I will decide what is to be deleted, not some unidentified outside entity.

Whoever turned on this "default" setting is on my stuff list, and as soon as I can figure out who to complain to I will do so with vigor.

So if you are thinking your emails are somehow not getting to you or their destination, get hold of your email servers ISP tech and check the settings. You're probably being censored.

If there is anyone who may have sent me emails and received no answer, please try again now.

I doubt this has any political connotations so lets not go overboard with the tin foil hats and black helicopter stuff. I just thought I'd let you what happened to us and that it might be something to think about if you had trouble.

Joe

[madman4570]

Uh-oh, Its the start of big brother watching you????
Hide your guns?????????

[Blaine]

[J Miller]

Uh-oh, Its the start of big brother watching you????
Hide your guns?????????

I honestly don't think big brother had anything to do with this. Just some dufas at Outdoors flipped a switch he shouldn't have.

However, it really is that easy to shut us down. All they gotta do is scan your email for anything considered offensive and then just quarantine it.


Alright guys, enough with the political end of this. I would rather not have my thread sequestered to the political section. What happened was not political.
Joe

[Blaine]

Sorry, Joe......

The thing is, there are a slew of Christians, Parents, and/or delicate people that insist on that sort of filtering. IMO, that should be taken care of at the individual's computer, rather than a wholesale filtering. Don't they filter real heavy in Oz these days?

[J Miller]

Sorry, Joe......

The thing is, there are a slew of Christians, Parents, and/or delicate people that insist on that sort of filtering. IMO, that should be taken care of at the individual's computer, rather than a wholesale filtering. Don't they filter real heavy in Oz these days?

Blaine,
I agree that sort of filtering should take place in the individuals computer, not at the email server level. That's why I called this instance censorship. This was a default program that was turned on by someone at our email server. Not by our choice either.
Just thought I'd let folks know what happened so they might have an idea to check on if someday all of a sudden they don't get any jokes anymore.

Joe

[Bear 45/70]

I drop my Yahoo and MSN email accounts because of this stuff. I went with Goggle but haven't really started using it much. I mainly use my e-mail thru my local internet provider, in my case the small local telephone and cable company. I can control the censoring by picking the options I want. I do however regularly get notifications from other's e-mail providers telling me that certain vids and e-mail were not delivered because of their BIG BROTHER type censorship. Who appointed them my mother or anybody else's for that matter.

So far I haven't been able to get anybody to censor Blaine the Tuba Tooter.

[Streetstar]

I am so over the top with e mail that i almost despise it now. It is a triumph to get the inbox down to maybe a dozen or so --- and if i am gone for 3 or 4 days, i have to sift through 75 or so stuff messages, my finger gets sore from pressing the delete key. I sent out a form email a few weeks ago stating that i will not respond to jokes. chain letters, or any other such nonsense. 0If someone has something cool to say, save up the emotion and call me later ---- it will be better that way.

This is not the way a man should have to live

I cherish the weekends i get to check out and say " F------orget it" no computer, limited phone use, the whole bit. I would love to be camped out with my paint, Petey, cooking coffee over an open fire and listening to the 'yotes miles away, but mostly checking out is just turning the phone off for a day and goin' shooting or riding my off -road motorcycle. If the weather is nasty, i can be happy watching old westerns as long as the phone dont ring and the 'puter dont buzz.

[AmBraCol]

I've had my own server for nigh on to eleven years now. I sensor my own mail, thank you. I refuse to use hotmail and yahoo is "just in case" and gmail only has a couple people on it for me. I refuse to use an ISP's mail servers. I don't even use our ISP's e-mail services for anything. just put my name in front of sacm.net and you've got me - just like it's been for the past nearly dozen years. Some folks STILL haven't figured that out. ?? ?? Or for "official" forum stuff, webservant in front of sixshootercommunity.com will do it. I see no reason to put up with someone messing around with my e-mail and settings. And if I don't want to hear from you, I just have to toss a lil' switch and no more problem. That treatment has not been used much at all, only twice. One of the many things I hate about AOL is that they try to obligate you to use their e-mail and browser programs. No thanks. I prefer freedom, thank you very much.

[madman4570]

Point well taken.
Thanks for the info !!

[J Miller]

Paul,

I understand your thoughts and feelings about this completely. We gave up on AOL about 8 years ago and never looked back. Been with Outdoors.net ever since. This is the first time we've had trouble with them, so I can't say we've been unhappy with their service. But I sure don't like being censored for something as stupid as a silly joke. A joke that maybe in bad taste, but isn't really offensive.

Now, about having our own servers; that would be nice, but impractical I would think. So tell us how to do it so we don't have to depend on our ISP's email. Seriously, I'd like to know how.

Joe

[AmBraCol]

Joe, it's easy. It's not free, but not that hard. Go to http://www.godaddy.com and register a domain name. www.mrandmrsmiller.com or www.joeshomeforcats.com or www.whateveryourheartdesiresasadomain.com - you get the idea. It'll cost you $10 a year or so. I BELIEVE godaddy offers free e-mail service if you leave the domain parked with them. I've never done that, but it'd be worth looking into. Me? I prefer to host my account elsewhere and use them only as the registrar. I've got more e-mail addresses than you can shake a stick at - but I only pay attention to my main ones - the mission addresses and the sixshootercommunity.com address. For hosting plans just clusty up (I use http://clusty.com/ instead of google) "Linux Hosting" and do a bit of research. There's oodles of companies out there that'd host your domain for as little as a couple bucks a month, depending what you're looking for. Throw up a simple "Don't mess with me" index page and just use the e-mail part of it. You can also host your own pics your own way. It's a very flexible way to do things, as long as you're willing to put in a bit of effort to learn a few basic things like how to FTP and how to set up an e-mail program to do both POP3 and SMTP. It's not as bad as it sounds.

[J Miller]

Paul,

Thanks for the information. Will give it some serious consideration.

Joe

[AmBraCol]

Paul,

Thanks for the information. Will give it some serious consideration.

Joe

You're welcome. Here's the URL right to their "Personal E-mail" info at Go Daddy.

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/email/per ... sp?ci=9020

I've never used their service so can't speak to that. But their rates are quite reasonable. And you probably won't be transmitting Yahoo or Google adds with each e-mail you send. Me? I still prefer using a hosted domain that gives me more flexibility and service even if it does cost a bit more.

[Old Savage]

It is OK Joe. I downloaded the black helicopter that Blaine showed you - it is now on my hard drive and can't come get you.

[Bear 45/70]

The nice thing about my local, small phone company, Hood canal Communications, being my provider is that I have the option of choosing a "trusted sender only" option. Which means that only the email addresses I choose get sent to me.

[AmBraCol]

The nice thing about my local, small phone company, Hood canal Communications, being my provider is that I have the option of choosing a "trusted sender only" option. Which means that only the email addresses I choose get sent to me.

The nice thing about my own server is I can use a whitelist/blacklist system. First time mail to my given name at sacm.net will result in a notice sent to the sender that they must confirm they are a real live person and not a spam bot by merely replying to the message. I don't mind folks e-mailing me, but spambots ain't human. If the person replies to that notice then they get whitelisted. Let's say it's a spammer (has happened once) - then I go in and add that address to the blackhole list. Never hear from them again. And I can customize this in any number of ways. Freedom - a great thing. And I'm not "just another guy @ whateverisp.com - I'm ME at my own domain name. Plus I can create any number of aliases for a variety of reasons. This gives me a wide variety of possible addresses folks can use and I can filter the incoming e-mail as I see fit. So when a company asks for my e-mail address I can give them yourcompany@mydomain.com. And that address is used only for that company. So when I hear from Mrs Smith who's husband died after 26 years as ambassador to the Ivory Coast and she writes to that company at my domain name offering to donate to me the entire 2.5 million US dollars he ripped off from Saddam Hussein - well we just found out who sold my e-mail address to some nigerian jerk. There's all kinds of possibilities when one has one's own domain name...

[JustaJeepGuy]

...offering to donate to me the entire 2.5 million US dollars he ripped off from Saddam Hussein...

That sounds like you don't WANT that 2.5 million dollars! It's there waiting for you, with just a few small hoops to jump through...

[AmBraCol]

...offering to donate to me the entire 2.5 million US dollars he ripped off from Saddam Hussein...

That sounds like you don't WANT that 2.5 million dollars! It's there waiting for you, with just a few small hoops to jump through...

Sure, I'll take the 2.5 million. I just want to know who to thank!!!

[JohndeFresno]

I am not an advocate for, nor employee of any ISP or Internet related business. But in some instances, at least, we are getting a little wild-eyed, looking for the bogeyman behind the bushes.

In fact, many of your problems are quite probably because your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is trying to protect you from spam, viruses, and other attacks. They are merely attempting to provide a safer and more pleasurable experience for their customers.

If an e-mail has several recipients listed, for example, the mail might "look like" spam to the filtering equipment of your ISP's central server, and be blocked. This used to create problems for subscribers to online magazine subscriptions until the magazine companies found a way to change the address group - the way that your name shows up, and nobody else's, on the e-mailing list.

Many services, like Comcast, provide free virus and Trojan horse filtering, to some degree. Comcast went a step further and provides a free subscription to McAfee Antivirus software as long as you are a subscriber. Some e-mail attachments may be innocuous, but may have something in the attachment that triggers a false alarm at your ISP's server, thus blocking that mail from reaching your computer.

There are other scenarios, as well. Did your sister send you 35 photographs directly from her new 10 Megapixel camera? Did Uncle George send you a huge graphics package that contains your family tree in Microsoft Publisher? Your ISP has a size limit, and if the size is exceeded, the e-mail is rejected. If you have a cable or network account, the chances are that you will have a fairly large file size allotment - around 3 Gigabytes, I believe.

If you use a dialup account like Juno, the size of files that you can receive is much more limited. There are ways that you can share large files through a third party product, such as uploading to, and then downloading from Box.com (free up to a certain size), G-Mail (I think), and so on. Or you can use compression software like PKZip or WinZip, or the free Seven-Zip software, to temporarily shrink the file size for transmission purposes, and expanding it again at the receiving end so that it can be viewed and/or used.

Providing that you have eliminated the obvious problem of too large an e-mail transmission, the important thing to do is to pick up the telephone and ask some questions of your support staff. If you don't believe that they can fix whatever problem you are having in receiving your mail, then tell them that you will be discontinuing their service if the problem is not fixed immediately. If you are still not satisfied, then changes services! I had to do it, and am now very happy with Comcast. They are not perfect, but nobody can be, with the state of flux, attacks, and growth that we are experiencing with the Internet.

As for the government listening in - maybe they do. But that has nothing to do with your service, anymore than you can detect that the police are listening in on your phone conversations because you hear a click. It doesn't work that way, and hasn't since the 50's or earlier. This belief is another example of Hollywood movie nonsense. If the gubbmint has decided to listen in, you will never know it; there is no glitch, no click - it won't affect your service at all. Accept the fact, be happy, and let's all move on!

[J Miller]

John,

All of what you said is true to an extent. However I did not request that filter to be turned on. They simply took it upon themselves to CENSOR my email. THAT is what got me riled up.
They did not ask me if I wanted the filter switched on, they just took it upon themselves to be my mother and block my email. This caused me no end of problems for about a month until we got it figured out.
It also showed us, me and my computer tech friend who was helping me that most of the ISP techs are either incompetent, liars, or both.
And if you'll notice I said in my very first post this was not a black helio / tin foil thread. But there are always some who just have to put this drivel in.


How come nobody has asked about the joke that set this rant off? I figured someone would be curious.


Joe

[JohndeFresno]

Joe,

I noted, indeed, that your post stated, "I doubt this has any political connotations so lets not go overboard with the tin foil hats and black helicopter stuff. I just thought I'd let you what happened to us and that it might be something to think about if you had trouble." But I sensed that some folks might have been reaching way out there with gloomy conclusions that just aren't worth worrying over.

I sympathize with and understand your dilemma. As a Comcast user, I can elect not to download my mail, but read it, send e-mails, and so on - by going directly to the website and clicking on "Mail" with the appropriate user name and password combination. This service works well for when I am traveling and using another computer to check on e-mails. I clearly don't want to download my mail on somebody else's computer!

At that site, any mail that is sent to multiple addressees is placed in the "Spam" folder, even though it might come from a friend or relative who is just alerting several friends or family members about a particular situation. I can see where a misinformed technician could accidentally turn a filter on, and I would not receive the mail. Instead, Comcast allows the mail to be downloaded, but there is a little alert that the e-mail is suspected as being spam. You can choose to open it or not at your home computer.

In your case, it sounds like a mistake was made, and a technician or your ISP became overly exuberant in filtering out something that you didn't want filtered. Hopefully, you can correct that situation by having your sender resend the e-mail (if possible) directly to you ISP as a follow-up to your phone call to see what happened. These ISP firewalls, virus filters, and other customer protection devices have gotten very tricky and are constantly changing to keep up with the insidious ways that spammers, phishers and malware authors try to get around the safeguards.

The message that didn't get through might have some word or combination of words that were somehow added to a data list of "known" or "suspected" malware, pornography, etc - even though there was nothing of that nature in the message. A local school system where my daughter teaches has filters on all computers to "protect" the children and staff from those nasty people who use guns. Remember, I live in California. I experimented at a terminal in her classroom and found that I could not pull up any research material on the Kennedy Assassination because of their filters, nor could I do any scholarly research into flintlocks or other items remotely related to firearms used by our Founding Fathers, Pilgrims, and so on. Of course, my state is always the perfect example of "protection" mania having gone overboard. Maybe that happened at your ISP headquarters.

Or there might be something in the header of the message, unseen by you, that coincidentally is the same as headers (that is, address groups) used by attackers.

As for whether you do or don't want any filtering, that merits a conversation with the company. You may be correct that your ISP filters stuff that you believe to be unnecessary or even inappropriate, and hopefully they are sophisticated enough to change the filters for your e-mail. If not, it might be time to go to some other provider who can accommodate you.

As for a tech lying to you, there is always the supervisory chain. But I believe that I am preaching to the choir - you have been around and know what to do. If the company maintains that nobody lied to you and/or refuses to address the situation then it's clearly time take your money elsewhere and perhaps expose that company to other potential users. I did exactly that with AT&T when I moved to Comcast.

Incidentally, I had an incident where a paid e-mail magazine subscription was filtered out at one point, and I later learned that it was because of a "malformed header" by the syndicated sender, who sent out apologies. It's complicated stuff. If you are wondering if I dreamed all of this stuff up, I do this for a living in my semi-retired status for a State agency - IT stuff, security, and so on. I hope that this helps.