Re: message police -- MIDRANGE-L

Al,

I got the same "sexual discrimination" garbage reply from a posting of mine when I used "bitching" as in "bitching" about something.
Guess that proves the software wasn't written by the "younger generation" - doesn't "bitching" mean "good" these days ? :-)
Until this lousy "scanning" software can recognize words in their correct context, it's probably best consigned to the garbage heap where it belongs.

I deliberately didn't use the *'s - hopefully to annoy those using that lousy software - and so I can get more replies from their stupid email scanning software so I know which fools are using it ! :-)

...Neil

MacWheel99@aol.com
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com

2000/10/20 14:19
Please respond to MIDRANGE-L

To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
cc:
Subject: Re: message police

From Al Macintyre It seems to me that these ISPs are trying to provide a service that they need to provide but they are a bit brain dead in their technical department. That is to say that what they NEED is software comparable to what Norton Anti-V*i*r*u*s or McAffee offer, to catch the real problems, not catch traffic that contains particular words. However, it is possible that some ISPs do not even HAVE a technical department & are buying software like some parents get Nanny stuff, in which quality is whatever vapor ware the software marketers can convince them is there. I also had a case of a bounce where I was describing a number of software techniques & I said one of them was a b"i"t"c"h to implement & I meant this in the sense that it was extremely non-trivial. Now I recognize that word can also be used by dog fanciers to distinguish from male dogs, but what I got was a bounce by message police saying that my e-mail could be in violation of sexual harrassment & yes that word can be used in that manner, but that was not the manner in which I was using it. So what we have here is new software from well meaning individuals whose effort is falling way short of what is needed & it will be a big nuisance for a few years, before the market demand is met by something that really works. Did you adjust your spell checker so you write normally, then it suggests the substitute words when you are done? Alister William Macintyre > From: jhertvik@midrangecomputing.com (Joe Hertvik) > > Subject: Re: Message police > > You wrote: > >I've encountered this too ... a political correctness > scanner rejects a > >message because it contains a word it considers too > "Harsh". > > I know exactly what you mean. I send out a weekly email > to a group of subscribers and every time I talk about > v*i*r*u*s*e*s or security, I inevitably get a number of > bounced emails from Internet service providers who are > scanning email for certain words that I am using in my > stories. If I talk about a v*i*r*u*s attack that > happened or some common h*a*c*k*i*n*g technique, these > providers don't even let my email into the system and > so, if the reader doesn't see my email in their email > box some weeks, it's because it was denied access to > the system because an email provider incorrectly > perceived it as a threat. So what started out as a good > idea--scanning emails for v*i*r*u*s* indicators--has > turned into a form of idiot-machine censorship because > the automatic scanning programs can't distinguish > between an actual v*i*r*u*s and someone who is only > talking about the situation and offering up some > pointers or references. > > Sigh... > > To get around this, I'm experimenting with coding > certain "hot-words" with '*'s to get past the idiot > sentries. That's why you're seeing all those '*' in > this email and--in my case--people will continue to see > them whenever I talk about this subject. It's the only > way I can get around the censors (it's kind of like a > secret handshake for the Internet). > > If this works, you should see this email. If it doesn't > work, well you'll never know I sent it. > > Sheesh...Whatever happened to free and open speech (or > email in this case)?