censorship puzzle is solved! user comes clean...

Thanx Julie,

I can rest my paronoid state of mind now- of course, I've nothing to
hide…;-)

marc


> okay, i guess the censorship gig is up ya'll…
> i really wish i had planned it and could say it was some kind of
> performance.art to freak everyone out about security and all that BUT>>i
> cannot.
>
> i have not had a chance to read my rhizome mail for at least a week and
> it has piled up in the mailbox waiting for me. and finally today i went
> in there and began to read and then…the plot…it began to unfold!!!
> and i was a major part of it, if not the cause!!!!
>
> much to my amusement, but maybe not everyone in this forums…we loaded
> upTrends ScanMail for our server this week for our ongoing severe spam
> problem. AND apparently some of the content filters are still on and
> being "tweaked". i received a copy of scanmails' filter alert about some
> content from furtherfield earlier this week…but i have been so
> overwhelmed in tech-land this week i just dismissed it for later view.
>
> and NOW i see that the scanmail messages have sent this list into a
> tizzy.
> NO >>>rhizome is not being CENSORED! but my work is trying to be…at
> least partly spam free. i do not like the content filters. we had
> auction ads for our company bounced this week because of the word rape.
> (it was the word, scraper..as in equipment? ya know, a scraper? duh!)
>
> so i apologize for any troubles this caused!!!!
> we are all safe. the software police are not coming…………….yet.
>
> we are loading up the [email protected] email address to our filter now
> so this should stop happening in the future. and i will keep my eyes on
> rhizome messages to see if it gets fixed.
> sorry! J>
> + bostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthannewyorkbostoniscoolerthanne
> -> Rhizome.org
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
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> Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php3
>

In a message dated 6/21/2002 9:57:51 AM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:


> so i apologize for any troubles this caused!!!!
> we are all safe. the software police are not coming…………….yet.

No blood has been lost, you are still innocent. It's interesting though to
know after all. I used to get some of those, I intuited it was user-side but
asked about censorship too. The replies would say "MEX" and I actually
wondered if I was objectionable or monitored there because it was Marcos
times and all.

Another recent paranoia of mine was that I had been hacked by a keystroke
recorder installer and/or a HD eraser. The real reason was just that my
scanner had gotten unplugged so my trusty Win95 would only open in safe mode.
I changed some settings and the whole thing kablooied, showed "security
violation at KERN384789 or whatever, and I remembered that "kernel" is a
computer word.

It was a projection of my own technical insecurites–no RAID, old VP ware,
going back to juvie–and ignorance of Zen and the Art of Network Maintenance.
I blamed the problem on the internet.

Easy puzzles are very educational, even for adults. For example, what are
the percentages on "part of the problem v. part of the solution" in the
internet? Get me the spreadsheets!

So I'm glad it worked out. No misfeasance, malfeasance, or nonfeasance.

Apropos of hybris, I was asked recently whether the Genius 2000 Network was
really establishment, really making a difference.

There's a good one, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Nonfeasance."

Max Herman
genius2000.net

++