BradBlog: Comcast Blocks E-mails Linking to Cindy Sheehan Website

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Blogged by Winter Patriot on 8/17/2005 @ 11:14pm PT...

CENSORING AGAIN: Comcast Blocks Emails Linking to Cindy Sheehan Website! Cox Cable Joins Nation's Largest Net Provider in Keeping Citizens in the Dark! Other ISPs doing the same thing -- here we go again! only bigger!!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot UPDATE: Since the following item was posted, we have had confirmed reports of emails being blocked by other ISPs as well as Comcast. We'll post...

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001720.htm

Five weeks ago The BRAD BLOG ran a report indicating that Comcast, the nation's most popular email provider, was automatically deleting emails containing the web address "http://afterdowningstreet.org". Shortly after the report was published, 6 or 7 people made such a commotion that the problem was suddenly fixed. Various explanations were given, none of which cut any ice in the opinion of this lowly and nearly frozen blogger, but at least the problem went away.

Why am I telling you this? Background info. Today we have received a report indicating that something similar is happening again, but this time the address that triggers Comcast's automatic deletion is "http://meetwithcindy.org".

Personally, I do not have Comcast service, nor do I know anyone who does. So I cannot test this report for myself. I can ask for a bit of help, though. If you are a Comcast subscriber, please help us out by doing the following simple test.

Are you with me so far? I want you to send yourself four emails and tell me how many actually arrive. The four emails will be very simple, as described below:

* one with "http://meetwithcindy.org" in the subject line, and the words "test #1" in the body
* one with "meetwithcindy.org" in the subject line, and the words "test #2" in the body
* one with "http://meetwithcindy.org" in the body, and the words "test #3" in the subject line
* one with "meetwithcindy.org" in the body, and the words "test #4" in the subject line

Send these messages, wait a little while, then check for incoming messages and find out for yourself. According to our source, you will receive "test #4" but not "test #3". Apparently the "www." prefix is necessary to trigger the automatic deletion. If this makes no sense to you, please recall that in the previous episode, the address in question, "afterdowningstreet.org", triggered the automatic deletion only if it carried this prefix. In other words, emails containing "afterdowningstreet.org" passed through cleanly, while those containing "http://afterdowningstreet.org" were dispatched to the nearest black hole.

Most of the time the prefix "www." is insignificant; but apparently the prefix is very important in this case. But we don't know for sure, and that's why we're asking you to do some testing.

We don't know what to expect regarding tests #1 and #2. That's why we're asking you to perform them. After we collect more information, we can take it to Comcast and request a correction in their software -- or in their censorship policy, as the case may be. The more information we can present, the better it will be -- not only for us, but also for the people at Comcast (or Symantec) who will have to solve the problem.

I emphasize that this is not the time to make a lot of noise -- not publicly, at least. This is the time for gathering data. We can make noise soon enough, if we can confirm the report we received earlier today.

UPDATE: Go ahead and make some noise if you like. We've seen enough to know that something terribly fishy is going on.

CONTACT INFO for COMCAST:
Abuse Dept: phone [phone] – ext 1 or email: [e-mail]
Mike: phone [phone] or email [e-mail] or email [e-mail]
Jim Janco : cell 856-297-3548

We will post more contact information as soon as possible.

If you're still not sure about your e-mail provider, or if you'd like to help us gather more data, please participate in our informal study. I'll be watching this thread to see the results of your testing.

To repeat: Please send yourself four emails as described above, then come here and tell us how many -- and which ones -- you received.

Thanks, as usual, for your cooperation.

[tridim]

1. They must have removed the block

I got all 4.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. If you feel like responding to BradBlog...

...they did ask for people to let them know if they got them. Your call.

:patriot:

[windbreeze]

3. Comcast...

I have comcast cable...I did the test...I received all the e mails I sent myself even though some took longer to come through than others did...and then I reversed the exercise, and sent from comcast to yahoo...same thing..got them all...I don't know, by that time, they may have caught on, that someone was checking....I did post my findings to bradblog...
windbreeze...

[AntiCoup2K4]

4. Possible "non political" explanation.

Comcast's mail servers might have filters set up to trap e-mails with HTML in the subject line. Given that most e mail clients will automatically open the e mail at the top of the list, it's possible that opening the e mail with an URL in the suject line will link you directly to that page. And if that page happenned to have porn-popups, or some sort of harmful script running, this would of course, be a bad thing.

Now IF Comcast seems to be filtering out just names, and not URL's that's a different matter. But from here it looks more like a coding issue with their junk/spam filter.

Hopefully that's ALL it is. I have no hardline phone in my house, and I will not do business with Qwest (regional phone monopoly) again, even to get a DSL line. Comcast is my only realistic choice for Internet access, so they better not be pulling this shit.

EDIT: These filters could also be on the end user's computer, in a commercial spam-filter program.