How we discovered Verizon’s Spamdetector could be twisted into a disguise for censorship!
Wednesday, 18. November 2009
We had just emailed the link to our interview discussing the ‘real’ history of Afghanistan on Sibel Edmond’s boilingfrogspost. As soon as it was emailed a Verizon response spit back immediately with a notice declaring the email we had just sent was spam. When the culprit turned out to be our friend Sibel’s website we called Verizon to clear up the problem. This was clearly not spam and should be easily reinstated, we thought. While a very chatty employee attempted and failed to fix our problem, we innocently asked how can we get this address back in business. That is when the real fun began. According to the laws of Verizon Central, once you’ve been labeled spam, there is only one course of action and it goes like this:
1. Verizon uses an unnamed third party who decides what is spam.
2. This unnamed third party also reviews complaints like ours.
3. We were told to send the “offending” email to spamdetector.update@verizon.net.
4. The unnamed third party would make a secret decision within 24 hours.
5. If the unnamed third party decides it is spam, regardless of our complaint we will not hear back.
That’s it. There is no recourse to challenge the decision. There isn’t even a confirmation that the email we sent to this third party was received at all. Of course, after 24 hours we still couldn’t send out an email containing the link.
Then it dawned on us, the Verizon employee’s automoton behavior was reminiscent of a 2004 Hollywood comedy titled, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galexy. The film’s plot involves a race of Vogons who run the Vogon homeworld planet just the way Verizon Central is run.
“Vogons are employed as the galactic government’s bureaucrats.. Vogons are not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucrat
When the human heroes in the story try to extricate themselves from the stupidity of the Vogon perpectual bureucratic machine, the unfortunate victims are repeatedly told in a monotonous tone, “Resistance is Useless.” The Vogons never stop to think. There is a simple reason, they can’t. Just like Vogons, if the Verizon employees actually thought about what they were saying to us, they could not keep pushing out such nonsense. The illogic of the whole process doesn’t stop them from pushing it out, regardless. If Verizon Central says it’s the law, it’s the law and “Resistance is useless”!
It’s no surprise that many other Verizon customers have been effected by this Orwellian abuse of authority. In fact we discovered that a lawsuit was settled in 2006 on this very issue. Here are the results.
Settlements and Verdicts
Verizon
A class action lawsuit was filed against the telecommunications company for allegedly blocking legitimate incoming emails to certain Verizon.net subscribers. The class includes all business and residential customers of Verizon FiOS, DSL, and dial-up Internet services in the United States at any time from October 1, 2004 to May 31, 2005, who had use of one or more email accounts on the Verizon.net email platform. Verizon adjusted its spam filters to aggressively block messages from domains in Europe and Asia. Instead of simply routing suspected spam into a separate folder, Verizon bounced messages back to the sender without notifying the intended recipient. Verizon has announced a tentative settlement that would award customers $3.50 for each month between October 1, 2004 and May 31, 2005 that he or she was a customer of Verizon Internet Service. The maximum one can receive is $28. (Apr-05-06) [ARS TECHNICA]
[SETTLEMENT INFORMATION] File Claim before August 9, 2006: [OFFICIAL CLAIM FORM]
That was in 2006 and it doesn’t seem that Verizon Central has changed its policy in any noticeable way, regardless of whopping $28/ customer cost. Now we’re wondering how Verizon got the idea in the first place that they had a right to secretly make decisions regarding what can flow through emails without accountability..
What is even more disturbing is realizing that Verizon’s anti-spam campaign could easily be twisted to disguise censorship, a kind of “No Fly” list for emails. Just like the No Fly list, once you’ve made the list you won’t know why and you may never be removed.
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife team, began their experience in Afghanistan when they were the first American journalists to acquire permission to enter behind Soviet lines in 1981 for CBS News and produced a documentary, Afghanistan Between Three Worlds, for PBS. In 1983 they returned to Kabul with Harvard Negotiation project director Roger Fisher for ABC Nightline and contributed to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. They continued to research, write and lecture about the long-term run-up that led to the US invasion of Afghanistan. They are featured in an award winning documentary by Samira Goetschel. Titled, Our own Private Bin Laden which traces the creation of the Osama bin Laden mythology in Afghanistan and how that mythology has been used to maintain the “war on terror” approach of the Bush administration. Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story published by City Lights, January 2009 chronicles their three-decade-focus on Afghanistan and the media.
Ishmael Says:
So BFP is SPAM? Was the link in the body or title of the email? I have Comcast and have had no problems on my end. Is there a contact e-mail or number we can call to register complaints at Verizon? I’ve also had no problems linking to the site from my political blogs or on Facebook or myspace. Keep us posted. I would also be interested to hear from posters who use other companies’ services as well. Now think about this within the framework of the Net Neutrality debates and the telecomms plans for bundling certain sites and charging extra sites not within their “bundled service”.
T Says:
This is one reason why I try never to use a provider’s email service. Having a network of your own email addresses has worked much better (for work, personal stuff. And just online protection). It’s just a matter of finding the right tools.
Bill Bergman Says:
One could argue that you can always choose another carrier. But I’m curious if, legally, that could still leave Verizon open to scrutiny.
Metem Says:
Off topic, but I thought some of you may be interested in this video of Daniel Ellsberg and Matt Hoh talking (Matt Hoh is the official who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan a while back)
remo Says:
the absence of knowing inquisitors identity and no rights of debate will be familiar to those poor souls woken in the bloodied cells of Guantanamo and abu ghraib. From out here, modern Amercia is a secretive compartmentalized violent and military society, a corporation in global expansion, looking like becoming its own worst enemy. telecommunications and the owners of technologies are going to control them.Who else? Revolving doors make identity of ownership and human responsibilities a blur. Full spectrum dominance. It couldn’t be said plainer.
Restrictive information flows under corporate control. Keep it sweet on top.
Greg Bacon Says:
The person reviewing the possible spam is named Torquemada and has a rather mean dispostion.
At least they didn’t insist on a body cavity search.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
T Says:
Just talked to someone at a local Verizon shop re: this. He says that the “third party” that handles email/spam is in Canada.
Ry Says:
Classic shucking blame to avoid accountability. It’s just a clever form of censorship.
Kingfisher Says:
Get a new email service or internet service provider.
Why was this posted?
zb Says:
This was, again, an automated decision you were forced to point out to real people.
ALL unencrypted information you exchange over any piece of publicly accessible line or wire is subject to scrutiny.
Think keywords, like a search engine.
An ISP change is one way of fixing the problem. The script(s) used to ’share this story’ could be a problem.
(Not that he’ll be able to find a widget to fix that).
In this case, one automated system of filtering through untold trillions of pieces of information found a dislike for another automated system’s manner of email distribution.
The words, routing, and/or methodology caught.
We could always go back to no spam filters whatsoever, when you are forced to create an entirely new email account after a particular group or individual got a hold of your information.
The machines can’t hear you
Sibel Edmonds Says:
@ KingFisher: Are you referring to that ‘challenged’ remark on implants/etc.? If so, 1- It is removed; 2- It takes time for me to catch and remove these types of comments not trapped by ‘Spam detector,’ and since this darn ’spam detector’ puts hold on ‘legit’ comments…To make the long story short, and as I’ve posted recently on ‘being patient’ while we are working on the site, please don’t get huffy. Instead you can volunteer to moderate comments a few hours a week, or, be patient while I juggle managing this site. This attitude is called: constructive, positive, and productive!
woozle Says:
For what it’s worth, I’ve changed the “Did You Know…” box on the front page of Issuepedia to this:
Although Comcast apparently isn’t blocking boilingfrogspost.com, they have blocked emails seemingly for political reasons in the past (see links above).
woozle Says:
I posted a comment just now with a lot of links in it, and it just vanished — is it being held for moderation, or automatically rejected as spam? There’s no indication…
Simon Says:
After some persistence I was able to log on again. Zero’s and O’s were difficult to distinguish. Not sure why my original login was not kept, but am back. As for spam detectors and surveillance, my original comment was to say ‘Just speak Truth to Power.’ It does not matter if it is monitored. This site is getting a lot of press, and it is expected that it will be monitored
jockdoubleday Says:
“The frightening thing about the Vogons was their absolute mindless determination to do whatever mindless thing it was they were determined to do.” (Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless, 733)
Earlaiman Says:
Given the intensity of Israeli based groups in IT and Telecommunications worldwide,it s does not take much imagination to guess just who this “anonymous third party” who arbitrarily and without redress determines what is and what is not SPAM or is suitable for transmission on the internet.
Vogons is the best description I have heard of them yet! Thank you, and thank you for reminding mejockdoubleday, and thank you Doug for making them up. We miss you.
Earlaiman said that.
theepitbull Says:
All
This doesn’t just happen with Verizon:( When I had my computer business up and running people would tell me that they would send me an email which I never received to include not only email, but, phone call messages also.
Sibel
Would be more than willing to help moderate, moreover, check out this links to ensure your getting exposure:
http://email-marketing-service-review.toptenreviews.com/
Great post!
Love “Light” and Energy
_Don