Comcast blocking free speech again? in Comcast HSI http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r14162842 en Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:11:52 EDT Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:11:52 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14177182 NormanS :
said by nategold:

The fault was the Brightmail filters that all the big ISPs use.
The second largest HSI provider in the U.S. (after Comcast) does not use Brightmail.
--
Norman
~A deam, dream, no dream
~Voices of the night go across the forest
~A dream, dream, no dream
~Good night my good child]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14177182 Sat, 20 Aug 2005 03:26:31 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14177178 NormanS :
said by nozzer See Profile:

said by NormanS See Profile:

Which in no way reduces your obligation to try to make a first hand validation of the claim. It just means that you would have to enlist the aid of a Comcast customer to validate the claim.
Which is why I posted the question in the comcast forum. Please pay attention.
It would seem from many other reports that there was indeed a problem, it was with BRIGHTMAIL (the service comcast uses to send/receive email), and they removed the block around the time my post appeared. The troubling thing is that this is the second time brightmail have decided to block emails containing links to what could be described as "sites with left of center views". I doubt its Brightmail, more likely a lone tech who made this decision.
If it were for instance Rush Limbaughs site, you could be sure there would be lots of people here screaming foul, and Brightmail/Comcast would be accused of being a communist run organization.
Fair enough; I will endeavor to comprehend the question in the future.

I doubt if the issue is a lone rogue right-wing tech; more likely it is an issue of customer marked messages in scoring. Presumably, more "Red-State" customers marking the message as offensive would cause the filters to kick in.

So maybe you should lay off the poor techs at Brightmail (most of whom are probably as far left as you can get; Brightmail being an S.F. located business), and rant against your fellow U.S. citizens, instead.
--
Norman
~A deam, dream, no dream
~Voices of the night go across the forest
~A dream, dream, no dream
~Good night my good child]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14177178 Sat, 20 Aug 2005 03:24:21 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14173715 MrBradTX : The Brightmail filters consider "user-flagged" messages as part of their ranking, right? So isn't it equally likely that a great many customers "flagged" the messages in question, raising their spam score?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14173715 Fri, 19 Aug 2005 17:45:47 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14173380 nozzer : not quite sure where I suggested there was a conspiracy - just a dumb tech at brightmail with a partisan viewpoint.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14173380 Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:59:05 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14173270 anon : The fact is that the www.meetwithcindy.org web site *was* blocked if it was in the body of the email message. If it was just meetwithcindy.org it went through, but the www.meetwithcindy.org was blocked. I just spoke with the comcast abuse department and they admitted it. The fault was the Brightmail filters that all the big ISPs use. I don't know how long the blocking occurred for, but now it is not blocked. But your headline "No, Comcast Did Not Filter Cindy Sheehan Emails" is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. It may have been only for a day, maybe longer. I have no idea. But on 8/17 it absolutely was blocking them. I did many tests. I sent from yahoo into comcast, from comcast out to yahoo, yahoo to yahoo, and comcast to comcast. By about midday yesterday 8/18 it was fixed. All of you folks here who tested did so after comcast fixed the problem with the Brightmail filters.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14173270 Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:45:51 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14168404 funchords :
said by nozzer See Profile:

The troubling thing is that this is the second time brightmail have decided to block emails containing links to what could be described as "sites with left of center views". I doubt its Brightmail, more likely a lone tech who made this decision.
If it were for instance Rush Limbaughs site, you could be sure there would be lots of people here screaming foul, and Brightmail/Comcast would be accused of being a communist run organization.

--
Robb Topolski ;) http://www.funchords.com/ :D Hillsboro, Oregon USA
Dear Anonymous, Thank you!!! Thank you!!!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14168404 Fri, 19 Aug 2005 00:22:36 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14168026 jansm38 :
quote:
If it were for instance Rush Limbaughs site, you could be sure there would be lots of people here screaming foul.


I would have thought there would have been a lot more cheering than crying foul if that were to happen. ;)

Are there really that many fans of a hypocritical drug abuser here?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14168026 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:21:32 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14167773 nozzer :
said by NormanS See Profile:

said by nozzer See Profile:

Also, if you look at my profile you will note I'm an RCN subscriber, not Comcast.
Which in no way reduces your obligation to try to make a first hand validation of the claim. It just means that you would have to enlist the aid of a Comcast customer to validate the claim.
Which is why I posted the question in the comcast forum. Please pay attention.
It would seem from many other reports that there was indeed a problem, it was with BRIGHTMAIL (the service comcast uses to send/receive email), and they removed the block around the time my post appeared. The troubling thing is that this is the second time brightmail have decided to block emails containing links to what could be described as "sites with left of center views". I doubt its Brightmail, more likely a lone tech who made this decision.
If it were for instance Rush Limbaughs site, you could be sure there would be lots of people here screaming foul, and Brightmail/Comcast would be accused of being a communist run organization.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14167773 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:45:08 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164813 HockeyPuck86 : I've sent an e-mail every which way you can and they havn't been blocked! ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164813 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 16:40:56 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164711 funchords : I don't know how Comcast does its spam filtering (or even whether it does spam filtering), but there are many dynamic blocklists (aka DNSBLs) that are extremely reliable.

What they do is look for traffic patterns of e-mail coming from an smtp server to a specific e-mail address that has not signed up for anything (although it may be published on the web somewhere for the spammers to harvest).

If only one are received at these mystery mailboxes, no problem. But as soon as two or three are hit, then the smtp server gets listed in the block list for a time period. The longer the spam run continues, the longer the server is listed on the dynamic block list.

Usually, no listings are permanent, so it adapts to the changing conditions.

So this could be one explanation of why a valid e-mail isn't delivered -- because someone else misused that server to send spam.

If you wish to look at this kind of protection for your e-mail account, free software that does this can be found at »www.spampal.org . You can read my review at »www.funchords.com/favorite/freew···ndex.htm .
--
Robb Topolski ;) http://www.funchords.com/ :D Hillsboro, Oregon USA
Dear Anonymous, Thank you!!! Thank you!!!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164711 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 16:27:49 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164185 dadkins : Worked fine here from Yahoo to Comcast. :uhh:
]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164185 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 15:17:49 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164071 NormanS :
said by J D McDorce See Profile:

There is a huge difference, both technologically and philosophically, between filtering email traffic and non-email data traffic (such as posting on this site).
Which is the reason for my suggested test. If Comcast was blocking freedom of speech, they would be blocking offensive content at a different level than just in email.
said by nozzer See Profile:

Also, if you look at my profile you will note I'm an RCN subscriber, not Comcast.
Which in no way reduces your obligation to try to make a first hand validation of the claim. It just means that you would have to enlist the aid of a Comcast customer to validate the claim. I was going to start a flurry of exchanges with my sister, a Comcast user, but I see that a couple of Comcast users have already posted the results of their own testing.
--
Norman
~A deam, dream, no dream
~Voices of the night go across the forest
~A dream, dream, no dream
~Good night my good child]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14164071 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:58:26 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163942 Warzau : Pure Crap

I received all 4]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163942 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:43:52 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163904 NormanS :
said by Qumahlin See Profile:

Why is it that the heavy right/heavy left wing nuts are always the ones that swear there are conspiracies against them....hmmm :uhh:
Because each is conspiring against the other?
--
Norman
~A deam, dream, no dream
~Voices of the night go across the forest
~A dream, dream, no dream
~Good night my good child]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163904 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:38:14 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163761 Qumahlin : For shits and giggles I just did the test from that site which told me to do

one with "www.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 "www.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

all 4 emails were received just fine. One labeled Test 3 was delayed for a minute or 2 longer then the others and did goto my screened mail folder, but there are tons of possible reasons for a delay and reason it was screened. All this shows is brightmail has had complaints/suspicions.

Comcast themself has no reason to block a site like Meetwithcindy...especially considering how useless the site is. Online petitions/protests don't work, all they do is stir up crap like what we are seeing now with false accusations of ISP's blocking them etc,

Noone stops to think all these people are sending out tons of links regarding these issues so some mail gets delayed, marked as spam etc.

But as I said all 4 emails arrived to MULTIPLE accounts just fine both from Comcast to Comcast and from Gmail to Comcast. I also did one mail from Verizon to Comcast which arrived just fine

Why is it that the heavy right/heavy left wing nuts are always the ones that swear there are conspiracies against them....hmmm :uhh:

If Comcast or any other ISP for that matter wanted to censor a site such as this all we would need to do is remove their DNS record so that unless your using a 3rd party DNS you'd never be able to access the site unless you had it's IP address. FAR FAR more effective.
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Forum Posts:6500]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163761 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:22:23 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163715 ropeguru : I run my own email server that relays through Comcast, I am a Comcast HSI subscriber, and I just sent an email from my home server account to my Comcast email account with a subject and body of www.meetwithcindy.org and it came through in about 3 seconds.
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FWD#: 223611]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163715 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:17:33 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163702 Qumahlin :
said by nozzer See Profile:

no WWW.meetwithcindy.org PLEASE NOTE the WWW
Its described at »www.bradblog.com/ - scroll down a bit.

Yes, I did this. It's not being blocked whatsoever, your spreading FUD

I left the www out of my dslreports.com message, but it was indeed in my sent emails.

I'll say once again Comcast does not censor mail.
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Forum Posts:6500]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163702 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:15:51 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163457 nozzer : Also, if you look at my profile you will note I'm an RCN subscriber, not Comcast.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163457 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:47:36 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163374 nozzer : no WWW.meetwithcindy.org PLEASE NOTE the WWW
Its described at »www.bradblog.com/ - scroll down a bit.
]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163374 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:37:54 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163297 Qumahlin :
said by nozzer See Profile:

I'm getting reports from various sources that Comcast are blocking email messages with with »www.meetwithcindy.org in the message, both inbound and outbound. Can anyone here confirm?
And FWIW, the reports also suggest this is with spam filtering turned OFF.
I just sent emails from Comcast to Comcast with meetwithcindy.org all over the message and subject lines and they came through just fine.

I also did this from Gmail to Comcast and once again received it at all accounts just fine.

All accounts had spam filtering turned ON

Comcast isn't blocking any such messages, nor have they ever. There are rare cases where a legitimate mail will get flagged spam, but that happens with ALL ISP's and is easily remedied
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Forum Posts:6500]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163297 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:28:11 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163289 MrBradTX : Also realize that your commercial relationship with Comcast is not bound by First Amendment law, which limits government.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163289 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:27:45 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163281 J D McDorce :
said by NormanS See Profile:

BTW, if you posted this from your Comcast account, then it is pretty obvious that Comcast is not "blocking free speech"; www.meetwithcindy.org showed up just fine in your message.
There is a huge difference, both technologically and philosophically, between filtering email traffic and non-email data traffic (such as posting on this site).]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163281 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:26:40 EDT Re: Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163190 NormanS :
said by nozzer See Profile:

I'm getting reports from various sources that Comcast are blocking email messages with with »www.meetwithcindy.org in the message, both inbound and outbound. Can anyone here confirm?
And FWIW, the reports also suggest this is with spam filtering turned OFF.
Have you undertaken to test that claim yourself? It is relatively easy to do. Just set up a free MSN Hotmail account, or a free Yahoo! Mail account, then send your self email; Comcast to Hotmail, and Hotmail to Comcast. Put the URL in the messages, and see what happens.

BTW, if you posted this from your Comcast account, then it is pretty obvious that Comcast is not "blocking free speech"; www.meetwithcindy.org showed up just fine in your message. The ultimate test of whether your ISP is "blocking free speech" is to try and mention the "censored" topic using a different venue than the ISP servers. If you can post the "censored" topic over your Comcast connection using non-Comcast servers, then Comcast is not "blocking free speech".
--
Norman
~A deam, dream, no dream
~Voices of the night go across the forest
~A dream, dream, no dream
~Good night my good child]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14163190 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:17:01 EDT Comcast blocking free speech again? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14162842 nozzer : I'm getting reports from various sources that Comcast are blocking email messages with with »www.meetwithcindy.org in the message, both inbound and outbound. Can anyone here confirm?
And FWIW, the reports also suggest this is with spam filtering turned OFF.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14162842 Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:36:24 EDT