Slashdot Mirror

What good is Bess? We use it at the Internet Provider that I work for, UpLink. It seems to work fairly well... I've played around wtih it in the office. However, there are ways around it... I've played with it, and have figured out some ways to get around the service with the settings in place.... using proxy services and what not.. that I was running on my home computer.... so if it's this easy to get around Bess... why do schools care?

It seems my ISP finally received a notice of injunction today, since the webmaster sent me the following e-mail at 12:10 this afternoon (ET):

Attention: Robin Lionheart

****** NOTICE OF POLICY VIOLATION ******

Your personal website on UpLink's web server (http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl) has been determined to be in violation of the "Illegality" clause of UpLink's Web Hosting Policies (http://www.uplink.net/ser vices/web_hosting_policies.shtml). Specifically, the web page published by you located at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~r obinl/mirrors/cp4.html and the subsequent associated files possibly violate a permanent injunction entered by Judge Edward Harrington of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on March 28, 2000.

The injunction was a result of the following action, and prohibited any further publication by the defendants or anyone in active concert with them of "CP4break.zip" or "cphack.exe" or any derivative thereof:

Microsystems Software Inc. et al. v. Scandinavia Online AB et al., Case No. 00-cv10488-EFH (D. Mass.)

Therefore, your personal website at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl has been removed. You may petition for the reinstatement of your website, sans any questionable material, by emailing webmaster@uplink.net. The decision whether or not to reinstate your website will be made after a review of your site's content and will be made at UpLink's sole discretion.

---
Andrew Frederick
UpLink Webmaster

I'm sure nobody is surprised that Mattel's recent dropping of Microsystems hasn't had any impact on Microsystems continuing its hollow legal threats. I wonder if they timed the letters to be received on a Friday.

It seems my ISP finally received a notice of injunction today, since the webmaster sent me the following e-mail at 12:10 this afternoon (ET):

Attention: Robin Lionheart

****** NOTICE OF POLICY VIOLATION ******

Your personal website on UpLink's web server (http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl) has been determined to be in violation of the "Illegality" clause of UpLink's Web Hosting Policies (http://www.uplink.net/ser vices/web_hosting_policies.shtml). Specifically, the web page published by you located at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~r obinl/mirrors/cp4.html and the subsequent associated files possibly violate a permanent injunction entered by Judge Edward Harrington of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on March 28, 2000.

The injunction was a result of the following action, and prohibited any further publication by the defendants or anyone in active concert with them of "CP4break.zip" or "cphack.exe" or any derivative thereof:

Microsystems Software Inc. et al. v. Scandinavia Online AB et al., Case No. 00-cv10488-EFH (D. Mass.)

Therefore, your personal website at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl has been removed. You may petition for the reinstatement of your website, sans any questionable material, by emailing webmaster@uplink.net. The decision whether or not to reinstate your website will be made after a review of your site's content and will be made at UpLink's sole discretion.

---
Andrew Frederick
UpLink Webmaster

I'm sure nobody is surprised that Mattel's recent dropping of Microsystems hasn't had any impact on Microsystems continuing its hollow legal threats. I wonder if they timed the letters to be received on a Friday.

It seems my ISP finally received a notice of injunction today, since the webmaster sent me the following e-mail at 12:10 this afternoon (ET):

Attention: Robin Lionheart

****** NOTICE OF POLICY VIOLATION ******

Your personal website on UpLink's web server (http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl) has been determined to be in violation of the "Illegality" clause of UpLink's Web Hosting Policies (http://www.uplink.net/ser vices/web_hosting_policies.shtml). Specifically, the web page published by you located at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~r obinl/mirrors/cp4.html and the subsequent associated files possibly violate a permanent injunction entered by Judge Edward Harrington of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on March 28, 2000.

The injunction was a result of the following action, and prohibited any further publication by the defendants or anyone in active concert with them of "CP4break.zip" or "cphack.exe" or any derivative thereof:

Microsystems Software Inc. et al. v. Scandinavia Online AB et al., Case No. 00-cv10488-EFH (D. Mass.)

Therefore, your personal website at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl has been removed. You may petition for the reinstatement of your website, sans any questionable material, by emailing webmaster@uplink.net. The decision whether or not to reinstate your website will be made after a review of your site's content and will be made at UpLink's sole discretion.

---
Andrew Frederick
UpLink Webmaster

I'm sure nobody is surprised that Mattel's recent dropping of Microsystems hasn't had any impact on Microsystems continuing its hollow legal threats. I wonder if they timed the letters to be received on a Friday.

It seems my ISP finally received a notice of injunction today, since the webmaster sent me the following e-mail at 12:10 this afternoon (ET):

Attention: Robin Lionheart

****** NOTICE OF POLICY VIOLATION ******

Your personal website on UpLink's web server (http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl) has been determined to be in violation of the "Illegality" clause of UpLink's Web Hosting Policies (http://www.uplink.net/ser vices/web_hosting_policies.shtml). Specifically, the web page published by you located at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~r obinl/mirrors/cp4.html and the subsequent associated files possibly violate a permanent injunction entered by Judge Edward Harrington of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on March 28, 2000.

The injunction was a result of the following action, and prohibited any further publication by the defendants or anyone in active concert with them of "CP4break.zip" or "cphack.exe" or any derivative thereof:

Microsystems Software Inc. et al. v. Scandinavia Online AB et al., Case No. 00-cv10488-EFH (D. Mass.)

Therefore, your personal website at http://woodstock.uplink.net/~robinl has been removed. You may petition for the reinstatement of your website, sans any questionable material, by emailing webmaster@uplink.net. The decision whether or not to reinstate your website will be made after a review of your site's content and will be made at UpLink's sole discretion.

---
Andrew Frederick
UpLink Webmaster

I'm sure nobody is surprised that Mattel's recent dropping of Microsystems hasn't had any impact on Microsystems continuing its hollow legal threats. I wonder if they timed the letters to be received on a Friday.

Rushing in where angels fear to tread, I've used my license to modify and posted cphack 0.1.1 on my BoCP4 mirror site. It's just the same cphack with GNU boilerplate comments and Mattel copyright notices, and the GPL in the zip. If you wish to download this new and not at all improved version: http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://woodstock.u plink.net/~robinl/mirrors/cphack11.zip

I just updated my mirror page with a link to this slashdot article. I thought I'd post the others on the list here for everyone's edification (and because the server of my personal web page probably wouldn't take it if you went there for it!)

• Wired: Mattel Stays on the Offensive (27 Mar 2000 2:45PM PT)
  "Upping the stakes in a battle over a utility that reveals Cyberpatrol's list of off-limits websites, Mattel threatened mirror sites with contempt charges during a court hearing Monday afternoon."
• ZDNet: Hackers settle Cyber Patrol suit (27 Mar 2000 2:11PM PT)
  "ACLU attorney 'surprised' as programmers surrender rights to their hack of Cyber Patrol filter and agree to permanent injunction."
• ZDNet: ACLU slams Cyber Patrol tactics (27 Mar 2000 4:03AM PT)
  "The American Civil Liberties Union criticized Internet filtering software maker Microsystems Software Inc. and its parent company Mattel Inc. on Friday, accusing them of attempting to limit free speech on the Internet."
• Wired: Mattel's Filter Fiasco to Court (27 Mar 2000 3:00AM PT)
  "A federal judge in Boston will hear arguments on Monday over whether a program that reveals Cyberpatrol's secret blacklist should be banned from the Internet."
• ZDNet: You've got a subpoena! (24 Mar 2000)
  "Call it legal spam. Lawyers in the Cyber Patrol legal battle have created an e-precedent -- sending subpoenas by e-mail."
• CNN: Cyber Patrol decoding brawl gets ugly and international (21 Mar 2000)
  "A legal dispute between a U.S. toymaker that produces a popular Internet pornography filter and two programmers that decoded the software could heat up into a messy international brawl."
• Slashdot: Mattel/Cyber Patrol Censors Critics Again (20 Mar 2000)
  "Mattel is updating the Cyber Patrol blacklists for all of their customers to include the homepages of the authors and all of the mirrors, blocked under every blocking category the product has."
• USA Today: Judge helps Mattel zap effort to undermine filter (20 Mar 2000)
  What a misleading headline. Yet another example of McPaper earning its abysmal reputation.
• Wired: CyberPatrol Hackers Lose Round (17 Mar 2000)
  "A federal judge in Boston has tried to ban the distribution of a computer program that reveals CyberPatrol's secret list of sex sites."
• Slashdot: Mattel dislikes being embarrassed (16 Mar 2000)
  "In addition to demanding the removal of the decryption utility, Mattel is also seeking the logfiles of the Swedish ISP that hosts the decryption utility, to identify everyone who has downloaded it to date. Today's news was filled with Mattel's PR lies about their suit."
• Wired: Mattel Sues Over Blocking Hack (16 Mar 2000)
  "Toy-maker Mattel has sued two programmers who revealed how to circumvent its CyberPatrol blocking software."

Several news outlets uncritically ran Ted Bridis's AP newswire story characterizing the decryption program as a tool to let children view pornography:

"A company that makes popular software to block children from Internet pornography is suing two computer experts for distributing a method for kids to deduce their parents' password and access those forbidden Web sites."

• SJ Mercury News: Software Co. Sues Hackers (15 Mar 2000)
  
• cnet: Hackers crack online porn filters (16 Mar 2000)
  cnet's version adds this interesting paragraph:

  "Early today, activists copied the utility and details of the effort and began distributing them across the Internet on nearly two dozen Web sites that duplicated Jansson and Skala's original work. Those efforts apparently were coordinated on technology Web site Slashdot.org, where the lawsuit was roundly condemned."

• CNN: Software company files lawsuit against hackers (16 Mar 2000)
  CNN's version also adds the cnet paragraph and some additional reportage, but still mischaracterizes the program. However, their later coverage was more evenhanded.