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Excite Could Go Dark On Friday

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the after-excitement-comes-the-little-death dept.

robvasquez writes: "According to this CNET article, excite @home could be pulling the plug on cable modem subscribers. What's your providers back up plan? Could milions of trolls and Nimda spreaders be taken off line?"

5 of 464 comments (clear)

  1. Cox by dAzED1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cox@home is staying up, they're just going to be dropping the "@home" part.

    1. Re:Cox by emag · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here's the email I got. Not very full of details, but partially reassuring:


      Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:52:36 -0500 (EST)
      From: Cox Communications
      To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@home.com
      Subject: Important Information Regarding Your Cox @ Home Service

      Dear Cox @ Home customer:

      Recently, you were informed that our high-speed Internet partner - Excite @
      Home - filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. We recognize that this
      situation may have caused you some concern about the future of your service.
      Rest assured, we are taking all the necessary steps to provide continued reliable
      high-speed Internet service to our customers ? now and in the future.

      We are deeply committed to providing you with a quality high-speed Internet
      service. For several months, we have been hard at work creating a new Cox-
      managed network to better serve you. There are many benefits to directly
      managing our own network, such as:

      * Easier, more streamlined customer service experience.
      * Enhanced network performance.
      * Ability to bring you the latest in cutting-edge technology and product
      features.

      In the weeks ahead, we'll continue to keep you informed and share more details
      of our exciting plans. For more information, please visit www.cox.com/moreinfo .
      (Click here: http://www.cox.com/moreinfo )
      We thank you for being a valued Cox customer.

      Sincerely,
      Cox Communications


      That URL above is what some flonetwork.com gobbledygook redirected too. Funny, I can't connect....

      --
      "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
  2. Re:what about us... by camusflage · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not all "trolls and Nimda spreaders" who happen to be on @home, and could be screwed.

    You're absolutely right! It's spammers too. They're in the top ten sources of spam on spam reported through SpamCop. This is even more impressive considering that they send anything from spamcop, whether it's an automated report or a manual email with an @spamcop.net address, to Dave Null, prompting many SpamCop users to send a manual report

    While I feel bad about the legitimate customers, seeing a provider who is utterly unresponsive to spam complaints disappear down the drain after circling a while isn't exactly breaking my heart.

    --
    The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
  3. don't let the screen door ... by chip+rosenthal · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It will be a huge relief in my spam load when @Home goes dark. My most recent attempt to report a spammer with a business-class account was bounced:

    Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 22:52:21 -0800
    To: Chip Rosenthal <chip@unicom.com>
    Subject: Fwd: Newsletter Provided by The Black World Today [Evaluation - see full header]
    From: AUP Enforcement Team <abuse@home.net>
    Reply-To: AUP Enforcement Team <abuse@home.net>

    Dear Chip Rosenthal,

    Your message, including your pasted-in email message body, firewall log,
    or newsgroup header, exceeded the maximum message size allowed by our
    mail service. Please reduce the size of your email message and exclude
    any excessive message body or MIME/UNICODE text.

    For firewall users, usually one line detailing a system probe attempt
    from an @Home user is sufficient for us to take action on the event.
    Multiple lines detailing more than one event from the same user are not
    necessary.

    Thank you,

    The @Home Network Policy Management Team

    The message they refused was a whopping 50K.

    Oh, and of course they fail to return the original report so that you can revise and resubmit it. That's a favorite trick of spam-friendly ISPs.

    Pity @Home flushed all that money on the Excite portal. Otherwise, maybe they could afford another disk shelf for their mail server.

  4. Re:Put the government in charge by CaseyB · · Score: 4, Interesting
    There's a rather large difference between keeping welded pipes full of water and keeping computers running.

    Yeah, water's a lot harder to manage, and the stakes are higher when it fails. When's the last time people died because their internet connection wasn't properly maintained?

    Internet would be a breeze compared to water and power.