Battle Creek, Michigan Settles Dispute with ORBZ

Peter Sachs, Esq. writes: "According to a press release that now appears on its official website, the City of Battle Creek, Michigan has 'settled"' its dispute with ORBZ.ORG. The City concluded that ORBZ.ORG had no criminal intent to cause the City harm by testing the 'open relay' status its server. In fact, the Assistant to the City Manager said, '...we recognize that [ORBZ.ORG] has done us a service. We are going to be taking a close look at our policies regarding Lotus security updates and how we can avoid the issue in general'"

Comments

A better analogy...

[GeekWithGuns]

From the article:

But, if I can draw the analogy that just because everyone should wear a computerized bulletproof vest doesn?t mean that shooting people to find out who isn?t wearing one is the best answer. If Mr. Gulliver chooses to do this, he perhaps shouldn?t be surprised that he will occasionally be confused with the type of individual he is fighting against.

Not quite, here is a better analogy:

ORBZ is giving out crack and instructing you to pass it out to children, to test out you sense of common sense. The bad servers just pass the crack out, the good servers distroy the crack. BC's mail server decided to take the crack.

If handed some crack everybody should know not to give it to children (forward spam), and not to take it (create a mail loop inside the server).

Spam fighting = drive-by shooting???! Morons!

[SysKoll]

I was outraged at the uncalled-for comparison contained in this half-baked press release. I sent Michelle Reen (author of the press release) an email. Here is an excerpt:

I am very glad to see that the City Manager recognizes Mr. Gulliver's positive role. It is a discredit to Lotus Corp that their Domino server exhibits the bug that caused you to think Orbz.org was harming your server, and it is entirely their fault.

But then, you offer a totally misleadling and uselessly aggressive analogy: "if I can draw the analogy that just because everyone should wear a computerized bulletproof vest doesn?t mean that shooting people to find out who isn?t wearing one is the best answer." Well, I am sorry, but you just cannot draw this far-fetched analogy. This is akin to present spam fighting -- a valuable cause -- to drive-by shooting, a misrepresentation that could be classified as libel.

Here is a more considerate analogy: Orbz.org periodically broadcast a public warning over its PA louspeakers, and your server had a fit thinking it was insulted.

The Internet is currently a community. Volunteers such as Orbz.org are doing their best to keep this community safe and clean, by fighting con artists and spammers. If misguided, overreacting organizations keep blasting volunteer efforts, then Internet users such as your organization will have to pay large sums to private companies in order to obtain similar services. I am sure such an outcome would outrage your taxpayers.

I hope her clue meter will soon go into positive numbers. Because she obviously lacks even the most basic Internet survival instinct.

Of course, a quick way to drive the point home would be to make sure her email address, gjstrand@ci.battle-creek.mi.us, gets spammed to death. Then maybe she'd start to appreciate spamfighters such as Orbz. Anyone wants to put this address in some newsgroup? How about alt.bestiality.hamsters-and-townhall-clerks?

Naaah, don't do that, that would be evil...

-- SysKoll