From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 16:20:48 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Censorware battle heats up; CyberSitter blacklist now public
Message-ID: <v03007807af8598419379@[168.161.105.191]>
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Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 18:43:35 -0400
To: fight-censorship-announce@vorlon.mit.edu
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Censorware battle heats up; CyberSitter blacklist now public
Sender: owner-fight-censorship-announce@vorlon.mit.edu
Reply-To: declan@well.com
X-FC-URL: Fight-Censorship is at http://www.eff.org/~declan/fc/

You probably know about Brian Milburn. The irascible and foul-mouthed
president of Solid Oak Software, which sells CyberSitter censorware,
Milburn is best known for threatening journalists with criminal
prosecutions, blocking the web sites of his critics, and calling writers a
"trickle of piss." He's so obnoxious that even his fellow censorware
vendors distance themselves from him.

One of my articles about his exploits is at:
  http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,453,00.html

Now he's on the warpath again. His latest target: one Bennett Haselton, a
college student and outspoken critic of CyberSitter's blocking policies.
(Milburn blocks the National Organization for Women and New York's
echo.com, among other university sites and Internet providers.)

Haseleton earlier this week posted a short DOS program that decrypts
CyberSitter's secret blacklist. Milburn was enraged. He accused Hasleton of
various crimes and today demanded that Haselton stop *linking* to
CyberSitter's pages.

Read on for more...

-Declan

*********

>Return-path: <bennett@www.media3.net>
>Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 09:59:10 -0700
>From: Brian Milburn <bmilburn@solidoak.com>
>Subject: Demand letter
>X-Sender: Brian Milburn
>To: bennett@peacefire.org
>Organization: Solid Oak Software, Inc.
>
>The following is a copy of a certified letter mailed to you on April 24, 1997.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Bennett Haselton
>Vanderbuilt University
>Box 1161, Station B
>Nashville, TN 37235
>
>Re: www.peacefire.org
>
>
>Dear Mr. Haselton:
>
>Please let this letter serve as notice of the following:
>
>1. You have posted a program on your web site called "CYBERsitter filter file
>codebreaker". This program illegally modifies and decodes data and source
>code
>protected by U.S. and International intellectual property laws.
>
>This program performs this action without permission of the copyright
owner. We demand
>that this program be removed immediately.
>
>2. You have placed links on your web site to various locations on servers
owned and
>operated by Solid Oak Software, Inc., a private corporation. These include,
but are
>not limited to, HTTP links, FTP links, and e-mail links and private e-mail
addresses.
>
>You have done this without permission of Solid Oak Software, Inc.  Further
use of
>these links to our private facilities will be viewed as trespassing and
intentional
>harassment. We demand that these links be removed immediately.
>
>Your failure to comply with these demands immediately upon receipt of this
letter will
>be met with appropriate action.
>
>
>Sincerely,
>Brian Milburn, President
>Solid Oak Software, Inc.
>
>
>
>____________________________________________
>
>Brian Milburn
>Solid Oak Software,Inc. - Santa Barbara, CA
>bmilburn@solidoak.com - CIS: 74774,551
>http://www.solidoak.com - CIS: "GO SOLIDOAK"
>

***********

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/story/3355.html

Teen Offers Way to Crack Blocking Software
by Rebecca Vesely

3:03pm 23.Apr.97.PDT A Tennessee college student has posted a software
program on the Web that can be used to decrypt a list of sites blocked
by the prominent blocking software Cybersitter. The company that makes
the program is furious, and an attorney versed in Net law says the
student could face legal action.

Bennett Haselton, co-founder of the teen Web site Peacefire, on Monday
posted a program that he wrote specifically to crack the "filter file"
that comes with Cybersitter. The 18-year-old junior at Vanderbilt
University says it took him two days to write the software. The filter
file is frequently updated by Solid Oak Software, the company that
owns Cybersitter, but was taken offline Tuesday by the company.

"He is violating every intellectual property law ever written," said
Solid Oak president Brian Milburn. "It costs us tens of thousands of
dollars to maintain that list. It's none of his business what is on
that list or what we do with it."

Milburn would not say whether the company planned to take legal
action, but did say that Solid Oak "does not condone any kind of crime."

A recent list of sites blocked by Cybersitter - pulled before the
company took the filter file offline - was posted anonymously to
Declan McCullagh's fight-censorship email discussion list Monday. The
decrypted file shows that while most of the sites blocked by
Cybersitter are pornographic in nature, a number are not.

Among the sites blocked by Cybersitter on Monday were Cyborganic
Gardens; the National Organization for Women; the Gay and Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation; several regional ISPs; Peacefire; the
Ethical Spectacle, which has criticized Solid Oak's blocking
practices; and the chocolatier Godiva.

"I think they are misrepresenting their product," Haselton said. "It's
not just the fact that they are blocking Peacefire, it's that they are
violating truth-in-advertising practices."

Solid Oak says it blocks sites that focus on "topics such as adult or
sexual issues, illegal activities, bigotry, racism, drugs, or pornography...."

This is not Haselton's first run-in with Solid Oak.  In December, he
posted a list of Web sites blocked by Cybersitter, which at the time
included The Well and Mother Jones magazine.  Haselton maintained that
he got the partial list by surfing the Web with Cybersitter installed
on his computer. Solid Oak threatened to sue, saying that Haselton had
cracked into their computers to get the list, and also threatened to
block Peacefire's ISP, Media3. The company never acted on the threats.

But Haselton could now face prosecution for violating copyright
laws. He maintains that he skirted the law because he did not post the
list of blocked sites, just information on how to access the list. He
also noted that he accessed the Cybersitter list using an old version
of the software that does not carry a copyright warning.

However, one lawyer said she wasn't sure Haselton's reasoning will
hold up if the case goes to court.

"[Solid Oak] went to the trouble of compiling the list. From a
competitive standpoint, someone else could use Haselton's software to
get the list and start their own blocking software company," said
Shari Steele, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. "There is an ownership interest here."

Steele said that although someone who used the list for competitive
purposes would be more likely to face legal ramifications than
Haselton, it is not out of the realm of possibility that a court would
side with Solid Oak.


-------------------------
Time Inc.
The Netly News Network
Washington Correspondent
http://netlynews.com/


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