Klarinet Archive - Posting 000069.txt from 2002/04

From: jsshankles <jsshankles@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] shocking?
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 15:02:14 -0500

I know this is getting way off topic, and I apologize. However, I have to
speak to the comment about "silly filters." I work on the team that runs
the email system for a fairly large company (18,000 employees worldwide).
We have recently begun filtering email traffic because of the huge amount of
junk mail our employees have been receiving. At first I was a little
annoyed that we were being asked (forced) to do this, until I took a look at
just exactly what some of the employees were receiving. Text is one thing,
but the explicit photos and language that accompanies some of this junk
would make a sailor blush (no offense intended to any sailors out there.)
Imagine your child receiving an advertisement, complete with photos, for
"barnyard babes"...and I leave the rest to your imagination.

We have tried to be reasonable concerning what we filter, and would never
filter on something as simple or short as "sex", however, please understand
that when most companies start filtering email, it is out of desperation.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Black [mailto:clarinet1@-----.uk]
Subject: [kl] shocking?

A little while ago, I received an email from the list owner of an online IT
development and database related forum which advised me that my company's
email filters had been bouncing several of the list's messages. I learnt
that any email which contained the word "sex" was automatically bounced. So
every email along the lines of "I have a database which holds client info
(name, age, sex, marital status etc.) ..." was bounced. I missed out on an
entire discussion topic because of this (and annoyed the list-owner with all
the bounce messages). Naturally, I complained to my company's email
sysadmin.

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