Blocked?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Chuck Martin reports one of his e-mail messages being blocked: <<"It
contains language that is inappropriate for company use." ... What on Earth
did I say??>>

Rogue though you are, you're probably completely innocent. <g> Spam filters
are a blight upon the Earth that (in my experience) often become worse than
the problem they're intended to solve. Contact the mailadmin (at the link
provided) and explain that their filter is "misconfigured" (I'd use stronger
language, but it wouldn't make it past the filter <g>). Don't count on
swaying their opinion, as MIS people can be extremely pigheaded and
reluctant to admit they made a mistake. On the plus side, at least your
contact is willing to reconsider; our guys just delete the mail without
telling anyone it's gone. The mind boggles...

The techwr-l tie-in is pretty weak, but here's an attempt: If you're working
on documenting one of these evil bits of malware, work with the developers
to implement more sensible default filtering rules, and write documentation
that teaches administrators to minimize false positives. Even if you're not
working on spam filters, remember that your experience as a user of this and
other software is valuable, and developers should take advantage of it. Give
them a reason to listen to you, and start talking.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
(try ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca if you get no response)
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

"It's one thing to see death coming at the hands of your own creation.
That's part of the human epic tradition, after all. Oedipus and his father.
Baron Frankenstein and his monster. William Henry Gates and Windows
'09."--David Brin, _Kiln People_