Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 23:34:58 +0100 From: Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org> To: "Thomas T. Veldhouse" <veldy@visi.com>, jerryr@ComCAT.COM, TFK2000@aol.com Cc: FreeBSD-Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Blocked Message-ID: <19990212233458.021733@relay.skynet.be> In-Reply-To: <027601be56c6$014eb000$236319ac@w142844.carlson.com>
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On Fri, Feb 12, 1999, Thomas T. Veldhouse <veldy@visi.com> wrote:
>I find that hard to believe. I would think they would get sued if that was
>the case. Besides, it would be a horrible nightmare for AOL to try to
>maintain a list of ISP's and then set up such a filter. If they are doing
>something so malicious, I would be really surprised. What is the evidence
>of such an accusation.
>
>I would be careful saying such things in public about a big company like
>AOL.
Having worked there, I think I can safely speak my mind. Suffice it
to say that many of their tech support staff are totally bloody clueless,
a fact I know quite well because my fiancée has kept her AOL account, and
when there have been problems I've tried to convince the dufuses on the
other end that I *do* actually know something about what I'm talking
about, and I might as well be talking to a brick wall.
I am quite familiar with the squid-based web caching system they used
to have, but now that they're using Inktomi Traffic Server, I'm not
exactly sure how they do things. I *do* know that they used to keep a
list of sites that they would not cache, usually as a strong
discouragement for AOL customers to go visit that site (and because of
the size of the AOL cache, this usually gave the maintainers of that site
*strong* encouragement to stop doing whatever it was that AOL didn't
like, because otherwise they got *buried* with too many non-cached web
requests from them.
I'm sure they've got something similar with Inktomi, and probably
also have a system-wide list of flat-out banned sites. I also know that
they have NetNanny (or some other blocking software) that is installed by
default, although I believe that you can turn it off.
However, if you're having problems accessing a particular web site,
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that it's simply a matter of AOL's system
being screwed up yet once again, and since they rotate which cache server
you're attached to every five minutes, just wait a little while and try again.
>PS I am no fan of AOL.
Most of the technical people (and especially the system
administrators) who work there are pretty cool. I've got several friends
who continue to work there. I just had a real problem with the
management and the way that they did certain business deals, and I never
could abide a company that has six thousand employees, of which five
thousand are just there to answer the telephone when a user has a problem.
--
Brad Knowles <brad@shub-internet.org> <http://www.shub-internet.org/brad/>;
<http://wwwkeys.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xE38CCEF1>;
If you wouldn't take out a one-page ad in the Wall Street
Journal to say something, then don't say it by email.
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