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10,000 Newsgroup Postings Deleted

Usenet Cancel Engine permits deliberate destruction of Usenet postings.

By Brian McWilliams, PCWorld   

According to newsgroup administrators, more than 10,000 individual newsgroup postings in the past three weeks have been mysteriously deleted from news servers around the world. The work appears to have been done by an individual or individuals using a Windows 95 program called the Usenet Cancel Engine.

UCE was developed by a Mississippi company called Marketing Technologies, which is headed by Mike Enlow. At a Web site promoting UCE, the software is touted as a way for inexperienced users to easily cancel newsgroup postings that they find offensive.

Bill Mattocks, who runs an Internet service provider in Wisconsin, says Enlow is irresponsible to make available a tool like the Usenet Cancel Engine, and it violates the basic principle that the Usenet is a forum for opposing viewpoints.

%dquotThe problem is that Usenet, like the Internet in general, was built on a trust model that doesn%squott work well in large populations,%dquot said Mattocks. %dquotI was using Usenet in 1985 when there were 2000 newsgroups. Now we%squotve got over 20,000 newsgroups. People get upset, and they decide that so and so shouldn%squott be allowed to spew whatever it is that they%squotre spewing. So they respond by canceling the messages. In the past it took some specialized knowledge to know how to do that. And still you could only do it one message at a time. But with the Windows 95 Canceler that Enlow%squots unleashed, now anybody who decides they don%squott like what somebody%squots else is saying can go in and cancel a bunch of messages.%dquot

Enlow didn%squott respond to repeated interview requests from PC World Online. But in a recent newsgroup posting, he said he%squotd stop selling UCE if a group called SubGenius Police, Usenet Tactical Units, Mobile, aka SPUTUM, would stop its attacks on him. SPUTUM posted several Web sites parodying Enlow after he allegedly posted off-topic messages advertising his company in numerous newsgroups.

Dennis McClain-Furmanski, SPUTUM%squots spokesperson, said that his group had agreed to such a deal, but with the additional condition that Enlow stop Usenet spamming. McClain-Furmanski believes Enlow or some of his supporters may have canceled the messages to stir up public opinion against newsgroup administrators who cancel off-topic and spam messages from newsgroups. But McClain-Furmanski believes that tactic is backfiring.

%dquotEvery time one of those cancels goes out from him or anybody else it gets reposted with his name on it,%dquot said McClain-Furmanski. %dquotAnd that means those 10,000 cancels now show up in the Usenet archives any time somebody does a search for Enlow. He wants people to come to his Web site; he wants people to be able to find information about him on the Net. Now when they try to do a search on his name they come up with 10,000 pieces of junk. And the same is happening with the Web search engines. We%squotve just arranged it so he%squots now his own worst enemy. He%squots poisoning the well by his own actions.%dquot

Evidently the two sides are now at a standoff, and innocent Usenet users whose postings have been canceled are caught in the crossfire. Newsgroup administrators have been able to resurrect about 3000 of the 10,000 canceled messages.