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Did Cybersitter Publisher Send E-Bomb?

Hundreds of messages deluge woman who bad-mouthed the company%squots products.

By Brian McWilliams, PCWorld   

What%squots unusual about the attack is that it allegedly originated from Solid Oak Software, makers of the Cybersitter Internet filtering software.

Last week a Massachusetts woman said her in-box was jammed by more than 300 messages, with another 500 waiting on her Internet service provider%squots e-mail server. The return address for all the messages was support@solidoak.com.

The victim of the attack, Sarah Salls, claims the e-mail arrived after she sent a message to Solid Oak complaining about what she feels are legitimate sites being blocked by Cybersitter.

In other published reports, Solid Oak has been evasive about whether it is responsible for the attack.

This isn%squott the first time that Solid Oak has been accused of e-mail bombing its critics. Last year, organizers of a free-speech site called Peace Fire reported being subjected to similar attacks by Solid Oak.

According to Dale Drew, manager of MCI%squots Internet Services security engineering group, MCI is investigating the incident as a denial-of-service attack on its customer. But he says the ISP may have little room to take legal action against e-mail bombers.

%dquotWe%squotre not sure to what extent the victim suffered a loss of resources, and we%squotre trying to ... identify what the loss was in either revenue or time,%dquot says Drew. He adds that the laws don%squott consider mail-bombing a crime unless it causes a loss. %dquotSo the [mail-bombing] itself may not violate any state or federal laws.%dquot

If legal remedies fail, Drew said MCI will consider restricting communication from Solid Oak or its upstream access providers over MCI%squots network.