Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 09:44:20 -0600
Subject: Link Between Dell and Handgun Control, Inc.?
From: Matthew Gaylor
Subject: Link Between Dell and Handgun Control, Inc.?
I'm just now starting to get feedback from the Dell cancelation of the
Weigand Combat Handguns, Inc. order and noticed that Dell computers is
listed as a beneficiary at the below link. I'm not sure who at Dell (if
any) has authorized this?
Regards, Matt-
<http://www.progressivefunds.com/hci/>
Raise money for Handgun Control, Inc. everytime you shop online
Handgun Control, Inc.
Online Shopping Mall
Be sure to bookmark the Handgun Control, Inc. Online Shopping Mall as one
of your favorites. Connections to commercial websites must be made
immediately from this links page for Handgun Control, Inc. to receive its
share!
Computers & Accessories
Crucial Technology
Dell
Fragcity Got It Direct
Hardware Street
McAfee
OmniPlayer
Outpost.com
[...]
ps It has been reported that Michael Dell has issued a statement on the
Weigand matter: <http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174830.html>
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Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 09:45:41 -0600
Subject: Dell Computer Corporation Doesn't Deserve Your Business
From: Matthew Gaylor
From: Seth Finkelstein
On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 03:50:20PM -0500, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
I'm carbon copying this message to Seth Finkelstein, who I consider the pit bull of the anti-censorware opposition. And I have a question for Seth- Dell's use of the paraphrase comment "illegal purposes" reminds me of the various categories that filtering software uses to describe a site. I wonder if Dell didn't run the Weigand site into a filtering application to make the decision not to sell one of their computers to him?]
I called Dell to try to verify the story myself before
commenting. An official response I received seems to indicate that they did indeed flag "Weigand Combat Handguns Inc." as suspicious from the word "Combat":
"We recently received an order from a customer whose company name included the word "combat." We cancelled the order to give us enough time to follow up with the customer and be assured that the sale would be in compliance with U.S. export law."
Obviously, I do not think Dell is willing to discuss the details of their system of searching for suspicious keywords. In general, this sort of simple matching against bad words is a very simple programming task. One of the concepts I try to convey to people is that there is
no magic in censorware, no amazing artificial intelligence that has any sort of judgment (despite any manufacture's hype). It is a common feature of many programs to have the ability to enter a list of bad words, and if any of the bad words match, deny service. And this incident is an example of just how intelligent such keyword-matching can be.
Myself, I would have thought that the word "Handguns" would
have been a stronger flag than "Combat". But who knows what's in their blacklist? Those entries are almost always kept secret. Perhaps the matching went from left to right, and the word "Combat" kicked out the laptop order before the program even saw the word "Handguns".
Dell could have bought any of a number of commercial programs, or written their own simple keyword-checker for integration with their order processing system. It really doesn't make a difference here. Computers aren't magic. Computers are dumb. It's the human element which is crucial here. A simple match of a word against a blacklist is
then blindly treated as indicating some sort of illegality, and a procedure of better-safe-than-sorry then takes over. This incident is a small case-study in one context. But the idea, and the implications, are quite general.
Remember this incident the next time anyone tries to claim
that censorware is so much better now.
--
Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer sethf@sethf.com <http://sethf.com>
<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html>
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE: <http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php>
BESS vs Google: <http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/google.php>
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