Another example of why not to subscribe to AOL

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News - Homefront Preparations : One Thread

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/001/metro/E_mail_glitch_hits_Harvard_applicants+.shtml

E-mail glitch hits Harvard applicants

By David Abel, Globe Staff, 1/1/2002

For thousands of college applicants this fall, the news from Harvard was the most anticipated e-mail of the year: Did they get in or not?

But someone forgot to tell America Online.

The nation's biggest Internet service provider bounced back dozens of e-mail messages sent by Harvard to its early applicants last month, deleting the big news as junk mail.

''This wasn't exactly the instant response we intended,'' said William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College.

After the anthrax-poisoning cases led to concerns about the safety of the US mail system, Harvard sought a quick, surefire way of informing applicants whether they had been admitted, deferred, or rejected. Following the lead of other schools, admissions officials decided to use e-mail to notify nearly all of the 6,000 students who applied in the early-admissions process.

For reasons that AOL officials could not readily explain, the Internet service provider blocked between 75 and 100 of those e-mails in December because the servers identified Harvard's messages as ''spam,'' part of the crush of annoying junk mail that bombards almost every e-mail user.

''We fight a daily battle against spam at the server level, where we filter it out,'' said Nicholas Graham, an AOL spokesman. ''Spam is our number one problem. But it's hard to say what would have caused the system to filter e-mail from Harvard.''

This isn't the first time AOL deleted mail sent by an educational, medical, or other large nonprofit institution. Sometimes, because of certain characteristics of messages, such as size, quantity, or address, the servers automatically block certain e-mail from reaching its destination, Graham said.

The delayed notification turned out to be more of a nuisance for Harvard than it was for the applicants.

When nearly 100 applicants didn't hear from the college at the appointed hour, most telephoned the admissions office to find out whether they were accepted.

The vast majority were not. Harvard admitted 1,174 students, rejected 191, and deferred 4,677 to the regular admissions process, which ends in the spring.

To correct the problem with the school's first experiment with instant notification, admissions officers plan to post a prominent note on the college's Web site alerting students to make sure that their Internet service providers don't block e-mail from Harvard. The college also notifies applicants by mail, as it always has.

Unlike other schools, however, Harvard doesn't plan to set up a special Web site for applicants, one where they could gain access with a code to find out whether they were admitted. That, admissions officers say, would be too much of a target for enterprising hackers.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002

Answers

Does Harvard's problems come in threes?

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/365/nation/Harvard_president_Jesse_Jac kso:.shtml

Harvard president, Jesse Jackson to meet amid reports of rift between school and black faculty

By Associated Press, 12/31/2001 17:25

BOSTON (AP) Jesse Jackson said Monday that he will meet with Harvard University's president to discuss the school's diversity policy following reports that high-profile black professors may leave because of a dispute with the administration.

''The clarification will be good for Harvard, its faculty and the nation,'' Jackson said. ''Harvard is our flagship university and there is concern expressed by the professors about the need for an unequivocal commitment to affirmative action, or inclusion.''

The school's president, Lawrence Summers, is looking forward to a meeting ''to talk about a range of issues,'' Harvard spokesman Joe Wrinn said.

The Boston Globe reported Dec. 22 that the rift began when Summers would not make a strong statement in support of affirmative action at a meeting with members of the Afro-American studies department.

According to the Globe and a report over the weekend in The New York Times, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and two other prominent members of the department Cornel West and Anthony Appiah are considering leaving for Princeton University because of problems with Summers.

Summers, inaugurated in October, reportedly rebuked West for recording a rap CD, for leading a political committee for the Rev. Al Sharpton's possible presidential campaign and for allowing grade inflation in his introductory black studies course.

''I don't think university presidents should lecture faculty on their political positions,'' Appiah said. ''If he did it, he shouldn't have.''

Added Jackson: ''Whether he was on a rap record or conducting a symphony, he's written 16 books, held in critical acclaim.''

West wrote the best-selling ''Race Matters'' and released an album of rap and spoken word material titled ''Sketches of My Culture'' in September.

There was no answer at his office Monday, and messages left for Gates and Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, who has spoken on West's behalf, were not returned.

Summers said he supports diversity and meant no offense. ''It's a very unfortunate misunderstanding if my views have been perceived in other ways,'' he told the Globe.

The Globe said Gates and Appiah visited Princeton in mid-December and met with campus leaders. West, who was a graduate student and taught there before coming to Harvard in 1994, has also spoken to officials there.

Gates, author of ''Loose Cannons: Notes on the Culture Wars'' and a winner of a 1998 National Humanities Medal, said only: ''I do not have an offer from Princeton.''

On the Net:

Harvard's institute for Afro-American research: http://web- dubois.fas.harvard.edu

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002


What Jackson is saying, re West, is that because of his authorship, he should be beyond criticism. No one is beyond criticism, Jesse, not even wonderful you.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002

I use and like my AOL service. I'm betting they do a better job than most others in stopping viruses from filtering down to your account. I also have MSN but don't find it to be as user friendly as AOL. Since I have been using the Internet I have seen countless cheers coming from users of all sorts of services, free and paid types. Eventually they all get burned, dropped, or corrupted in one way or another. It's like trying to find the perfect mate. Hah! I can remember when some services, like Errols, was being raved about for awhile. Then it finally got messed up too. When I have had glitches on AOL the tech reps have been terrific in helping me correct it.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002

Gordon, I just got Erol's (now named Starpower). What did people not like about Erol's?

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002

Peter, when Erols first became available it was like all ISP's, meaning they had plenty of server capacity and dial-up was quick, easy, and stable. As customer traffic increased, it slowly started to saturate the available bandwidth and slow down during heavy usage. As far as I know, Erols is still a good ISP, and I only used them as an example of the typical Internet connection problem. In other words, it seems that all ISP's cram as much traffic as they can onto their available servers in order to maximize profits. Any provider that has been around for awhile will either suffer from traffic overload or lack of sufficient revenue. Overload is a headache at times. Revenue shortfall means they will fold their service and leave you stranded.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002


Re slowing down in periods of heavy usage, there are certainly times when Starpower is none too speedy.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002

Maybe the phrasing of the subject line was unfortunate-

ADD THREE INCHES TO YOUR HAT SIZE!!!! ATTEND HARVARD....

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002


Stick with Erol's for now, they are trying to offer a quality service. On AOL (my main ISP) I have found that at certain times the traffic is so intense that their whole system grinds to a crawl. The image of a "super highway" during rush hour traffic comes to mind. I just deal with it. I think there are a lot of kids using AOL during the early evening hours Monday thru Thursday. Friday night is much better. Mornings and afternoons during the week are great, as well as after 11 pm anytime.

I still feel comfortable with AOL since I'm sure they are monitoring viruses as best as they can and intercepting them before they can get into your system. That would be the *known* viruses of course, but even an antivirus program can't stop the new ones until they do some damage and are decoded. Anyone with an antivirus program is at least 2-3 weeks behind the newest viruses at all times so there is a false sense of security with such software.

I have been with AOL a long time now and my email address is everywhere. It would be a real headache to switch services. I have to laugh when one of my friends tells me they are using a cheap or free ISP service. That won't last. Nobody can give the service away free for long. And the bargain ISP's will either give poor technical service or allow all sorts of spam and garbage onto your hardrive. If it were possible to offer quality ISP service for $10 a month or less, they would be available everywhere. But they're not. You get what you pay for in the end, just like with everything else.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2002


Apologies for trashing AOL. I was being too cute for my own good. Actually more amused by the snotty Harvard wannabees being derailed. (Perhaps I should apologize for that as well...)

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2002

Brooks, no need to apologize. I guess you have some personal reasons for not liking AOL. I just wanted to put in my own two cents worth. As you can see from the original posting, AOL has active filters working at the server level to try to stop as much spam as possible. Somehow the Harvard stuff got identified as spam. Maybe one day they'll have a fuzzy logic computer that will be able to better judge just what is spam and what is a message you want to receive.

Just in ending here I will say that I consider the entire computer situation, including the Internet, to be a love/hate thing for me. It offers so much compared to what I had available for research and communication as little as 5 years ago. Every time I use Google it just amazes me how many links are available to look at, and all delivered up within a second or two. It also raises my aggravation level some days/nights to the boiling point. In the end I just have to take the bitter with the sweet. Such is life.

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2002



Gordon, it's a control thing. That's part of why I bought my last laptop from Dell. They assured me (I have no way of knowing) that my computer was never contaminated by AOL.

Plus they are too large. (Same reason I don't invest in Fidelity's Magellan Fund.) But sounds like that have settled down. That's good news. I'd change the header but then everyone's message gets tagged.

I mostly stumble around with hotmail accounts and get lots of exercise each day erasing all the spam. (Some day I'll check into whether a filter is available for that type of account.)

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2002


hotmail has a filter, if you can call it a filter. I guess you can, in the same way you can call it hotmail. LOL

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2002

I don't know what "contaminated by AOL" means. Every computer I have owned that came with AOL installed on it could have that deleted easily. I use MS Windows in one form or another and they provide an easy way to wipe AOL, or any other ISP, off the disk. As far as contamination is concerned, it seems that there is a constant war going on between AOL and MSN. They both try to take over your Internet usage as the "primary" provider.

But, speaking of contamination, the anti-virus software I have installed from time to time is the worst offender around. I have used both Norton and McCaffey and in either case they caused constant corruption and headaches to both the operating system and other software. In fact, some games will caution you to disable the anti- virus software in order for the game to run without lockups. Sheeesh!

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2002


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