From: malQRMassimilation@gmail.com   
      
   As most of you know, I've been at odds with my Internet Service   
   Provider (ISP) since the company took over the cable franchise and ISP   
   customers here.   
      
   A day after the new company took over, my ability to log into and use   
   the Telecom Digest server at M.I.T. vanished. It took about a week of   
   arguing with verying levels of yes-men at the ISP, and a call to the   
   North Carolina Governor's office, to get the new owners to lift the   
   restrictions: kudos to Alex Rosen at Panix.com for his help getting me   
   set up with a VPN which obviated the problem while I waited for the   
   political wheel to grind.   
      
   Then, on September 4th, my Callcentric VoIP telephone line went dead,   
   along with my VoIP line to the Hamshack Hotline, which is a VoIP PBX   
   used by Ham Radio operators to talk about and work together on   
   emergency communications involving VoIP connections over Amateur Radio   
   links.   
      
   I tried several different "VPN" vendors, none of which made a   
   difference with the Callcentric or Hamshack Hotline VoIP numbers. Only   
   Panix, in New York, provided any solutions, but the others were long   
   on hope and short on results. I went round and round with tech support   
   at their service numbers, but I eventually realized that all their   
   advice was designed to keep me waiting until after the next bill was   
   paid, and so I dropped all of them except for Panix, which still   
   provides me with value for my money, although I haven't been able to   
   figure out how to use their VPN for anything but SSL links.   
      
   So, life went on, and I tried to interest various reporters in my   
   story.  Last week, I made a comment on a Facebook group that is used   
   by other residents of the county I'm in, and I named the ISP owner and   
   mentioned that my Callcentric lines was still out.   
      
   The next day, my Internet connection changed dramatically: the   
   Callcentric line came back, although Hamshack Hotline is still out,   
   and the other things I do on the Internet all became harder to use,   
   less reliable, and more and more erratic by the day.   
      
   The company that now owns the local cable franchise obviously pays for   
   a monitoring service which flagged their name and mine from the   
   Facebook post. Their kneejerk reaction was to stop blocking   
   Callcentric, but to take revenge for my criticism by sabotaging web,   
   email, and search access on my account.   
      
   So, I'm putting up with "web site can't be reached" and "site does not   
   exist" errors from my web browser, and with repeated failures when   
   Thunderbird starts up or when it tries to check my mailboxes at the   
   IMAP servers at Gmail, outlook, and iecc.com. I don't know what   
   mechanism they're using, but I'm in need of help with this more   
   obvious and more vicious method of discouaging public complaints,   
   because it seems to me to be the next step in an ever-more-arrogant   
   "pay and shut up" type of corporate mentality.   
      
   If you have, or know experts who have, expertise and/or equipment   
   which I can use to document the deliberate sabotage of the Internet   
   connection I use to write the Digest, please get in touch.   
      
   Bill Horne   
      
   --   
   Bill Horne   
   Moderator, The Telecom Digest   
   (Please remove QRM to use the from address)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)