Carter & Loopy Dan

Week of June 5, 2002

The phone rings again. Already shaking with anger, she lifts the receiver and listens cautiously. She hears a few seconds of the telemarketing pitch before her anger overcomes her. Screaming 'FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE!' into the receiver, she slams it down, and then sits shaking and sobbing uncontrollably in the sofa.

The phone rings again. Already choosing her words, she lifts the receiver and takes a deep breath. But this time it is not a telemarketer calling. It is her telephone company. They are calling to tell her that her telephone is going to be disconnected. Someone has just lodged a complaint that SHE USES THE F-WORD.

It sounds scary, does it not? This is exactly the agenda of Chris Carter of pair Networks. Chris Carter bludgeons and censors the over one hundred thousand pair Networks customers anyway he pleases and up to now has got away with it.

This one had nothing to do with Radsoft. This one was yet another demonstration of the unique talents of one Chris Carter of pair Networks. This one was a fight between two total nitwits - Loopy Dan, whose resume can be easily found online (he's a total nutter) and Chris Carter, equally loopy, but in a different way, in a way that nitro is different from glycerine.

This one illustrated the basic fact that no matter how good pair Networks are (and they are otherwise very very good), no web hosting company is any good if they have a nutcase like Chris Carter snooping into private email and censoring customers.

This one wasted several man-days of very expensive labour for no apparent purpose. (One is tempted to send Carter a bill - an estimated twenty hours at the normal rate of £225 per hour.)

Chris Carter and Loopy Dan have a history going back several years - basically they hate one another. They're both total idiots. The CEO of pair Networks had to intervene last time to get things back on track.

But what does Chris Carter write to Radsoft?

We have always had good relations with CHSW and do not want your letter to put us on an RBL.

Carter modifies facts to suit his purpose. Radsoft never spammed. The suspicion was that CHSW might have spammed - not Radsoft. Radsoft got hit by spam - Radsoft was the victim. No one was going to report anyone for relaying spam. It wasn't a question of this - Loopy Dan was just being loopy.

Which admittedly doesn't give Carter anything to write to Radsoft about. And in fact, he should not have written at all - he had no reason to. But Carter has a history of screwing up with Loopy Dan, and it was Loopy Dan, and not Radsoft, that he was worried about - and for reasons that had nothing to do with the so-called 'incident'.

Carter was just asking for help. The smart thing - the honest thing - would have been to come out and admit it, come out and be honest, be mensch, be nice, and tell the background to the story. But that would have revealed how he had screwed up with Loopy Dan in the past. Carter couldn't do that - he would have exposed himself as the idiot he is. So he lied instead. He intimidated and insinuated and bludgeoned and lied.

Like any hosted domain, Radsoft are very dependent on their provider, and that provider can in theory exert an influence over web and email content. But as pair Networks' own legal team pointed out to Carter years ago, the Carter penchant for censorship and bludgeoning backfires. As soon as Carter interferes, he makes his company legally responsible for web and email content. And while most people learn from their mistakes, Carter does not.

Internet activity must be governed by some modicum of ethics. If we do not accept that, then the neo-nazis of the world will have the ammunition they need to come in and police us. Netizens have always been capable of taking care of their own back yard, and they must continue to do so.

But when it goes so far that providers start to pry into private email correspondence and attempt to censor customers, then we are in deep trouble.

We have seen many facets of the Carter personality to date.

• It's OK to be a high street front end for hard core nazi groups.
• It's OK to go into private correspondence and censor customers.
• It's OK to modify facts to suit one's purpose, as long as the end results are good.

Sounds hauntingly familiar, does it not?

Actions such as these don't just speak louder than words - they scream.

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