THE RESPONSE OF ARTBELL.COM TO THE PROLIFERATING ANTI-PINOY HATE LETTER. I THINK IT'S RIGHT TO HEAR THEIR SIDE HERE AS WELL.

Filipino Hate Letter
PLEASE STOP SPREADING THIS

Filipino Hate Postings by KatLover@artbell.com is NOT
from the real Art Bell!!

The recent postings on usenet that are being forwarded
by many via email was NOT written by the real Art
Bell. Nor was it posted by our artbell.com mail
server.

Back in December 1998 there were some racist postings
made in several newsgroups on the Internet by a person
who is impersonating Art Bell. They have used the ID
of KatLover@artbell.com.

Be advised, that any messages that appear on the
USENET groups with the From: E-Mail address of
KatLover@artbell.com did not originate from the REAL
Art Bell. It is absurd to think that a public figure
and professional radio host would make such a posting.


On behalf of Art Bell and I, administrator of the
artbell.com web site, let me state that these messages
did NOT originate either from Art Bell or our domain.
Please review the headers of all messages that you
have received and send your complaints to that
domain's sysop. The messages are originating at
ucsd.edu and the fake "From" address was simply typed
in.

It has further been determined that the message text
that was in the USENET posting came from a web site:

http://server1.hypermart.net/oldscona/flip.html

This website which is no longer operational stated who
the original writer was, but not necessarially the one
who posted it on USENET under Art Bell's name. So if
you have anything to say to the actual writer of the
text, you'll have to dig deeper, because Art Bell was
not the writer.

Feel free to copy this notice and forward this on to
anyone who is concerned about this. Art and I do not
condone such racist statements made in these phony
posts and you need to be aware that ANYONE can put ANY
address in their newsreader and make messages look
like it came from ANYWHERE. However, the headers of
such postings will generally show the correct
originating host. Which in this case is NOT
artbell.com. In fact artbell.com does NOT have any
user accounts nor access to USENET.

After this announcement, it is likely this person will
choose another fake ID and make simular posts. Once
again, check the headers before jumping to
conclusions. Also, be advised that neither Art Bell
nor Keith Rowland has posted on USENET for over 2
years and don't plan to. (Because of issues like
this.) So ANY USENET posting that claims to be from
Art should be assumed to be phoney.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Signed, Keith Rowland and Art Bell

Exception: On Dec 9th 1998, Art Bell made ONE posting
to the soc.culture.filipino group, denying the
previous posts. So that anyone who reads that group
and hasn't been able to see this announcement is
advised of the situation. You can check out this post
and see the headers of a real post from Art Bell.

Update: Someone else, we suspect a different person,
has now posted to the same newsgroup a message which
forges artbell@aol.com as the From address. However
examining the tracer headers, you'll see it came
through a Belgium server. This posting was a better
fake than the others (more work was done to try to
cover up the headers), but still detectable as not
being authentic. In fact, people have already detected
this same person making test postings to test groups
while trying to perfect their methods. And of course
Art would not post such a thing anyway. - KR

Response from UCSD.edu:
From: postmistress@ucsd.edu

I'm very sorry about this occurrence. Unfortunately,
this host is a PC in a Library computer lab which is
open to all students. We have been looking into
authentication solutions which would make this type of
occurrence more traceable, but at this time there is
no way for us to trace the miscreant. We apologize for
the unpleasantness.

Valerie E. Polichar
Manager of Network Technical, User, ∓ Access
Services
UCSD ACS/Network Operations

I'm sure after you read this you will make every
attempt to stop forwarding the fake postings and
RETURN THIS MESSAGE to the person who sent you the
fake message and anyone who needs to know. We have
been the victim here of hate crimes, taking the
onslaught of mail from Filipinos who are responding in
anger.

Keith Rowland
System Administrator
www.artbell.com