WinterNyet: Under Siege

	Winternet Under Siege!
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July 5, 1996

(Text courtesy of drozone.)

On July 5, 1996, Winternet, (Minnesota’s largest Internet Service Provider), was the object of a hostile takeover. Mike Horwath, our Sytem Administrator, as well as owner, has been ousted by his erstwhile silent partners. The entire staff is reputed to have walked out in support of Mike, at least according to the new management. (More reliable sources indicate that the entire staff was fired outright.)

This is not a case of any mismanagement on the part of the Winternet staff, they are widely seen as one of the finest technical support crews in the nation today. Coincidently, our main authentication server just went down. Rumour has it that the ‘new’ owners powered it down without first running through the shutdown procedure, fearing reprisals from Mr. Horwath.

July 6, 1996

Users are getting very concerned (and rightfully so) by the goings-on (and the not-goings-on) at Winternet. No word from any of the new staff at Winternet. No emails. No news posts. No answered phones. *Sigh*

• Thread “Winternet PROBLEMS” (Sat, 06 Jul 1996 03:00:08 +0100)

July 7, 1996

On July 7th, Mike Horwath posted a statement to the local newsgroup winternet.announce that gave users the first “first-hand” word into what happened.

• Article “Winternet Update Statement” (Sun, 07 Jul 1996 11:39:54 +0100)

At the same time, there were many threads discussing what has happened. Not many happy Winternet campers here.

• Thread “No information!” (7 Jul 1996 01:42:57 GMT)
• Thread “The Winternet Situation” (Sun, 7 Jul 1996 11:34:14)
• Thread “Winternet Takeover” (7 Jul 1996 17:22:51 GMT)
• Thread “Winternet Update Statement” (7 Jul 1996 11:15:58 GMT)

And then, one of the new Winternet staffers (okay, actually one of the other 1/3-owners) got on IRC and really showed us just what type of treatment we could expect from the “new” Winternet:

• IRC Log 7 July 1996

July 8, 1996

We finally have some sort of response from the new kids at Winternet. Was it emailed to all customers? No! Was it posted to the internal winternet.announce newsgroup? No! It was, however, posted to Winternet’s WWW page.

And, in a failed attempt to be humorous, the text on Winternet’s page directing people to my Winternet FAQ was changed to:

“First, check out the Winternet Under Siege Page. Everything Karl feels you should know about what is happening at StarNet Communication. A big thanks goes to Karl Erickson <kae at winternet dot com> for his work on this.”

Okay, I can just feel the sarcasm dripping off of that paragraph. A few points are in order, though:

1. “…everything [I] feel you should know about what is happening at StarNet….” Funny thing, though, is that for the last two days, the kids at Winternet have been absolutely silent, with the only public appearance (apparently) on IRC. No postings to news, no emails. Nothing. Maybe that’ll change today, maybe not.So, kids, if you don’t tell us what’s going on, we’ll have to guess. Get it?
2. I’ve spent much time and energy making the Winternet FAQ what it was until today. The simple fact that the new kids in charge feel that a sophomoric attack on the Winternet home page is better than an email to me demonstrates a lot about how Winternet is going to be run in the near future.
3. They took time to run this attack, but didn’t bother changing the contact information pointing to Mike at the bottom of the page. I guess they have priorities. Me, I’m flattered that an attack on me takes priority over proper customer notification. Gee, I feel important.

…And then there were the articles from users:

• Thread “A Post From Kevin” (8 Jul 1996 00:43:37 GMT)
• Thread “St Paul Pioneer Press Article on ‘Coup'” (8 Jul 1996 14:07:59 GMT)
• Thread “Winternet coup” (8 Jul 1996 01:13:35 GMT)
• Thread “Winternet: Priorities?” (Mon, 08 Jul 1996 11:08:40 -0500)

And, of course, there’s the “WCCO Channel 4000 News – Angry Winternet Clients Plan Protest” news article.

July 9, 1996

Would you believe that now, four days after the “takeover,” we finally have someone posting to winternet.announce in a official capacity?

Of course, we’re still not sure how this poster fits into the scheme of things, but he’s apparently employed by Winternet. We think. Who knows?

• Article “Dial in Login Problems” (9 Jul 1996 06:25:48 GMT)
• Article “IRC” (9 Jul 1996 06:07:22 GMT)
• Article “Winternet” (9 Jul 1996 06:04:02 GMT)

There was a story on a local TV station (KMSP 9) that had a quick interview with Michael Frankowsi – he wasn’t very convincing about knowing why the router was down.

And, it was really nice to see him basically state that he really didn’t care about the existing customers – they’d get more in the future anyway.

• Thread “Channel 9 News Story” (Tue, 09 Jul 1996 22:34:37 -0500)

July 10, 1996

We finally hear a bit more from Mike Horwath. Not much, but we can hope.

• Article “Statement from Mike Horwath” (10 Jul 1996 00:06:10 GMT)

Things are generally falling apart around here. How, you might ask…

• Thread “Inconsistent Winternet stories” (Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:54:11 -0600)
• Article “ShadowMAC NOTICE!” (10 Jul 1996 05:52:57 GMT)
• Thread “Winternet Business Savvy (ha ha)” (Wed, 10 Jul 1996 02:17:07 +0100)

July 11, 1996

Gee, it’s good to hear that the new kids-in-charge are “…in contact with several individuals who are very knowledgeable about sendmail.” Too bad they fired all the knowledgable staff…

Anyhow, at least we did get several announcement from the office. They didn’t say much, but the sight of such announcements could be deemed encouraging.

• Article “Winternet Update 7/11 (AM)” (11 Jul 1996 07:34:11 GMT)
• Article “Modems” (11 Jul 1996 07:37:36 GMT)
• Article “Mail Problems” (11 Jul 1996 23:01:26 GMT)

But then came the news of Mike Horwath’s resignation from Winternet’s Board of Directors. (He still retains part orwnership of Winternet.)

• Article “Mike Horwath resigns as board member” (11 Jul 1996 00:01:44 GMT)

Now, lest you begin to think that I’m giving too much time to the new staff of Winternet, let’s get to the user’s side of things today:

• Article “A new problem with mail” (Thu, 11 Jul 1996 18:57:56 +0000)
• Article “Re: Winternet Update 7/11 (AM)” (Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:59:02 -0500)

And, if the trouble we’re having isn’t enough: Due to whatever the new kids did to our mailserver (it wasn’t accepting connections for an extended period), mail destined for Winternet users backed up on a couple of sites’ machines.

The admin at one of those sites was unable to contact Winternet to discuss the situation. The result – the waiting mail was dumped to /dev/null. Do I blame him? No. Do I blame the uncommunicative morons at Winternet? Yes.

• Thread “Re: Where is my mail??” (11 Jul 96 23:48:29 GMT)

And last but not least, Todd Lehman seems to have won the contest to rename Winternet. 🙂

• Thread “WinterNaught” (Thu, 11 Jul 1996 15:49:51 -0500)

July 12, 1996

Today, we again had the staff begging for “…our patience and support.”

Sorry, but my patience ran out a long time ago.

• Article “The Week” (12 Jul 1996 22:33:52 GMT)

July 13, 1996

Oh dear, here they come again trying to sound like everything is under control. We know better though – don’t we?

• Article “Late Night” (13 Jul 1996 03:38:59 GMT)

Oops…

• Article “Subzero crash” (13 Jul 1996 05:37:04 GMT)

July 14, 1996

Bastille Day … significant or not? You decide.

The Remainder of July 1996

This is an ongoing collection of news items that will probably help you “get the feel” for how Winternet’s doing. Not good, I’m afraid.

• Article “fingerd broke” (15 Jul 1996 06:45:30 GMT)
• Article “Some parting thoughts …” (16 Jul 1996 02:22:56 GMT)
• Article “Re: Can’t send email!” (18 Jul 1996 01:03:30 GMT)
• Article “Great Customer Service At Winternet” (Fri, 19 Jul 1996 12:22:06 -0500)

One Winternet user, Steve Devore, sent out a mass email regarding all the recent problems, both staff and technical. While I agree with the contents of the email, I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with the mass emailing. On the other hand, someone had to notify the customer base as to what’s happening; the current staff certainly isn’t doing that great of a job.

• Mass Email “Important information about Winternet” (7/19/96 4:18 PM)

Then, of course, there’s Raul Almquist, who administrates the handy ShadowMAC archives. This archive (up till now) has been using Winternet’s services. Not for long, it looks like. After all, Winternet cost him a contract…

• Article “THANKS (NOT!!!) for my lost Email and contract!!!” (22 Jul 1996 03:30:29 GMT)

Hey, remember Steve Devore from a few days ago? (The mass email?) Well, here’s Winternet’s thoroughly professional response to that event:

• Article “The new Big Brother policy of Winternet” (Thu, 25 Jul 1996 21:27:26 +0000)

Now that things are becoming clearer, we also get to hear the inside story from Mike Horwath; this is a diary of events that took place from July 5th to July 8th, 1996. It’s very, very interesting reading.

• Article “My reasons for posting… (Was – Re: can’t we just get along?)” (29 Jul 1996 05:33:42 GMT)

August 1996 and beyond…

A few more items from the “Only at Winternet” file:

• Thread “Mr Mike sends a response Two weeks later” (Tue, 06 Aug 1996 08:18:37 -0500)
• Article “More Winternet Customer Service” (10 Aug 1996 02:56:25 GMT)

And, it seems that the current staff can’t stop themselves from harassing one of the 1/3-owner of (as well as the former administrator for) Winternet. Too bad they don’t seem to spend any time working on resolving the numerous problems that have plagued them since July 5th

• Article “Warning to users” (10 Aug 1996 22:50:17 GMT)

It would seem that Winternet is the ISP of choice if you don’t wish to scan through piles of junk email. Of course, you might not have any other email to look through, either…

• Article “Incoming mailbox deleted” (13 Aug 1996 03:31:58 GMT)

Or, maybe Winternet just won’t accept mail for you from others.

• Article “Winternet Lost?” (19 Aug 96 02:53:08 GMT)

No guarantee that you’ll be able to send mail out, either.

• Article “Why can’t I email out from Winternet??!!” (21 Aug 96 11:55:49 GMT)

Now, I’ll admit that there were a lot of Winternet users that were more tolerant of problems than I was. (I would hazard a guess that they don’t depend on the services that Winternet offered on a daily basis, though.) However, even they are now realizing that Winternet isn’t going to “fix itself.”

• Article “No Telnet, No FTP, No Mail…REAL NICE!!!” (Fri, 23 Aug 1996 03:09:24 GMT)

Apparently, basic system administration tasks are above the “new” Winternet staff, too.

• Article “Re: In excusible” (26 Aug 1996 02:37:21 GMT)

Good news came in October, though. Remember Raul Almquist, who administrates the great ShadowMAC archives? You should. He posted a couple of articles above (on July 10th, and July 21st) on how the Winternet takeover affected him and ShadowMAC.

I’m happy to report that the ShadowMAC archives are now back up and running.

• Article “S h a d o w M A C is again ftp & www accessable!” (4 Oct 1996 17:22:10 GMT)

14 October 1996 / Karl Erickson (kae@visi.com) / Copyright 1996