Ä Area: Religious Debate ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Msg#: 355 Date: 12-08-96 06:43
From: Doug Lee Read: Yes Replied: No
To: All Mark:
Subj: The Steve Winter FAQ [1/2
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
>>> Part 1 of 2...
Steve Winter FAQ
Version 1.9
This is version 1.9 of the FAQ. Thanx to those who have contributed
information. If you have information for the FAQ, please forward it to
adams@inil.com
This FAQ can now be found on the Web. Point your browser to
http://spam.ohww.norman.ok.us/winter.htm.
NOTE: All correspondance relating to this FAQ or Steve Winter should go to
adams@inil.com.
New in this version of the FAQ
100. Who is Steve Winter?
101. What is PRIME?
102. What is "Jesus Name Apostolic Holiness Church, Inc."?
103. What is Mr Winter's "modus operandi"?
104. What kinds of tricks does Mr Winter pull?
105. Where has Mr Winter been banned?
106. Why has Mr Winter been banned?
107. What else does Mr Winter do that causes him problems on the net?
108. What should you do?
109. Is Steve Winter a SPAMMER?
110. What is "Cancel Watch"?
111. Who is Steve Adams?
Footnotes
New in this version of the FAQ:
Modifications based on Mr. Winter's response to the FAQ on his web site
(http://www.prime.org/spss.htm).
The purpose of this FAQ is to provide corroboration for persons on the net
harassed by Steve Winter. It is designed to be sent by such persons to Sys
Admins and ISP's to prevent Steve Winter from having their accounts revoked.
It should be noted that Mr Winter will claim that all of the information here
is meant only for the purpose of masking my opposition to his religious views.
Nothing could be further from the Truth. In this case, and for this purpose,
I don't care what doctrinal views Mr Winter holds. Numbers in () refer to
footnotes at the bottom of the text.
100. Who is Steve Winter?
Steve Winter is the operator of a system known as "PRIME.ORG".
He lives in Durham, NC, and is also a reseller of computer equipment(1). Mr
Winter claims to be a Reverend in "Jesus Name Apostolic Holiness Church,
Inc." He operates a Web page (http://www.prime.org) which describes his
particular doctrinal distinctives. He claims the page is a ministry of the
aforementioned church.
Mr Winter's email id's are:
steve.winter@ibm.net **
stevwint@gte.net **
steve@prime.org
support@prime.org
cancel.watch@prime.org
steve.winter@prime.org
stevewint@prime.org
postmaster@prime.org
NOTE: anything from prime.org is most likely Mr Winter
** these may change as he uses/loses accounts for violating the terms of
service of various providers
Old winter accounts since October 95:
revwint@aol.com
stevwint@ix.netcom.com
stevwint@cris.com
stevwntr@cris.com
steve.winter@worldnet.att.net
Be warned that if you send him email, it is likely that he will complain to
your provider that you are harassing him. See below for details.
101. What is PRIME?
PRIME stands for PreRapture(tm) International Message Exchange. It is Mr
Winter's personal network of BBSes. They carry various forums for his group.
You can access a list of the forums by downloading the file "prime.zip" from
his WWW. He also provides information on home schooling, and his legal
dealings with his ISP's.
102. What is "Jesus Name Apostolic Holiness Church, Inc."?
This organization does not appear to be anything other than the corporate
charter for a religious organization. This is fairly standard practice
amongst churches, but that corporation then may not engage in certain
businesses, or if it does, must properly delineate it's for-profit and
non-profitbusiness.
103. What is Mr Winter's "modus operandi"?
Steve Winter posts lengthy duplicate messages stating his positions, often
simply repostingverbatim his scriptural citations with no supporting exegesis
. These messages are massively cross-posted, without regard to whether or not
the message is on topic for the group. He has harassednumerous groups,
including soc.religion.quaker and the "christnet.*" groups so badly that the
Christnet groups and the uk.religion.* groups went moderated, aus.religion.*
is now retromoderated, the Quakers considered but rejected moderation, and
the promisekeepers group iscurrently in their 2nd RFD for moderation.
If anyone questions him, he responds by:
1. Calling the person a "Lying, dirt, false Christian scum," or some
variation thereof.
2. Posting a slightly modified version of his "Acts 2:38" posting, or one of
his other "canned" responses. He modifies them just enough to avoid the SPAM
detectors. See item 109 below.
3. If the person sends him email to try and debate the issue, he sends a "do
not ever email me again" message. Similarly, any attempt to discuss his abuse
of newsgroups is treated similarly. On occasion, he skips this step and goes
to step 4.
4. He emails and/or calls the service provider or employer of the person who
disagrees with him tohave their account pulled or service cut off. He
attempted this with me both by calling my company and by calling my service
provider. In both cases, he was more or less laughed at. Several
correspondents have reported similar action by Mr.Winter, including emails
and calls to employers. In most cases, fortunately, no action was taken. In
others, employees have been asked to remove signature lines that reflected
on the company, etc. Mr Winter seems to prefer silencing his opposition to
actually trying to win debates.
5. If he does not get satisfaction, he either makes harassing phone calls
(several people have reported this, and I have experienced it personally) or
begins posting hate-filled falsehoods to newsgroups about the person.
6. If he is unsuccessful in the above, in at least one case he has resorted
to an attempt to extort $50,000 from the employer of one of his opponents.
7. He has claimed to have filed numerous police reports and made complaints
to the FBI in an attempt to silence those who disagree with his methods
and/or theology. It does not appear that any action has been taken by any
law enforcement agency on his behalf. Mr Winter has been repeatedly asked for
case numbers or the names of the law enforcement professionals involved, but
has never givenany evidence at all that his claims are true.
8. In numerous cases, Mr Winter has threatened ISP's with lawsuits, and now,
has actually filed one against Concentric Network, as well as one against
Netcom. (He claims the Netcom suit is now 'settled') With regards to
Concentric, the case has been removed from North Carolina State Court to US
District Court. Mr. Winter has also claimed to have filed a lawsuit against
his former ISP, nando.net. It should be noted that Mr. Winter originally
named individual employees of Concentricas co-defendants, but may have since
dropped them from the suit. In both cases, he is seeking monetary damages.
Link to his web site at http://www.prime.org/legal/index.htm for Mr. Winter's
complaints and responses to various motions.
You will not find any information regarding the actions of the other parties
in these suits, as he has not seen fit to publish them. If someone would be
willing to go to the appropriate state and federal offices, those items are
available.
He has made claims saying that certain lawsuits have been settled, but since
none of his accounts have been reactivated, it can only be assumed that
these "settlements" were likely not in his favor.
He has recently posted public threats to file lawsuits against the company
that "created alt.fan.steve-winter" and against the creator of the "Steve
Winter FAQ" (ie, me). He is seeking a lawyer to take those cases, but to date
has had no takes.
9. Harassment of regional Newsadmins.
Several Regional News administrators who enforce the charters of their
regional NON-USNET groups report getting email and phone calls from irate
users who claim that they received email from 'cancel.watch@prime.org',
claiming that their article was censored from the net. This is sent not only
to the user, but also to any identifiable news host that might have carried
the original cancel. See item 110 below.
Mr. Winter is, in this case, clearly trying to drum up support against
newsadmins who are doing their job. I have seen several of his email
complaints, and copies of this FAQ have been forwarded to several ISPs and
system administrators.
104. What kinds of tricks does Mr Winter pull?
When Mr Winter is kicked out of a group (eg alt.org.promisekeepers), he tries
to use that as a way of harassing people. For example, when the
aforementioned group set up an anti-crosspost bot, he posted to other groups,
but set the followups to include a.o.p. This would cause replies to his posts
to be autocancelled.
Mr Winter also would post to 10 or 15 "Big 8" and regional groups, but set
followups for one "alt" group which did not have good propagation. If the
reply was restricted to 1 or 2 "on-topic" groups, he would put back all of
the off-topic groups and again restrict followups. I have never seen him
honor a followup message. Recently, Mr Winter began issuing cancel messages
for "NoCem" posts in alt.nocem.misc. The purpose of the "NoCem" posts is to
allow those who do not wish to see any of Mr Winter's posts to have them
automatically ignored by their newsreader. He has solicited an attorney in
misc.legal to represent him in a lawsuit against those sites and users who
post the "NoCem" articles (2). Mr Winter's claim that NoCeM posts are
censorship are patently false, in that nothing is cancelled, and they are
used only by those who want to use them. They do not remove his articles nor
interfere with his articles movement from one system to another.
105. Where has Mr Winter been banned?
Mr Winter has been removed/banned/cancelled from the following
groups/networks/ISP's:
FIDO net (3)
Netcom (4)
Concentric Network (cris.com) (5)
AT&T ( Worldnet.att.net) (6)
Nando.net (7)
RIME, ILink & Intelec networks
(for flames, personal attacks, and harassment) (8)
alt.org.promisekeepers
(robo-cancelled for excessive x-posting)
soc.religion.christian.bible-study
(posts rejected due to charter violations)
christnet.*
(moderated due to his harassment)
uk.religion.christian
aus.religion.christian
(retromoderated due to his harassment)
atl.*
fl.*
ga.*
There may be others, including soc.religion.christian, but I have not
verified this as of yet. Note also that he may have or may in the future
obtain new accounts from these providers/networks. This list is only meant to
show a history of his accounts, not give a list of where he does or does not
have access at any given moment.
106. Why has Mr Winter been banned?
He was TOSed (TOS=Terms of Serice - ie kicked off for violating the rules of
the provider) from AOL. The same goes for Netcom and Concentric Networks, and
appears to be true for AT&T Worldnet and Nando. The newsgroups banned him
either for excessive cross-posting or failure to abide by the Charter, or
both. In the case of the Bible Study group, he refused to refrain from making
personal attacks on other members of the group. His theology was never an
issue, and anyone who examines the content of the Bible Study group will see
that opinions from every side of an issue are permitted, so long as the
Charter is followed. Mr Winter claims that Charters have no force and he
is not bound by them.If he would agree to abide by the Charter, his posts
would be welcomed.
107. What else does Mr Winter do that causes him problems on the net?
Mr Winter runs a business that supplies computer-related hardware. He posts
advertising for his business in places which do not generally accept
advertising or where the advertising is off-topic. He has had numerous
articles cancelled for this over the past several years. In addition, he
posts material to regional groups which do not want it, and have charters
which state that the material he is posting is not wanted. Most of this has
to do with his business.
108. What should you do?
If Mr. Winter is violating general netiquette, contact the administrator of
the site he is posting from (generally "news@site" or "postmaster@site").
Respond to him in the newsgroup as necessary, but do not try to contact him
directly, nor send him anything via email or regular mail. In other words,
work with the system and do not harass him. If it is a post or email from
prime.org, then email net-abuse@psi.com.
109. Is Steve Winter a SPAMMER?
The answer to this questions seems to be "Yes." He deftly avoids the
automatic SPAM detectors by altering the order of his quotes, etc. A simple
examination of his responses to any deviation from his view of theology show
that it is the same canned material, slightly altered. I have read nearly
every article Mr Winter has posted to UseNet, and it can be verified by
looking at DejaNews and comparing the various postings.
110. What is "Cancel Watch"?
In an attempt to gain support for his refusal to abide by charters, regional
group rules, etc, Mr Winter has created something he is pleased to call
"Cancel Watch", and has posted a FAQ on this to various groups. Mr Winter
claims that Cancel Watch is protecting people from being cancelled by
notifying them of a cancel issued against their post. His goal seems to be to
eliminate controls on cross-posting and regional newsgroups. The most
important thing to note about this is that he doesn't notify users when HE
cancels articles!
111. Who is Steve Adams?
>>> Continued to next message...
-!- Blue Wave/386 v2.30 [NR]
! Origin: The Cosmic Keyboard [Calgary, AB 403-229-4858]
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Ä Area: Religious Debate ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Msg#: 356 Date: 12-08-96 06:43
From: Doug Lee Read: Yes Replied: No
To: All Mark:
Subj: The Steve Winter FAQ [2/2
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
>>> Part 2 of 2...
Steve Adams is the moderator of a soc.religion.christian.bible-study, and is
a long time participant in UseNet (since 1985).
Footnotes:
(1) Verified in "ProPhone 1996" from Selectphone. They list his name,
address & phone number, and the SIC code (5734B - Computer Parts sales) for
his business. The listing is for "Steve and Nancy Winter" - his wife's name
can be verified by looking at his PRIME signup kit and seeing her name listed
as a moderator. I do NOT give his address or phone number because I'm not
interested in invading his privacy or helping anyone else to do so.
(2) Reported via email and netnews postings by several persons.
(3) Reported via email and netnews postings by several persons. It has been
reported that he is once again on FIDO net.
(4) Reported by Netcom administrators in UseNet posts. Verified by his
lawsuit against Netcom, as posted on his own web page.
(5) Verified by his lawsuit against Concentric, as posted on his own web page
(6) Verified by his 'Formal Complaint Against ATT', as posted on his own web
page.
(7) Verified by his 'The Nando Lawsuit', as posted on his own web page.
-!- Blue Wave/386 v2.30 [NR]
! Origin: The Cosmic Keyboard [Calgary, AB 403-229-4858]
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