In case anyone else in this world gets this error message, having found themselves in the same position as me, wherein said individual is using a Linksys WRT54GS wireless router, has a Linux box behind it, running fetchmail from one’s house, through said Linksys router, and has purchased Linksys’s Parental Control feature to protect one’s home, children, self, wife, and pets….

Apparently “Your use of this service has been blocked by Artemis” is Linksys’s way of saying “hey, you’re not logged in, silly person.”

Fetchmail on the other hand, tells it to you like this:

fetchmail: Query status=3 (AUTHFAIL)
fetchmail: Your use of this service has been blocked by Artemis.

After an hour of some pleasant conversation with Linksys technical support, I tried logging out of Linksys’s Parental Control, through the computer that was getting this error about Artemis, and then logging in again, and magically, the error messages about Artemis do not show up anymore.

Whew. Let me tell you, I was pretty panicked at first, seeing this error message. I was sure that I’d been hacked and that my little Linux box had caught a nasty bug called Artemis.

Message to Linksys peoples: maybe it might make sense to word this as “Your use of this service has been blocked by the Linksys Parental Control monster, since you are not logged in or something. Please log out of Parental Control and log in again. All your base are belong to us.”

Now… back to work with you.