Will Spamhaus Get Shut Down Over Dispute?
from the not-good dept
Last month, we wrote about a judge awarding an $11 million judgment against anti-spam organization Spamhaus, after an accused spammer (in Spamhaus's database) sued the organization. Spamhaus lost, in part, because they refused to appear (though, the details now suggest they originally did appear, and then stopped). Spamhaus is run by Steve Linford, who is based in the UK. The suit was filed in Illinois -- so Spamhaus had a reasonable claim that the Illinois court has no jurisdiction over a UK-based organization, and little worry that they would need to actually pay (if they had $11 million, which it seems likely they don't as a volunteer group). However, they probably didn't expect the latest turn of events.
The court is now thinking about asking ICANN to suspend spamhaus.org, which would cause all sorts of problems for the many, many, many ISPs, companies and individuals out there who rely on Spamhaus' list of spammers. Dave Farber's Interesting People discussion list is having a big debate over this, pointing to a worthwhile discussion from an Illinois lawyer and spam fighter not involved in the case. He points out why the judge really had no choice, due to some mistakes that Spamhaus made early on, and warns that Spamhaus may be in real trouble if they try to duck this. While others argue that Spamhaus may be able to continue operating without a domain, but just using an IP address, there's no guarantee the court won't try to shut down the IP address as well. Either way, this all represents a real dilemma for Spamhaus, generally one of the most respected anti-spam lists out there. They probably have a reasonable defense: all they do is put out a list. They do not actively block a spammer, and they generally can back up why certain spammers are on their list in pretty great detail. However, if they are forced to defend each and every lawsuit filed by an upset spammer, it would make it prohibitively costly for Spamhaus (or any other such list) to remain in business -- in which case all of us who rely on such lists lose out. It's not clear where this goes from here, but it could represent a serious issue for anyone who keeps an anti-spam list or uses an anti-spam list to filter their email.
Reader Comments (rss)
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Duh
Spammers sue spam protection service.
It's apparent the Internet is just way too young to be dropped into this mature (ehm..) legal system without the proper provisions written in law to protect us.
There's no chance a criminal caught in the act with photographic and video evidence can sue the police force and win, is there.
And if we move things back in the days of the Wild Wild West, vigilante justice was applied often and appropriately and since criminals were less than the rest of the community, the community won most of the time.
With Internet criminal activities there's plenty of gray areas where you can neither use legal justice nor take actions yourself, since the legal syastem maybe be abused against you..
Pretty tough situation for us all.
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Awful...
This is just awful. If everyone can be sued Internationally unless they appear, what hope does ANY Internet service, noble, or inconsequential have? I've had morons in my forum who've been banned for being idiots, that have threatened lawsuits. In this particular case, what reprieve do they even have at this point?
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Need to ask this of everyone - if a spammer spoofs you and you get blocked, who's at fault, and what can you do (other than getting another address)?
Walking into work one day and having to solve a problem where all mail sending is disabled due to the ISP classing everything my company sends as UCE REALLY REALLY sucks . Especially when you're the tech, are expected to do something about it, and can't really do much in the end.
I'm against spammers, but I'm not really that happy about these RBLs either - tho I do respect their work.
Email is dead, I swear...
(PS: I did get my company unblocked, but that was a pretty crappy experience overall.)
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Spammers Suck...
We've been running an email service for our customers for over 10 years now. While I agreen that DNS blacklists and Spam lists can be a pain, it is even more painfull dealing with angry customers. One word of advise, keep up and constantly look for vulnerabilities in your email system.
As for the Spammers, they have no rights as far as I am concerned. They STEAL bandwidth from legitimate businesses and ILLEGALLY use your domains and mail servers against you. Why the legal system in this country supports them I'll never know. Nope, take that back, the almighty dollar rules!
And that's exactly what is wrong with it. Money is the only thing SPAMMERS and LAWYERS are concerned with. Until we find a way to hit their pocketbooks, this won't go away. (Yes, I did put SPAMMERS and LAWYERS in the same class, if your offended, change your proffesion or prove me wrong).
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Re: Spammers Suck...
You're 100% correct, unfortunately. And yes, spammers and lawyers are in the same class.
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What is this judge on??
I mean seriously - is he Linhardt's best customer secretly hoovering up all of the pills that the guy constantly spams the rest of the world about?
Linhardt LIED to the judge in the original case - he stated categorically that Spamhaus operated businesses in the US and this is how he got the action into court by creating a FALSE statement which gave the judge theoretical jurisdiction - Spamhaus is a UK operated company which as far as I am aware has no assets of any kind in the US
If you don't believe me read the court transcript on e360Insight (Mr Linhard's own page) http://www.e360insight.com
If anybody is in contempt of court it's Linhardt, only the judge now appears to embarrassed and flustered to admit he was hoodwinked
Could somebody please grab this judge and give him a slap before he does anymore damage to his reputation and the future safety of the internet?
I demand the right to information to protect me from twisted marketing prats like Linhardt and keep their shite out of my inbox, my business model should not have to involve using time, effort and resources cleaning out unwanted garbage mails at the rate of hundreds per day from people like Linhardt's customers
I WANT to speak to Spamhaus (freedom of speech) and the fact that they have dented a judges pride in a different country by refusing to join in on the farce he failed to prevent is neither of our concern
Sorry rant over - the man is annoying me and he needs to be told
Frankly it looks like the way this is going you guys in the US will end up banned from using email blacklists so will probably have to put up with even more junk mail - sorry for you.
FYI - Spamhaus can also be found at www.spamhaus.org.uk , a domain which thankfully egotistical, overreaching judges in Illinois (currently) have no jurisdiction over. Although the judge in this case may attempt to create a block on their IP in the US effectively creating a new blacklist for companies which annoy judges ;0)
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Headlines that pose a question are not news.
Is anybody else sick of all these "news" items where they simply pose a question rather than reporting news?
"Will Spamhaus Get Shut Down Over Dispute?" I don't fucking know, and apparently the people at Techdirt don't either because they're asking me.
If it isn't known, then it's not news yet, shut up until you know one way or another.
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to the above anonymous coward ... i see your point but i dont get your agression!
its sad that people in the wrong can sue, like a crimial sueing for hurting himself on your property, or a crim sueing the police for not looking after them properly ... but surely we can all sue the spammers for using out interlectual property? after all i get daily NDR's from mail purporting to be me (and i promise i have never used viagra and wouldnt sell it to you if i did!!), if i sent an letter pretending to be a large company i am sure i would get an instant response from a lawyer, yet its acceptable for spammers to use your email? let alone your mail servers!
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oh bloody hell
Spamhaus: Just do what every red-blooded American company does: sell/transfer/move your assets (the list) to another company and pick right up where you left off. It will be a new entity and therefore not responsible for the problems of the previous entity. If you get sued again, do it again. Legal AND fun.
And send a birthday card featuring all your volunteers' bums to that ignorant judge. That ass.
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Every time some moron judge makes such a ruling EVERY single last spam prevention group should shut down (in that judges country) and point the finger at him and the countries lawmakers. Between the angry people and the angrier businesses, including the big ones with lobbyists, the judge would change his decision and the laws would change too. Won't happen until everyone grows the balls to do this though.
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this is why
the US should not have control over ICANN or any other body with infulence over the internet.
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Re: this is why
Amen brother... although I think we should expand that out to ALL governments - my own (UK) is slightly ahead of the US on SPAM but I wouldn't trust them not to cock it up either!
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Re: Headlines that pose a question are not news.
Rhetoric anyone? And did you even read the article? It is news. The headline is simply stating the question that is generated by these events.
Now that you're done unnecessarily attacking a news site (anonymously, I might add), go back to "boom, headshot"-ing in counterstrike. The grownups are talking here.
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Re: What is this judge on??
That's DUMB. Nobody is going to get sued for USING a spam-blocking list.
I can see how a frustrated spammer could push a lawsuit against someone who publishes a spam-blocking list, but it wouldn't make it past the appellate court.
But a lawsuit against someone who sets up his computer to block certain spammers would get thrown out immediately.
In fact, the desk clerk in the Circuit Court where the spammer tries to file the suit would probably just laugh in his face and call him a dickweed.
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Re: Headlines that pose a question are not news
"Is anybody else sick of all these "news" items where they simply pose a question rather than reporting news?"
No.
"Will Spamhaus Get Shut Down Over Dispute?" I don't fucking know, and apparently the people at Techdirt don't either because they're asking me."
Literary Device'd!!!
"If it isn't known, then it's not news yet, shut up until you know one way or another."
This is my favorite... You've got it backwards. If somebody did a news story on the Michael Jackson trials today, *that* wouldn't be news. Why? Because it *is* known... The things people are interested in are current events, things that are still happening and therefore have unknown outcomes much of the time. During Katrina, lots of people were displaced and we didn't know what was going to happen to them, but I'd still like to here about it.
You stop posting dumb things.
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"They probably have a reasonable defense: all they do is put out a list. "
That is a crap "defence", on two grounds:
a) you can't reasonably deny responsibility when you know you have however-many million users
b) the list is a statement that "these folks are bad-asses". Having had experience of one of the more rogue RBL-houses blocking an entire /16 around work ("because, uh, verizon as a whole are not playing ball with us today"), the appropriate answer *is* to sue for libel or slander.
Face it. Some RBLs may be run responsibly (and spamhaus would receive my sympathy in proportion), but their power is limited when the injustice is so blatantly visible.
This is before you get onto the more complex issue that, if an ISP were to kick a spammer off, they would simply pop up somewhere else; however, if you tarpit / blackhole their outgoing crud, you retain control over them and authority to contact them demanding a chance in behaviour - so an RBL blacklisting an entire ISP is pretty much nonsensical.
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Re: Re: Headlines that pose a question are not new
"This is my favorite... You've got it backwards. If somebody did a news story on the Michael Jackson trials today, *that* wouldn't be news. Why? Because it *is* known... The things people are interested in are current events, things that are still happening and therefore have unknown outcomes much of the time. During Katrina, lots of people were displaced and we didn't know what was going to happen to them, but I'd still like to here about it."
You're completely retarded.
News items are things that just occured, actually occuring, or imminent. All else is speculation or historical, and therefore not news.
Will the earth be hit by a comet?
Will terrorists attack [country] tomorrow?
Will North Korea nuke the US?
Will Russia shut down allofmp3.com?
Will there be another tsunami?
Will Google buy [company]?
Is Google going to provide [service]?
I can speculate about an infinite number of things, but that does not make any of them news.
When spamhaus is GOING to be shut down (as in an imminent certainty) I'll care. Until then it's just speculative sensationalism.
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Re: Re: What is this judge on??
"That's DUMB. Nobody is going to get sued for USING a spam-blocking list."
Correct - now read the article
No you're not going to get sued but the Judge is trying to stop users from using a blacklist in the US by removing the lists .org address and possibly by blocking the IP in the US - end result you are banned from using the blacklist
This sets a precedent so the next spammer with an issue creates a bullshit legal action against another lister by lying to and confusing a judge and the next one is blocked and so on...
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Keep the list alive
They should distribute the blacklist to thousands of "helpers" and keep it alive and growing. The spammers can't sue the whole world.
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Microsoft should join the case as a defendant and then use their $$$ to tie up the SPAMMERS in court for the rest of their existance......
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Spam list
Spamhaus just makes the list, they don't control how the list is used. The ISP's and Admins of the many mail servers control how the list is used. My mail server at work currently just flags them as spam, and the filters on the mail clients put them in a junk box.
My system had been listed once, it was not much of a problem to get it not listed. Once I corrected the problem with the mail server, with in 24 hours we were not listed.
Most of the lists are automated, and you can submit a domain for testing, when it passes it gets removed. I was on an open relay list.
The Judge was probably up for reelection and wanted the compain fundings.
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Enrico writes, "I demand the right to information to protect me from twisted marketing prats like Linhardt and keep their shite out of my inbox. My business model should not have to involve using time, effort and resources cleaning out unwanted garbage mails at the rate of hundreds per day from people like Linhardt's customers,"
Well said. But sadly, unless you can back up those demands with an enormaous pile of cash, those demands amount to little more than whining. If the inbox is of such importance to big business, then why are volunteer organizations doing this work? Why hasn't the demand been so huge that these folks aren't making the piles of cash necessary to fight these fights?
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Re: Keep the list alive
why not? they spam the whole world ;)
an interesting thought, can you initiate something like this via email? (thats a serious question btw, i am not a lawyer and in the uk, i have no idea how this stuff works in the US).
if you *could* initiate some kind of legal action this way, you can be damn sure 'billy the spammer' will have a feild day sending out a million litigation emails for a day instead of viagra ads.
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Judge may not understand
Spamhaus also has spamhaus.co.uk
Unless I am wrong, ICANN has no control ofer the .uk domain
Tom
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Re: Re: Re: Headlines that pose a question are not
And you're having to resort to ad hominem attacks. Go you.
All of your little "speculative sensationalist" headlines are still news. Those headlines would be used for stories that have further information regarding the situations. For example: "Will N. Korea Nuke the US?" could be a story about new intelligence that shows N.K. making plans to attack us. Yup. That'd be news.
"Will Google buy [company]?" would be a story about Google entering into talks with [company] to discuss acquisition. Hey... looky there. That's news.
"Will Russia shut down allofmp3.com?" What about a new statement issued by the Russian government that says they're considering it. Since that would be a change of mind for them... well shit-damn, I guess that'd be news.
Holy crap. There's news all over the place.
The news in all of these examples may not be surprising or even breaking news. But that doesn't mean that it's not news.
Yes the headlines are sensationalist... but that doesn't make them not news. As long as the headlines are applicable to the story contained therein, I'd say that's good use of rhetoric in getting a point across.
So I have two questions for you:
1) Why does a story have to be breaking and heretofore unheard of before you consider it news? What about additional information that's newly discovered?
2) Why does this bother you so much that you have to come onto a forum and start flaming people?
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Re: Judge may not understand
Wait... ICANN has control over something?
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;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.spamhaus.org. 206 IN A 216.168.30.71
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
spamhaus.org. 171249 IN NS ns8.spamhaus.org.
spamhaus.org. 171249 IN NS hq-ns.oarc.isc.org.
spamhaus.org. 171249 IN NS udns1.ultradns.net.
spamhaus.org. 171249 IN NS udns2.ultradns.net.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns8.spamhaus.org. 171250 IN A 216.168.28.44
hq-ns.oarc.isc.org. 2094 IN A 204.152.184.186
udns1.ultradns.net. 172531 IN A 204.69.234.1
udns2.ultradns.net. 172531 IN A 204.74.101.1
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Judges just don't understand
This may offend some of the older techdirt readers and I apologize. ::This is my opinion::
Q: Who are the people making decisions about the future of the internet?
A: Judges, Lawyers, and Legislators..right?
Q: What is the median age of most of these guys/gals?
A: 45+ -- many in their 50s
THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND THE TECHNOLOGY they are making precedence on. PERIOD
This is our biggest problem. The gray hairs are making all the decisions...and don't understand that current laws don't exactly work when it comes to the internet.
Sorry to be ageist...but that's the only thing that makes sense as to why politicians and judges make the backward decisions they make.
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Re: Judge may not understand
> Unless I am wrong, ICANN has no control ofer the .uk domain
Nor the IP address, which is allocated by RIPE.
And it's not at all true that the judge is simply doing what he has to in order to follow through. Rather than issue a contempt citation (good luck enforcing that), he instead expanded the scope of an injunction to the degree of shutting down spamhaus entirely (or at least gamely attempting to). The judge doesn't seem to care about the case being overturned on appeal.
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The Judge
The judge needs to be removed for being so stupid
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Re: why are volunteer organizations doing this wor
I would like to back the "demands" that Enrico wrote and to answer your "Why hasn't the demand been so huge that these folks aren't making the piles of cash necessary to fight these fights?"
There are other DNSBL lists which you have to pay money for. MAPS (http://www.mail-abuse.com/) is one of the most common and started the RBL name for this (which is a service mark of MAPS LLC) and DNSBL is what it's suppose to be called.
just my .02
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Does the Judge have an email address?
Maybe if we all forward to him every single piece of spam we get, he'll start to realize spam isn't such a great thing after all.
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Re: Re: why are volunteer organizations doing this
Hi - Sorry been away doing all the stuff I do when I'm not being a geek (i.e. sleeping)
Much as I like Spamhaus and their service I think it may be misleading to call them an entirely volunteer organisation - sure they are 'not for profit' but they do earn basic salaries as far as I am aware (not sure what the rules are about this in the UK so I could be off-track slightly)
And although they will give individuals and charities access to their services for free they do charge larger businesses - they charge mine and I consider it money well spent
Frankly for the difference these types of companies make to my day I hope they all go out and get wasted occasionally on paid for company morale trips ;0)
Like dbjock states there are several such companies and in some cases it is BIG business - just who do you think supplies the spam block lists most of you use at home?
However as often happens smaller operations sometimes are more effective - they don't have shareholders to kiss ass to and are often more flexible (plus x% of their profits aren't syphoned off to feed some traders sharehabit and can be reinvested instead)
Anyway - I'm off track - the judge needs a slap - I need a volunteer or a flight paid for... ;0)
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Re: Does the Judge have an email address?
Dude you're talking about a guy who stated that part of the penalty imposed should be that Spamhaus put a 1" x 1" disclaimer on their website stating that Mr Linhardt wasn't a spammer etc - how the hell is anyone going to read that?
I'd be surprised if he has a computer!
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SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS AGAINST
First of all I am not a spammer. I do not send unwanted email, viruses, trojans, or any other unwanted piece of e-mail to anyone, anywhere, ever.
The company I work for, which will remain unmentioned, has recently been listed on spamhaus.org simply because an affiliate (who was recently TERMINATED BY US BECAUSE OF SPAMMING!!!) sent out an e-mail blast FROM HIS OWN E-MAIL SERVER with a link to one of OUR websites.
This is just plain wrong. For my company to have its entire business put on hold while our ISP is forced to get involved to remove us from this list is unacceptable.
Let me paint a picture for you:
Joe Smith is a spammer. He wants to send a million e-mails out to users all over the world with a link to google.com. Someone is unhappy that they got this unwanted e-mail and they complain to spamhaus and as a result, google.com is blacklisted. So now the entire corporate office at google is unable to send e-mail simply because Joe Smith sent an unauthorized e-mail containing a link to google.com
Doesn't sound right, does it?
It's not right, and its totally unacceptable and I wish that someone would do something about it.
Not only that, but other companies that we do business with have listings on spamhaus.org regarding them as "Basically a hide-your-website service for spammers" when in reality they have absolutely no idea what the real deal is.
The real deal is that there are legitimate businesses who are trying to make a living just like everyone else, and every once in a while someone comes along and abuses their privilages.
You cannot punish legitimate companies for being the victim of abuse.
But that is exactly what spamhaus.org is doing.
Their description of our business was "Paying [spammer] to spam redirectors to their website".
First of all, the website they are referring to is a legitimate offer. Secondly, we DID NOT AND WILL NOT PAY [spammer] FOR ANY FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY INCLUDING SPAMMING!!!!!
If I posted false information about you that was publicly available to the entire world, would you be upset?
Would you take action against me? I would hope that you would.
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Spamhaus Terrorists and blackmail
all this is well and good,,,,,, but Steve linford ABUSES his list that is the fact. If you say anything bad about them they will shut off your home connection. (as I write from the Railroad wifi near my house that has no connection anymore. Spamhaus is a list for personal venedettas.
I am not against lists. I am against people that ABUSE them
Spamhaus Internet terrorists.
Becoming what you oppose
Editorial by Dave Hayes
Many folks have asked me why I stopped "contributing" to the everlasting debates in NANA (news.admin.net-abuse.*). I generally respond with something along the lines of "I don't wish to become that which I oppose". Indeed, recently I've "plonked" several entities (among them the terrorists known as "spamhaus" and "spews") simply because I no longer wish to beat my head against the stone wall of ignorance.
Terrorists? Yes that's right. One definition of "terrorism" is "attacking innocents in the name of your cause". Nowhere is this more ironic and extreme than in the deeds of my old nemesi, the anti-spammer zealotry collective, some of whom are now known as spamhaus and spews. The terrorism they practice is implemented in the form of "mail blacklists".
Blacklists are not a new notion. In the 1950's, the infamous McCarthy blacklists contained names of "possible communists", which ultimately led us to a more sterile culture.
The social costs of what came to be called McCarthyism have yet to be computed. By conferring its prestige on the red hunt, the state did more than bring misery to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Communists, former Communists, fellow travelers, and unlucky liberals. It weakened American culture and it weakened itself. ---Victor Navasky, Naming Names (New York: Viking Press, 1980)
Modern internet technology has created our own version(s) of social blacklists. Many anti-spam zealots have turned to this method for freeing their mailboxes from spam. Simply expressed, these organizations maintain databases which are supposed to contain the IP addresses of known spammers. They then provide these databases to various electronic mail servers, so that the servers can reject email based on what's in these databases.
The bottom line is, if the machine that sends your email is on this list, a number of mail servers will automatically reject all email from your server.
If (and only if) they restricted these blacklists to actual spammers, I doubt very seriously that I would have problem with this practice. If we could trust human beings to maintain a logical and calm viewpoint about life, I doubt that I would have a problem with these blacklists. Unfortunately we cannot trust these things in either case.
Fact: Spamhaus and spews have added innocent IP blocks to their blacklists.
The anti-spammer idealotry goes like this: "Anyone who gets service from a network friendly to spammers is supporting the spammers and therefore our enemy." (The friend of my enemy is my enemy too?)
So here's how this goes. Once a network provider is branded "a communist"...er excuse me..."a spammer", ALL of their IP ranges are blocked. Typically a network provider is providing services for smaller service providers, many of whom would never and have never engaged in spamming of any kind. No notice is really given on these blacklisting events, rather you find out when mail starts bouncing to some destination. Usually an end customer is the first to notice, and that customers is directed by the bounce to complain to...their own ISP!
In essence, the customer is tricked into presenting the terrorist anti-spam agenda to the ISP. The ISP turns around and finds out that their provider (or provider's provider) is what the anti-spam zealots want "silenced". Until that target complies with their arbitrary agenda (usually of the form "stop spamming", but this is not always true...see below), everyone else has to suffer with electronic mail blocks.
What's wrong with this? Everything.
* First and foremost, the most often heard reason anti-spammers are so rabid about anti-spam is "it makes electronic mail unusable for average people". If this is true, then how does blocking innocent email help this situation? In fact, blacklisting innocents contributes to the problem. The hypocrisy here is so thick I doubt even a knife can cut it. * The dishonor of the practice of blacklists is amazing. Many naive internet mail administrators add blacklists like spamhaus "because they work to reduce spam". Lots of these sites have no idea that they are being cut off from legitimate email because of these machinations. If their customers really knew that they were cutoff, I wonder how many would still buy service? Getting rid of spam is one thing, blocking that key business email that means $100K in sales is quite another. Lets take this one step further. Person A buys email service from ISP X who is using Spamhaus to block spam email. Person A's daughter, who's income is very low due to being a student in college, buys email service from ISP Y (because it's cheap) who uses IAP S as their connectivity. ISP Y buys network from IAP S because it's cheap. Due to real life constraints, the only contact Person A has with their daughter is email. IAP S suddenly gets put on the anti-spam master blacklist. The same day, Person A's daughter has a car accident. A roommate desperately tries to send email to Person A but it's blocked. Worse, it's blocked because these zealots have an idealogical cause which is set up to be more important than a person's life. This is the height of dishonor. * The practice is quite criminal by many definitions and with criminals on all sides: o Any ISP that is blocked is told to "comply with our demands or be blacklisted" (a.k.a. extortion). o Attacking innocents in the name of their cause (a.k.a. terrorism). o Since the control of the blacklist is out of the hands of the service provider who subscribes to it, by law you must clearly state "random people may be blocked to your email box by other people who are not under our control" before selling "email services". I've never seen this stated on any ISP ad. (a.k.a false advertising) o Blacklisting ISPs is a good way of knocking them out of business (a.k.a restraint of trade) o If spam ever goes away, these organizations will also. Thus they have a vested interest in keeping spam alive (a.k.a playing both sides of the street)
Do note that the anti-spammers claim these practices are not criminal and will "reduce economic support for the 'spam friendly' ISPs". This claim is quite erroneous:
Fact: Spammer companies have far more money than most innocents.
Yep, to the tune of millions of dollars per month. SPAM is big business. Do you think that the income of one little ISP with 1000 customers is going to make any difference against the large income of a spam company? No! All that does is clear more bandwidth for the spammers to use, should the little ISP cave in and switch to another provider.
While there's no proof (that I'm aware of), it's not so far fetched to open up questions of collusion between "the providers that are anti-spam" and the "anti-spam blacklists". Certain providers, to compete, may pay the blacklist groups lots of money to keep attacking innocents, which gets them more customers in the long run as ISPs fold because they cant afford the connectivity provided by the "anti-spam supporter" providers.
I've established some things here:
1. In my opinion, blacklists are bad. 2. The anti-spammers are resorting to clearly criminal activities to further their goals: extortion, restraint-of-trade, terrorism. 3. The effect the anti-spammers are trying to have by blocking innocents only works to destroy email connectivity, the cure is worse than the disease.
This brings me to my concluding point. The original complaint against spammers included accusations of being criminal. Most spammers are considered criminal. Yet look at the anti-spammers! In their undying eternal zeal to end spam, they have become just what they oppose! Criminals and email destroyers. Gee, isn't this what they call the spammers?
The aware person realizes that fighting something only makes it stronger. Indeed, when you see two people rabidly on one side or the other, it's very hard to distinguish the two. They almost appear to be the same person, willing to commit any atrocity for the sake of their ideology or economics. What more do I need to know?
So, in a roundabout way, that's why I don't participate. I've done my days of tilting at windmills. I've presented my pearls, but the swine didn't hear any of them. They've misrepresented my position countless times for their own agendas, failed to understand even the most basic of the concepts I've explained, and twisted what I've said to make me out to be something I am not. ("Spam supporter"...lol)
I have finally realized that it has less to do with the ability to understand, it's mostly that they are not willing to understand. So in that climate I should once again venture forth into that primal never-ending argumentia that is NANA?
No. I'm sorry. I have far better things to do.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
FYI, the judge is 68.
It looks like Spamhaus' lawyers in the US screwed up by saying that the case should be moved to the federal court "because this court has jurisdiction". Spamhaus did not want to waste money defnding this and other cases that spammers have said they intend to bring (quote "death by a thousand cuts") and withdrew. The judge had little option but to make a default ruling.
The ICANN order has not been signed yet. i hope he signs it - i would like to see the top level domains put with the ITU and not with a US commercial company.
BTW EU law (including UK) prevents any entity sending spam, telephoning, faxing, etc without having prior permission from the recipient. If any of these spammers turn up to enforce claims in the UK or elsewhere in the EU, they may well get arrested (it is not a matter of civil law).
If the US had a similar law, there wouldn't be such a problem with spam, spammers and blocklists.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus Fraud
Spamhaus.org charges a whopping $14500 per year for a blacklist
they don't even own! To verify these charges, visit this page:
http://www.spamhaus.org/datafeed/pricecalculator.lasso
More facts:
----------
The XBL list that comes in the spamhaus.org data feed is in
reality the CBL list at http://cbl.abuseat.org. That list is *not*
owned by spamhaus.org. All spamhaus.org does is copy (download)
the information X number of times a day to their own servers
before feeding it to unsuspecting corporations.
The CBL list has been renamed to XBL by the very cunny(!) folk at
spamhaus.org so that no-one could possibly notice the fraud.
Furthermore, spamhaus.org is selling the rebranded CBL list which
makes up over 90% of the total value of the data feed for up to
$14500 pa, when anyone including corporations and ISPs can get
the *same feed* for *FREE* by filling in this simple form:
http://www.cbl.abuseat.org/rsync-signup.html
This is blatant fraud because by mixing their highly *ineffective*
SBL list with the CBL list, Spamhaus gives the false impression of
their own SBL list being a powerful spam filter. This is a
marketing con, just as ROKSO is a PR ploy.
The stark reality which spamhaus.org has been trying to sweep
under the carpet in the last 3 years is, without the CBL list
spamhaus.org would have been bankrupt by now. Without the CBL
list, Steve, John et al, would not have been able to rake in
hundreds of thousands of easy dollars from corporations and
government institutions gullible enough to believe the
spamhaus.org PR.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS AGA
First of all I am not a spammer. I do not send unwanted email, viruses, trojans, or any other unwanted piece of e-mail to anyone, anywhere, ever.
The company I work for, which will remain unmentioned, has recently been listed on spamhaus.org simply because an affiliate (who was recently TERMINATED BY US BECAUSE OF SPAMMING!!!) sent out an e-mail blast FROM HIS OWN E-MAIL SERVER with a link to one of OUR websites.
----
I have absolutly no pity for you whatsoever.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus Abuse
Just because I said bad things about spamhaus. They contacted my ISP and threatened them into shutting off my Internet connection. I did not spam all I did was write a bad comment about spamhaus. they told my provider that if they did not shut me off they would blacklist them for 6 months. I am not in the email business in any way. These guys abuse their power. stay away from them. the word NAZI comes to mind.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus Deserves everything they get
Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These extortionists should be sued, shut down and jailed. I'm all for it!!!!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus do block websites
Today I attenpted to login into my admin panel of my website only to be greeted by this massage:
Your request was intercepted by security software which protects the
Web site you visited from malicious activity, such as hackers, spam
and viruses. We apologize for the inconvenience, but your request
matched a profile of suspicious activity. This problem is usually
quite easy to fix.
Your computer's IP address was determined to have recently sent spam
or engaged in malicious activity as reported by a third-party
monitoring service. This means your computer is most likely infected
with viruses or other malicious software. See below for more
information and removal instructions.
Your request was blocked because of malicious automated requests
received from your computer's IP address.
This problem may be caused by viruses or spyware on your computer, or
by malicious software that pretends to be anti-virus or anti-spyware
software. Ensure that you have REAL anti-virus and anti-spyware
software on your computer, that they are kept up-to-date, and that you
have run a full system scan using each tool. Once your system is
cleaned of viruses and spyware, please try your request again.
The free Google Pack provides trustworthy anti-virus and anti-spyware
software.
Blacklist Reason(s):
http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
I had to go to their website and apply to get de-blacklisted. I am not a spammer. I was only trying to access my website. I could go anywhere else on the net but not login into my site... so who said they only put out a list they dont do anything else? Bullshit.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Spamhaus do *NOT* block websites
When you connected to your web site, the company which provides hosting services did a query to Spamhaus's list and received a short message in response to their query which looks something like this:
http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
The several paragraphs of text you quoted here which contains that single line was generated by your hosting provider, not by Spamhaus.
Going to Spamhaus's website and following their procedure gets you delisted, so that your hosting provider won't see that single-line message again when they query Spamhaus's list.
In other words, it was your hosting provider who decided to read Spamhaus's list, block your access, and print out that message. So how does any of this indicate that Spamhaus is doing anything other than supplying and managing a list?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS AGA
My company has also been falsely placed on the spamhause.org list when the real problem was that an unsuspecting employee with an infected laptop came in, connected via WiFi, and the trojan started spamming.
If I had the resources to sue I would too!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS
Ryan P,
If you are running a network then you have NO ONE to blame other than your CEO and or network admin (assuming you have one) for not having the proper tools in place to stop somone connected to your network from spamming, inavertenty or not.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus ate my Hamster!
I agree with all the other spammers' comments, I too hate Spamhaus because they interfere with my legitimate spam business. They also threatened my ISP that if he did not set fire to my server they would dynamite his building!!! And they demanded I pay them $50,000 to get off their list!!! And they ate my hamster!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
New vision ?
Hi,
Why is everyone so in favor of Spamhaus ? The way they operate (blocking IP's rather than domains) blocks far more innocent people/domains than the sole spammer who by accident resides on the same shared IP server !!
My customers have been blocked out 2 times last month for almost 24 hours for no real reason. Maybe I should start a lawsuit against them (in the UK) to let them pay for the damage they caused to them AND me ...
Cheers
Frank
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus - Shut Them Down!!!
Get these Net Luniticsoff once and for all. They are the lowest of the lows
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
RE: Spamhaus - Shut Them Down!!!
Bravo! Well said, James!!!!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus Attack
Well, I detest spam and appreciate groups trying to stop spam, but Spamhaus has been attacking my professional list for reference librarians, Project Wombat. The blacklisting has crippled inter-library communications and Spamhaus refuses to do anything about it. Spamhaus has grown too powerful and considers itself to be the law - but a law without a court of appeal. Methinks perhaps shutting down Spamhaus might be a good idea.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Spamhaus Attack
I have no sympathy for Spamhaus...
I run a legitimate e-commerce business and can't even send an invoice to a good half of my customers because Spamhaus blacklists IP ranges.
Pleads to have my IP removed from their list has fallen on deaf ears.
Spamhaus has appointed themselves judge, jury and Executioner
The sooner they go out of business the better, I will rely on a personal spam blocker for my email, so I CAN decide what’s spam.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Gate.com's alliance with Spamhause cost me $23,000
....when my ability to send email was abruptly and without warning, cut off by this Spamhaus company. I was unable to get necessary files to a very large client and was completely unable to fix the problem by going through all the Spamhouse "fixes."
My email and web host told me, with NO hesitation, there is NOTHING they will do for me for this "inconvenience."
I'm a small advertising agency - this is a HUGE hit for me financially and I have NO idea why my ISP was "blacklisted."
I'm just sick about this. This really hurt my business.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus stopped my spam - I'm gonna sue them too!
I agree with all the spammers here that Spamhaus are commie-nazis, they deliberately stopped me from spamming when it's perfectly legal to send spam!! Who gave them the right to stop us spammers??
I think Spamhaus should be put out of business and the luzers who hate our spam should be forced by law to receive it and press delete if they don't want it. Spamming is our right! How dare some english organization tell us americans we can not send spam?!! Go judge Kocoras!!!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus
I believe in Spamhaus, it is a service for small companies/corporate companies to rely on, as it says on their web site.
"Every Internet network that chooses to implement spam filtering is, by doing so, making a policy decision governing acceptance and handling of inbound email. The Receiver unilaterally makes the choices on whether to use DNSBLs, which DNSBLs to use, and what to do with an incoming email if the email message's originating IP Address is "listed" on the DNSBL. The DNSBL itself, like all spam filters, can only answer whether a condition has been met or not"
It is purely down to the System Manager or Exchange manager to filter access connection request on to their system.
I am fed up with spammers using my bandwith up with their Junk.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS
Sorry you have got to ask yourself these question.
1. Why wasn't this Laptop upto date with latest dat files and scan engine.
2. Who responsibility for making sure that all companies PC/Laptop are upto date with dat files and scan engine.
3.Also this employee must have open a email or gone onto a web site that had a trojan on its source code.
Somebody needs to take responsibility of the above actions
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS
Sorry you have got to ask yourself these question.
1. Why wasn't this Laptop upto date with latest dat files and scan engine.
2. Who responsibility for making sure that all companies PC/Laptop are upto date with dat files and scan engine.
3.Also this employee must have open a email or gone onto a web site that had a trojan on its source code.
Somebody needs to take responsibility of the above actions
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS
Sorry you have got to ask yourself these question.
1. Why wasn't this Laptop upto date with latest dat files and scan engine.
2. Who responsibility for making sure that all companies PC/Laptop are upto date with dat files and scan engine.
3.Also this employee must have open a email or gone onto a web site that had a trojan on its source code.
Somebody needs to take responsibility of the above actions
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: SPAMHAUS LISTS FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CLAIMS
Sorry you have got to ask yourself these question.
1. Why wasn't this Laptop upto date with latest dat files and scan engine.
2. Who responsibility for making sure that all companies PC/Laptop are upto date with dat files and scan engine.
3.Also this employee must have open a email or gone onto a web site that had a trojan on its source code.
Somebody needs to take responsibility of the above actions
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus - TERRIBLE
Hello,
This is by far one of the worst organizations I have ever heard of. Their goal is great. Their support and response times are terrible. They havent replied to me in over 48 hours or more. I am shocked about the terrible things ive heard and read about this company on the internet. This company is the reason our business site along with a few hundred clients is currently offline. I have done everything within my power to contact this company to try to reach a resolution. I have received no reply. In my opinion a company that has so much leverage in the hosting world shouldnt be a 'FREE' or 'Voulenteer' organization. My COMPANY is offline based on someones 'FREE' time. Why me and hundreds of clients stress some guy in the UK is having another ale/beer.
My 2 cents,
Eric
www.BitTraffic.com
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
screw spamhaus
screw spamhaus, they are nothing but fascists who have no right to block internet traffic. for all of you ninnys who dont like spam, DONT USE EMAIL. The internet is chaos it has no rules, leave it alone and if you dont like spam, come up with a better idea than email and stop whining.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
How Do I Contact These Spamhaus Plonkers!
Ok, so Spamhaus assume I am a spammer because I have a dynamic IP address. What if I am not? Like other contributors to this forum, I am trying to run a legitimate operation using my dynamic IP addressed domestic broadband connection. How the hell do you contact these people to get your IP address un-blacklisted. I cannot seem to load thier webpage, will they deny my viewing thier site if I am on thier blacklist too? Its all very well punishing someone for unacceptable conduct, but what has happened to the RIGHT OF APPEAL?
I recently heard Spamhaus had been subjected to a denial of service attack. While I believe the expression "An Eye For An Eye" is wrong in our age of technology. In this case, I fully support the actions of the purps.
We, honest, law abiding internet users are being persicuted and judged by the opinions of these Spamhaus idiots. My question is: who actually set out the rule book for thier voluntary organisation, and as this problem is a global phenomena, who approved their ideals.
This organisation must be made to PAY (and be disposed of) for expenses incurred due to loss of service caused by thier FLAWED set of ideals. I really do hope they go away soon!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus Scam
In a recent real-time test run, the SBL block list (operated by
spamhaus.org) could only detect 25 unique spams out of 63,000+ spam
emails. Unique spams mean spam emails that could not be detected by a
combination of other FREELY available block lists such as:
URIBL : www.uribl.com
SURBL : www.surbl.org
CBL : cbl.abuseat.org
SPAMCOP : www.spamcop.com
DCC : www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/dcc
UCEPROTECT L1 : www.uceprotect.net
NJABL-DUL : www.njabl.org
SBL is made up of 2 components: The SBL and the URIBL_SBL which
detects spamvertized URLs inside the body text of emails. The 25
unique spams caught by SBL in the test run included both
components.
As any enlightened insider involved with anti-spam filtering will tell
you: spamhaus.org/linford is nothing but a PR machine based on pulling
the wool over the unsuspecting and gullible system admins' eyes with
obscure data and unproven claims. Some of these admins have been
conned by the spamhaus/linford PR machine to such an extent that they
cough up a whopping $14,500 every year for the privilege of
subscribing to a worthless list capable of detecting roughly 400
unique spams for every 1,000,000 (1 million) spam emails.
On its front page, spamhaus claims "a spam-free world just a few
clicks away"... What a joke, mister linford !
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
stop spamhaus
It is really hard for me to see spamhaus as a hero. As far as I am concerned they are worst than the spammers. They will block the whole block of IP, if there is just one spammer in that block. The fact is that if someone emails me, and I can't reply to there email, they think that I am ignoring them and they cancel. Costing me money. I guess that if you are a big internet company that you can just push the little guy out of business and nobody cares.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
spamhaus
i think it is wrong on the part of spamhaus
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Spamhaus
So what do you do when they block whole provinces in China - that's places larger than Britain, because of 10+ listed spammers coming from there. I say shut down Spamhaus, they're the virtual equivalent of a rentacop.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
US Law
US Law is just that!. We have our own laws and the US juducial system has no rights over us. Long live our right to rule our lands free of some judge in a far off country called the USA thinking he has some kind of right to tell an international body what to do. As for Spamhaus you don't always get it right but you are doing a good job - keep up the good work and stuff what some trumped up fool of a judge has to say.
Say NO to SPAMMERS and protect our rights.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: US Law
yeah right
i work for a company as tech/software support and we send out bi-annuel newsletters. well we now have clients that can't get them even thoguh they want them because some spam company decided it was spam.
how do you know what is spam and what isn't.
you people that don't know how to avoid spam or deal with spam with out someone holding your hand need to DIE and i mean that die cause your not helping this world we are trying to move forward and your incompitance and lack of common sense is killing us
kthxbi sux boi
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Winning war against terrors of false, bogus & "fri
Could it be that those humble servant leaders (who are fighting our Nation's # 1 Crime: Fraud and related crimes, including spamming)need to find a lawyer who will create a vehicle that they can fight out of without being defeated with judgments? Could that legal vehicle be the result of estate planning? Could one of those vehicles be a trust? Could those spammers who sue the humble servant leader's trust only obtain "charging orders" that allert the IRA to step in and collect taxes on "charging order?" Could the spammer ever get the assets referred to in the "charging order when the humble servant leaders have the sole right to distribute the assets?
Why do intelligent professionals check to see if there is a trust before suing? Could it be that an attorney firm paid $74,000 in taxes and never got the assets referred to in the "Charging order?"
Should you seek an attorney with trust expertise?
Should all claims and complaints brought before the court be questions for the court to determine without being subjected to libel and/or slander counterclaims?
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