[21756] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Lawsuit threat against RBL users
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roeland M.J. Meyer)
Thu Nov 19 03:05:29 1998
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 23:39:31 -0800
To: Chris Williams <psion@geekspace.com>
From: "Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com>
Cc: "nanog@merit.edu" <nanog@merit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <36539283.3462D197@geekspace.com>
At 10:37 PM 11/18/98 -0500, Chris Williams wrote:
>OK, given, this guy is a flaming moron, and the original message was
>completely out of line. HOWEVER, it seems to me he raises at least one
>valid objection. It seems to me, both from his allegations and from the
>phraseology of the "Best Practices for Being Permanently Added to the
>RBL", that web hosting services are being treated unfairly in the
>following circumstance:
>
>Company S(pam) has a web site, hosted on the servers of
>web-presence-provider Company P(rovider). Company S uses the services of
>Company X to send out massive loads of SPAM, with referencing the web
>site and even e-mail addresses hosted by Company H. Now, if I'm hearing
>what's being said on this list correctly, Company H is being expected to
>pull the website they host for Company S (or else be blackholed), _even
>though no illegal or spam-generating activity is being generated on
>their network_.
>Am I understanding this correctly?!?
That's right. It stops the practice of using a sacrificial account, from
AOL or netcom, to spam for a web-site that is otherwise protected. Does it
make a difference that they didn't spam from their own ISP? That customer
is *still* a spammer whether they did it from your site or not. Maybe
you're of the "It's alright as long as they don't do it here" crowd? Well,
that's one of the things that the RBL was built for. The rest of us don't
have to put up with your negligence.
>By this philosophy, it would seem that if I were to host the web pages
>of a company which engaged in unwelcome telemarketing (which I
>personally find much more offensive than SPAM, and which is no more or
>less illegal in most states), I would be under an obligation to cease
>providing service to that company!
Telemarketing (telephone boiler-rooms) are equally nasty, but not on the
Internet. They also don't generate abuse@i.m.n.isp.net complaints, spam
does. Also *tons* of bounced messages.
>So, given the earlier threads about annoying UUNET marketing folks,
>let's blackhole all mail that comes from UUNET.
Get a clue d00d, UUnet *was* black-holed once, actually twice (if I recall
right), although that pre-dates the RBL. Are you that green that you don't
remember?
>Maybe I'm misinterpeting the policies here, but I didn't hear anyone
>disputing the actual complaints of this guy, which can only lead me to
>believe that either A) This guy was actually treated unfairly, and has a
>valid complaint, or B) Nobody cares enough to say "hey, wait a minute,
>there's been a failure in communication, let's see if we can work this
>out."
How about C) he's a clueless moron that doesn't deserve an answer? May he
be RBL'd in peace.
___________________________________________________
Roeland M.J. Meyer, ISOC (InterNIC RM993)
e-mail: <mailto:rmeyer@mhsc.com>rmeyer@mhsc.com
Internet phone: hawk.mhsc.com
Personal web pages: <http://www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer>www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
Company web-site: <http://www.mhsc.com/>www.mhsc.com/
___________________________________________
Who is John Galt?
"Atlas Shrugged" - Ayn Rand
