Slashdot Mirror
Spammers Land Optusnet On spews.org Blacklist
downundarob writes: "In Australia there are essentially only two major backbone suppliers; eventually all traffic either rides on Telstra (Part govt. owned) or OptusNet (part of C&W Optus). According to this page OptusNet has gotten itself on spews.com blacklist, potentially causing issues for a large percentage of Australian Internet users." Update: 09/30 12:01 GMT by T :DanielS writes: "Looks like Optus did indeed back down; according to the SPEWS listing & delisting info page, Optus were removed after shutting down the DNS service."
www.wuvt.vt.edu
party in Wood basement.
That would hurt.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
http://spews.org perhaps?
--- Sigs are dumb.
How did that porn sneak into the article?
Someone is not checking the (non) links!
I highly doubt a porn site that pops up banner ads is a well regarded spammer blacklist site.
Joseph Elwell.
spews.com is a porn site for sale.... spews.org on the other hand. Might want to change that link before 18 year olds go to it.
All internet companies have a duty to stamp out spam. If they do not they get blacklisted. Maybe optusnet should try and do a better job at bringing joustice to spam throwers.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Hmm, I read the article quickly, but it appears that they're blacklisting the ISP for not cracking down on spammers.
:)
This could not only be a pretty decent PR stunt, but a nice excuse for blocking the competition off as well.
[inserting some text here to kill the lameness filter]
Do you like German cars?
What to do if you happen upon a peace rally by stupid naive hemp-shirt-wearing college idiots, to teach them why force is sometimes needed:
- 1. Approach dumb rich ignorant student talking about "peace" and saying
there should be, "no retaliation."
Repeat steps 5 through 8 until they understand that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.2. Engage in brief conversation, ask if military force is appropriate.
3. When he says "No," ask, "Why not?"
4. Wait until he says something to the effect of, "Because that would just cause more innocent deaths, which would be awful and we should not cause more violence."
5. When he's in mid sentence, punch him in the face as hard as you can.
6. When he gets back up to up to punch you, point out that it would be a mistake and contrary to his values to strike you, because that would, "be awful and he should not cause more violence."
7. Wait until he agrees that he has pledged not to commit additional violence.
8. Punch him in the face again, harder this time.
Could it be that /. is finally respecting Hormel's trademark? Was it out of goodwill or did the lawyers come a-callin'?
Oops.
I misread the article and thought that Telstra maintained a blacklist and had listed Optus. Dur.
Do you like German cars?
Mr Barry said Optus had been fooled by a simple ruse as the spam gang split its operations, setting up the computer with sites to be spammed in the US and hosting the domain name server at Optus.
It seems that the server running on the Optus network is only acting as a Domain server for the spamming. I would hope if this is the case, that the server actually doing the Spamming, which is in the states, has also been black listed.
Plus, as the article says, running a nameserver is not against the Terms and Conditions of Optus, so there is little they can do about this.
Anti-Spam people often seem to be so wrapped up in their cause, they often don't realise they are doing more harm than good, i.e. blocking half of Australia's email.
Our precious slashdot trolls scream out for vengeance:
1. Kill all Camel Jockeys.
2. Kill all Mohammedans.
3. Kill all Dune Coons.
4. Kill all Rag Heads.
5. Kill all Towelheads.
6. Kill all Arabs.
7. Kill all Camel Rooters.
8. Kill all Osama Bin Laden supporters.
Nuke their countries to hell.
Nuke them again.
Death to Islam.
I piss on Mecca. I wipe my ass with the Koran. I spit upon Mohammed.
When did this happen? I actually like the new icon. The old one was a little disparaging to Hormel.
I could never stand SPAM anyway. I guess I'd eat it if I were trapped in a fallout shelter. Maybe.
Note that this is only for people who subscribe to Optus's OptusNet dial-up service. If you use Optus@Home, an account through another provider that uses C&W's bandwidth, or even if you use another Optus dial-up service besides OptusNet (Dingo Blue?), you won't be affected.
We're really in trouble if a porn site is running the spam blacklist! What's next, blocking all sites with non-sex content?
Travis
from www.spews.org:
Optusnet.com.au, reports they have shut down the dynamic-DNS spam service run by the Dean Westbury gang on their network. In response, the SPEWS listed network addresses were removed from the list.
Spam natzi say: OptusNet users, no /. for you 1 year.
dear lord... must be an international date line or something.
Optusnet.com.au, reports they have shut down the dynamic-DNS spam service run by the Dean Westbury gang on their network.
In response, the SPEWS listed network addresses were removed from the list.
Updated listing for Dean Westbury: http://spews.org/html/S453.html
* Important: This is important. It cost us a heap of cash to have it written, and you'd better read it, or else. Read it right now too, arsehole, or you'll be sorry. Especially DON'T just rip the flap open without paying any attention to this very important message. We'll know if you do! You'll grow warts.
* Licence: This Licence Agreement has capital letters, and is effective upon your removal or breaking of the disclaimer seal on the Program Diskettes, or a fingernail, whichever happens first. It shall continue until terminated, as indicated by it's placement in a receptacle considered by at least one party to be a waste disposal container.
* Agreement: You acknowledge and agree that we have far too many lawyers, and that you will not consider, perform or aid actions that grant any lawyers purpose in their existance.
* Licence Fees: The licence fees unpaid by you are in consideration of your continued solvency. But it doesn't matter, because soon we'll know what you have, and just deduct the fees from your bank account. Please run the included easy to use networking software and log onto our server for further details. The first thiry minutes are free.
* Copyright: This software is ours, all ours. You just paid hundreds of dollars for the blank diskettes and this excellent paper bag. You agree to think yourself lucky that we'll generously let you make one backup copy, and actually run our precious code on your lousy computer. There are no bugs in this perfect code, so don't pester us with your stupid misunderstandings and pathetic complaints.
* Costs of Litigation. These are to be taken as an indication of the extreme folly of all parties' overdependence on legal contrivances.
* Government Licencee: Hi Senator. Don't forget who helped you out. Any other problems, just call us.
* Language Software: If this is one of our language products (how should we know) then you agree to have our copyright message plastered all through your object code. Don't expect us to tell you how to avoid this.
* Additional Restrictions: See all those uniformed thugs over there? Good. So don't get any funny ideas now. You don't want to make us angry, do you? See you next upgrade.
* Limited Liability: This software is provided "as is", whatever that is. You understand it's very complicated, far beyond your comprehension, so how should we know what will happen when you use it wrong. There may even be some risk involved, but that's your problem. Why, even we have trouble with it on bad days.
* Governing Law: This License Agreement shall be construed and governed in accordance with the laws of the State of Inebriation.
This has been a public service announcment. And remember, Only you can prevent forum flames. -NetGyver
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
Umm, why those blacklists are implemented on public backbones (like above.net, etc) ?
It's not like one of those anti-spam guys filters all connections to his personal machine,. If I pay to my ISPs and they pay to backbone, aren't they supposed to provide me with all the bandwith I want without filtering it ? How come someone on ISP could decide which mail I want to receive ? I'm paying for Internet, not for a part of Internet, and if I want to filter out spam, I would do so myself w/o anyone's help.
There was a recent case when macromedia.com wasn't accessible because some idiot mistaken it for a spam house - but WFT public backbone started using it ?
Shouldn't OpusNet be able to sue whatever ISP was doing filtering for breach of contract ? I presume contract does not say "any psycho could censor all IP packets if he thinks one of the name servers is might be used by spammer", so ISPs that do this filtering should be open for a lawsuit, at least from their users.
Obama 2012: our incompetent asshole is slightly less of an incompetent asshole than the other incompetent asshole !
1. OptusNet is owned by Optus which is owned by Singapore's SingTel. Cable and Wireless sold Optus some time ago.
.au ultimately goes through them is a lie. For example, UUNet is a very large backbone provide in Australia. (Probably bigger than Optus)
2. Optus and Telstra aren't the only backbone providers in Australia, to say that all traffic in
I think we can mark downundarob down as +1 Troll.
The worst terrorist attacks in recorded history occurred just under three weeks ago, and you people are discussing the fact that OptusNet has gotten itself on spews.com blacklist, potentially causing issues for a large percentage of Australian Internet users? My *god*, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES! ;-(
Did Slashdot get tired of hearing from lawyers and remove the can of spam???
Even though I support any move against spammers, as would most /.ers, does it worry anyone how much influence these groups can freely wield over the net? We complain about ICANN being undemocratic, but when it comes to spam... argh, between a rock and a hard place :).
If that situation did perpetuate itself, would there be any legal liability on behalf of either Optus or spews.org for the intentional breach of service to the rest of Optus' customers? You would think that after a while the customers would start suing either or both parties to the dispute.
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
A few minor facts.
#1. Spews has very minor penetration. Going via
the optusnet mailservers I can't find anywhere
that actually bounced my mail while the block
was in place.
Consequence of which is that basically no-one
would have noticed the spews block.
#2. 'half of australia's traffic is unmitigated
nonsense. 'Optusnet' is the dial-up arm of
Optus and it currently ranked as the #3 (or #4
depending on who's counting) ISP in australia.
Their market share is nothing like 50%. 10% maybe.
#3. 'won't be able to reach large parts
of Europe and the US' is sheer junk. As mentioned
about, the number of sites that use spews appears
to be near zero. Does anyone know a major site
that actually _uses_ spews? I couldn't find one.
Optus isn't owned by Cable&Wireless anymore. Optus was sold to Singapore Telecom earlier this year.
At times like this, I kinda wish that ISP's would create an e-mail system where anyone wanting to send me an e-mail was charged, say, .02c, for instance. My e-mails could pay for part of my internet connection, and spammers wouldn't spam as much, because it'd highly raise the cost of messaging me. When the user read the message the first time, he would also have the option of waiving the fee for his friends, family, etc. I know it'd take a lot to implement this, but it'd be a really great system.
On another note: I've been getting Chinese spam at my e-mail address for quite a while now. At first, it was only coming from one address for a while, but now it's coming from multiple addresses. This would all be well and good, except I DON'T SPEAK CHINESE. Feh. We've gotta do something.
-=Lothsahn=-
The new logo is a pig made of SPAM. Why can't you see that? Personally I think it's better as it's slightly more bizarre than the all-too-obvious can of spam. Actually, they should rotate the various things the spam is made out of - pig, squirrel, sponges, Steve Ballmer, etc.
As will be undoubtably rehashed ad nauseum, here are the facts:
/.ing them (and their ad banners) in a bizzare advertising scheme...
1) Spews.com is a PORN site. Spews.org is the blacklister, here.
2) They've already removed the spammer & resolved this.
3) You need some means to remove stories or at least change the titles, since you haven't done so yet.
Please mod this down as far as possible--you'll need something to cheer you up & it's terribly redundant. Unless spew.com gives you some money for
Has all the coolest spam songs.Q :w ww.orca.bc.ca/spamalbum/+spamalbum
l in k.txt
n k. mp3
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:9uo5LNULpn
My favorite lyrics
http://www.orca.bc.ca/spamalbum/lyrics/pacific-
and Favorite acompanying song
http://www.orca.bc.ca/spamalbum/256k/pacific-li
Enjoy! Laugh! Be Happy!
Death to spam.
There was one evening some months ago where I made a CVS error which resulted in Earthlink's MX servers accepting connections from every single IP attempting to connect. Two servers (of many) died instantly and the previous version of the blockfile had to be reinstated just to get sendmail accepting connections again. The rest of the servers slowed to a crawl. Mail that was in the spool at the time was delayed up to an hour and a half. And that was missing the denyfile that we use for... I'd say 7 minutes.
He either comes off as a real interesting guy with encyclopedic knowledge,or a pathological liar with an ax to grind
http://www.spamhaus.org/top10.lasso
Now that I know of your policies, I'll be making sure to take my business elsewhere in the future.
There's a big debate on the news.admin.new-abuse.email newsgroup about Spews and their policies about not allowing contact from blocked people except for a newsgroup which isn't their own, NANAE. I have mixed views on it. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, not accepting mail to abuse@ and postmaster@ for a given domain is a blatent violation of the RFCs. I reject around 32k pieces of spam a week. Abuse@ and postmaster@ always accept mail, even from blocked domains. There should be some reliable way of contacting these people if I get listed. My $.02 anyhow. Night all.
Blocking general IP traffic in this manner is a very disturbing trend, one that seemed to get started with Above.net, notably mentioned on /. when peacefire.org was blocked.
cue all the zealots who believe this is a good thing
I'm getting sick of hearing about all these high
horse wannabe spam knights in shining armour.
bottom line - no one of any size or magnitude
uses this 'spews' service and the sort of
impact it will have on the majority newbie
population on optusnet is zero. even the fairly
balanced and liberal MAPS service seems to have
lost a significant number of subscribers since
the change to subscription only.
kudos to the 'journalist' writing the
article in the Australian for being
completely clueless and publishing
sensationalist drivell again. you go girl.
i hate spam and spammers as much (if not more)
as than the next guy but this should never had
made it into the mainstream press.
if a spammer is listed in a forest, and no
one cares about the forest, is he really listed
at all?
They're dead.
Not a single one of them gives a sh1t if we eventually decide to get on with our lives. There is an understandable impulse to not forget those who died. But get some perspective: these will be the least forgettable 6000 deaths we've ever seen. Everyone's been crying for almost three weeks now. We can get on with our lives without "dishonoring the memories" of anyone. The events of this past month have made a lot of people like you come out of the woodwork and it's amazing and disturbing to see how many idiots like you there are.
You should really be ashamed of yourself. You're trying to enforce this mourning period to last as long as it possibly can as though you're really enjoying it, and you loudly disapprove of every ounce of joy and normalcy you find left in the world. Stop tsk-tsking people who aren't constantly talking about terrorism, and go do something that will really help. Spend some money on consumer goods. Buy some stocks. Hell, go take unnecessary flights. And please stop throwing a fit every time you see things getting back to normal.
I'm just amazed that political correctness has now been taken over by conservatives! Damn!
BTW- support Bill Maher and sign the petition to keep Politically Incorrect on the air!
A while back Telstra Bigpond had the same problem, where someone had been relaying via their mail server. Telstra Bigpond is the only broadband provider in many areas of Australia, so this is a problem. I sent an angry email to their mail administrator questioning is ability as a systems administrator, and telling how to fix the problem and get it off the blacklist.
notch one up for the anti-spammers,
total score: spammers - billions upon of billions of emails, antispammers: 2 or 3.
the this battle's been won, but we still have the entire war ahead of us.
-----------
i can see the MPAA using this as an anti-digital audio tactic, spamming people from a specific network that has alot of MP3 traffic, until the network is blacklisted, and threaten to continue to spam/keep the network blacklisted until they limit the transmission of MP3's across that network.
just an idea.
moox. for a new generation.
Like it or lump it. If other people don't like the crowd a certain someone hangs with, those people are free to be as judgemental as *they* feel inclined to be. This goes for companies too. It's the curse of free markets around the world; people get to choose who they deal with. It hardly rises to the level of extortion, but who am I to interupt bad analogy theater?
Maybe one bad apple spoils the bunch, or maybe one shouldn't throw the baby out with bath water. But who is anyone, to tell anyone else, who they MUST associate with, and what odious behavior they MUST endure in the process?
In short: "Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is pull."
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
It's funny, you make one typo and you're viewing a porn site. What's the web coming to!!!
What about connect.com / aapt ...
get loosed!
Congratulations! You too, have been hooked by the same troll that I've been posting to as many stories as possible, every day for the last 3 weeks. :-)
I dont think this is the right website!
See anal penetration, deep-throat oral, and gang-bangs!
spam (spm)
n.
Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.
And a couple more definitions just to be clear on what the above is saying:
junk
adj.
1.Cheap, shoddy, or worthless
2.Having a superficial appeal or utility, but lacking substance
and
unsolicited (ns-ls-td)
adj.
Not looked for or requested; unsought
Dictionary.com rules.
optus are good to their customers and provide a quality service, and i see it as them being punished
telstra on the other hand, deserve punishment, just for generally being fucking shit
Ah, so your're baiting people - you are indeed as master baiter. Sheesh.
Ooh.. the Microsoft redefinition of sentience at work again, I see.
Qwest and UUNet I can do without, but Sprint has some darned nifty services (Sprint ION, if it ever gets out the door). That, and us USAA members get all sorts of discounts from Sprint (EarthLink, long distance, PCS, etc.). So my current solution to that problem is to send a letter to USAA (who seem very privacy-oriented) and asking them if they really want to associate with a company that has such a reputation. I figure they can put more pressure on Sprint to change their ways than I can.
In checking some of the spews.org listings for the spammers involved, I noticed that several of them list their HOME TELEPHONE NUMBERS on their whois records...
...at 3 A.M.?
Shouldn't we show them how much we LIKE their
service(s)... say by calling them up and telling them
I think that's a great idea myself....
At first the chinese and japanese porn links were amusing, but they're pretty tame by american standards. What does surprise me is some of the stuff that comes from otherwise reputable american companies. I'd have never thought that a company like HP would resort to sleazey SPAM adverts and earn a place on my never-buy-from list but they do. even got one signed by Carly Fiorina herself, so I guess that it means that she can't claim plausable denieability now.
ISP's charging for SMTP wouldn't really work because it just as easy to send from somewhere else, i.e. our verio account lets us send mail through our server, it's marked as having originated at our site with no real way to tell where it came from before. inshort the SMTP traffic goes through the ISP as packets, they don't realy know whats in 'em just where they are going.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Picture this: John Q Australian can't get his email and calls Optus. Now in reality he'll get some runaround, but if he were to have a logical conversation with Optus it would go along these lines:
User: Why can't I get my email?
Optus: We've been blackholed by a large U.S. blackhole list.
User: Why?
Optus: Because of some spammers using Optus.
User: WELL KICK THEIR BLOODY ASSES OFF!!!
Naturally, this is not the way the actual phone conversation will go. Doubtless Optus will explain it away, if they explain it at all, with "technical difficulties". But the sheer number of angry letters, calls, and emails will put pressure on them to fix the damn problem.
What YOU don't realize is that spam is everyone's problem. I'm glad of blackholes like MAPS and spews. I'm glad my ISP uses them, and if my ISP stopped using them I'd find a new ISP. Because I don't enjoy having my time wasted, I don't enjoy having my ISP costs being inflated by the cost of handling spam, and I don't enjoy being treated like a cash cow by rude assholes the world over. If an ISP gets on a blacklist, they need only throw the spam in the trash to get out, and they all know this. Lazy corporations uninterested in stopping spamming customers because it mostly eats OTHER people's resources, does not impress me favorably.
Blocking half Australia's email? I see that as a GREAT thing. This will focus LOTS of anger and pressure on Optus, who will either shape up quick or begin to lose money. Corporations tend to hate that second option, I've found.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Bounce ALL uu.net originated spam to sales@uu.net and info@uu.net
Make their sales staff deal with the consequences of selling pink contracts. My accounts almost never receive spam from uu.net spammers anymore. They have been told to leave me alone because they are tired of dealing with the backlash.
If everyone would bounce spam from unresponsive isps like this, it might discourage the sale of pink contracts. Its not like uu.net can turn of sales@ without a major headache. Serves the vermin right
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
At times like this, I kinda wish that ISP's would create an e-mail system where anyone wanting to send me an e-mail was charged, say, .02c, for instance.
What you want already exists. It is called X.400.
I can see the MPAA using this as an anti-digital audio tactic, spamming people from a specific network that has alot of MP3 traffic, until the network is blacklisted, and threaten to continue to spam/keep the network blacklisted until they limit the transmission of MP3's across that network.
Many of those who use blocking lists do so only for the email protocols.