Slashdot Mirror
Spamhaus Responds To Spammers' Lawsuit
ShaiHulud-23 writes "A suit was recently filed by EMarketersAmerica.org, a fledgling secret organization of spammers, against the Spamhaus Project, (and other anti-spam sites) seeking to prevent the publication of the anonymous plaintiffs' IP addresses in the Spamhaus Block List (SBL). The suit requested a response from the named defendants, and Spamhaus director Steve Linford has provided one, dismantling the spammers' case point by point."
Should be "defendants"
Also, here's some amusing dirt on the lawyer who filed the suit (and registered the EMarketersAmerica domain.)
General Geekery
EMarketersAmerica.org, a fledgling secret organization of spammers
NOTE: secret organizations should NOT file public lawsuits.
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
After all, they got Capone for income tax.
we're in effect giving an anti-spam company a DDOS with the /. effect. way to go, guys.
No really, that's great. I'm happy for all you guys. Biiiiiiig group hug? Everybody feel better that we're fighting the evil, evil spam now? Okay, good.
Seriously, I hate having my inbox clogged up as much as the next guy, but wake me up when something actually HAPPENS. I'm sick of hearing the two sides verbally piss on each other, I think we can all agree that's been done to death. How this rehashing of the same old crap is newsworthy to anyone is beyond me. Different face, same words.
After reading through that, I cannot believe how easily that lawsuit by the spam assholes of america - a subdivision of satan, inc, - will be thrown out of court.
How do you get an American court to have jurisdiction over a company that does not sell products to US consumers - since it does not sell anything - and does not have any divisions in the US?
A UK only company being sued in an American court? Why bother? Isn't it obvious?
... if I go to Florida and take this guy out. not only does he defend our favorite utility meat, but he's a lawyer. that has to be, like, an 11th commandment in some religion.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
From the main page at emarketersamerica.org :
...
Everyone hates spam... and that includes e-mail marketers.
Gee, I'd say, I wouldn't want to eat my own crap
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
They're used to fighting spam...not a slashdot...so here's the cache. Google Cache
Talk about clueless and groundless.
GC
I think it's inevitable...
Since it's impossible to verify the actual sender of any email, we need to be stricter about validating the server who sent it (most recently). AOL and MSN and the large corporations will eventually ban all email not coming from a small (< 100 domains) set of 'trusted hosts'. This will hurt small companies and small ISPs; the answer is that they will have to route their mail through a trusted host (or through someone else, who in turn...). These trusted hosts will become something like (and possibly run by) Verisign and other CAs. The small senders will have to pay for the authentication the trusted host provides (which they will pass on to their customers). This is already something like what ISPs do, when they refuse to forward SMTP mail except from their own block of IP addresses.
If a trusted host allows spam to be sent through it (on a large enough scale), then it is in danger of losing its 'trusted' status. Unless of course, it acknowledges its spammy status and pays (bribes?) the other trusted hosts to allow it to remain. The end result will be that spammers will have to pay (considerably) for the privilege of sending spam through a trusted host. Normal users will have to pay (a small amount) for the privilege of sending non-spam through a trusted host.
This isn't a radical idea, it's simply whitelists taken to their logical, structured conclusion.
The Spamhaus Project, London, UK
Answer to Case Number 03-80295
Filed in United States District Court, Southern District of Florida by EMarketersAmerica.org (aka Mark E. Felstein) on behalf of anonymous senders of Unsolicited Bulk Email ("Spam").
The Spamhaus Project receives a great many threats of legal action from senders of Unsolicited Bulk Email (aka "spammers"). The cases attempted to-date have either never been accepted by a lawyer for filing or have been thrown out by the courts as being without merit.
Lawsuit 03-80295, filed by an anonymous group calling itself EMarketersAmerica.org (registered only 4 weeks ago to one Mark Felstein, the same lawyer who filed this case... i.e: the Plaintiff is the lawyer), is a SLAPP suit intended to harass those named. With regards to Spamhaus, the suit seeks an injunction to stop Spamhaus from publishing the IP addresses of the anonymous entity the Plaintiff represents on the Spamhaus Block List ("SBL"), an IP Preference List used freely and voluntarily by 140 Million Internet users to reject incoming spam emails from confirmed spam senders. The Plaintiff clearly believes he has a right to force SBL users to receive his spam. Spamhaus categorically rejects the argument that any Sender has a right to force the users of our SBL system to receive unsolicited bulk email messages.
The lawsuit requests an answer. The following is the answer of Spamhaus director Steve Linford on behalf of The Spamhaus Project:
GENERAL ALLEGATIONS, JURISDICTION, AND VENUE
I . Plaintiff, EMARKETERSAMERICA.ORG, INC., (hereinafter sometimes referred to as "EMARKETERS"), is a Florida Non Profit Corporation with its principal place of business in PALM BEACH County, Florida. EMARKETERS' membership base consists of email marketers, internet services providers domiciled in and throughout Florida, and other related businesses, which operate their businesses throughout the United States and the World.
2. Defendant, SPEWS.ORG d/b/a THE HERMES GROUP (hereinafter referred to as "SPEWS"), is a United States of America based entity, which operates
a blacklist of other's Internet Protocol addresses. Additionally, SPEWS and its principals sell products which block the electronic transmission and Internet communications of American citizens and businesses. SPEWS
posts on the Internet and intentionally delivers information in its express efforts to interrupt and block the internet traffic of lawful
businesses and individuals. SPAMHAUS maintains a list of other's Internet Protocol addresses and servers. SPEWS operates and conducts its
activities through the Internet at www.SPEWS.org. Plaintiff is informed and believes that SPEWS has two offices located in California and one in Illinois.
3. Defendant, SPAMHAUS.ORG d/b/a THE SPAMHAUS PROJECT (hereinafter referred to as "SPAMHAUS"), is a United Kingdom based entity, which operates a blacklist of other's Internet Protocol addresses.
Specifically, Spamhaus operates the Spamhaus Block List ("SBL"), a DNS-published advisory list of IP addresses of confirmed junk email senders, known as the SBL Advisory, which allows SBL users to reject incoming spam emails.
Additionally, SPAMHAUS and its principals sell products which block the electronic transmission and communications of American citizens and
businesses.
Spamhaus does not sell any product whatsoever and never has sold any product. The SBL is published free of charge and does not block the transmission of email, it specifically blocks the receipt of junk email by computers belonging to SBL users.
SPAMHAUS posts on the Internet and intentionally delivers information in its express efforts to interrupt and block the Internet traffic of lawful businesses and individuals.
The "Internet traffic" (i.e: email) of 'lawful businesses and individuals' (i.e: senders of spam, the sending of which is illegal in 27 US States), is not blocked at the sending mail servers (the servers owned/operated by the spammers EMarketersAmerica allegedly represents), but is blocked by the recipients' own private mail servers, i.e: the blocking occurs at the point of ingress into the private mail servers of SBL users.
The SBL is used by SBL users (and SBL users alone) freely and voluntarily to reject unwanted spam email messages at the SBL users' own private mail servers. It does not prevent, interrupt or block the IPs listed from sending email, it merely prevents the known-to-be-unwanted messages they send from trespassing on the private computer equipment and networks of SBL users.
SPAMHAUS maintains a list of other's Internet Protocol addresses and servers. SPAMHAUS operates
and conducts its activities through the Internet at www.SPAMHAUS.org SPAMHAUS is believed to have an office in the United States, but the whereabouts are unknown.
Spamhaus does not have any office in the United States. The sole office is in the UK.
SPAMHAUS has at least six (6) name-servers, all
of which are pointed, directed, and which transmit through Defendant, CSL GMBH JOKER.COM.
Spamhaus has a total of 22 Name Servers in 10 countries. Had the Plaintiff bothered to query the DNS for the SBL zone (sbl.spamhaus.org) he would have seen that none of the SBL servers are pointed, directed or transmit though" the German Domain Registrar Joker.com
4. Defendant, CSL GMBH JOKER.COM (hereinafter referred to as "JOKER"), is an authorized registrant of domains on the world wide web within the internet. JOKER is a corporation organized under the laws of Germany. JOKER registered SPAMHAUS and SPEWS, but has failed to provide a proper and correct addresses to the public for same.
The address Joker.com provides for Spamhaus.org is the true and correct address of Spamhaus.
5. Defendant, STEVE LINFORD (hereinafter referred to as "S. LINFORD") is an individual and is believed to be a resident and domiciliary of the
United Kingdom, but has concealed his whereabouts.
Steve Linford has never concealed his whereabouts. Steve Linford is a British Subject and resides in the United Kingdom exactly where he has always said he does and his address and phone number is available to anyone who bothers to ask.
S. LINFORD is otherwise sui juris before this court. Plaintiff is informed and believes that S. LINFORD is an officer, director and principal of SPAMHAUS and SPEWS.
Steve Linford is the director of Spamhaus. Steve Linford has absolutely nothing to do with SPEWS, nor would it be feasible for him to run two separate anti-spam organizations. Aside from the madness of doing so, Steve Linford does not agree with the methods and policies of SPEWS. He does however support SPEWS' right to exist.
6. Defendant, JULIAN LINFORD (hereinafter referred to as "J. LINFORD") is an individual and is believed to be a resident and domiciliary of the
United Kingdom, but has concealed his whereabouts. J. LINFORD is otherwise sui juris before this court. Plaintiff is informed and believes that J. LINFORD is an officer, director and principal of
SPAMHAUS and SPEWS.
Julian Linford is Steve Linford's brother who has resided permanently in Italy since 1997 and has absolutely no knowledge of Spamhaus (except what he possibly reads in the press) nor the faintest idea what SPEWS is, nor whom any of the other persons named in this SLAPP suit are. He is categorically not an officer, director or principal of any anti-spam group or organization, Spamhaus or otherwise.
7. Defendant, ALAN MURPHY (hereinafter referred to as "MURPHY") is an individual and is believed to be a resident and domiciliary of the State
of Washington. MURPHY is sui juris before this court. Plaintiff is informed and believes that MURPY is an officer, director and principal
of SPAMHAUS and
I've always wondered about this. Excuse my possible ignorance, but I'm from Canada where the legal system is different than the States.
How can spammers sue anti-spam list maintainers? RBLs are purely voluntary. Companies/ISPs aren't forced by law to use RBLs. They implement RBLs out of their own volition (hopefully after doing a bit of research of the RBL in question).
I can see a point of a non-spammer is accidentaly added to the list and the RBL company refuses to remove the 'offending' company. But in this case, these are known spammers. They don't deny that they send out spam. It just doesn't make any sense. The spammers should be charged with wasting the court's time.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
Mark Felstein
555 South Federal Highway, Suite 450
Boca Raton, FL 33432
561-367-7990
mfels@aol.com
You know what to do!
Spamhaus should depose the plaintifs, and get the names of EVERY one of the greasy little bottom-feeders that's given them any money for this frivolous litigation.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Make sure you make your feelings known about spam to the originator of this lawsuit, lawyer Mark Felstein.
:~ :~,_
FELSTEIN & ASSOCIATES, P.A.
Attorneys for EMarketersAmerica.org, Inc.
555 South Federal Highway, Suite 450
Boca Raton, Florida 33432
(561) 367-7990 Phone
(561) 367-7980 Facsimile
mark~ EMarketersAmerica.org
BY
Mark E. Felstein, Esq.
FBN: 192139
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
The SpamCon Foundation has set up a legal fund to aid spamfighters that need legal assistance.
The defendants of this particular EMarketersAmerica suit also benefit from and endorse this fund.
because for civil lawsuits, you can bring a suit against anyone in the world, they dont have to pay though, as long as they dont come to america. its like that lawsuit that awarded a judgement of $150,000,000 or what ever for 9/11 victims families against the taliban, saddam hussein, and bin laden
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
You can sue for anything, really you can.
You should be allowed to sue for anything.
Who should judge what is worthy? A judge of course, nobody else should be allowed to make the decision if the case should proceed.
I don't see a better solution.
A substantial portion of the fees you pay to your ISP are to cover mail server capacity and bandwidth devoted to receiving spam.
Steve's response is very clear on the point that the SBL doesn't block the transmission of any messages, but he's fuzzy on whether it blocks the reception - in some places he says it does, while in other places he talks about the recipient blocking them. I thought that the SBL is implemented in a way that the user's email software does the blocking, after checking the site's status with the SBL. It's a potentially important difference - not so much for Steve or Spamhaus (because of the jurisdictional issues) but for the US plaintiffs. It shouldn't be - the recipient has every right to hire a blocking service to block spam for them, even if the one they've chosen to use charges no money - but it could make a difference to a jury or to a really clueless judge.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
better yet. just state that anyone who kills any of the major spammers will be given a full pardon for their act of public service.
You think cockroaches scatter fast when the lights are turned on? Think how fast the spammers will scatter when its open season.
This may be borderline flamebait, but since nothing else has worked to solve the spam problem.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
This entire lawsuit is ridiculous, in fact, laughable at some points. Emarketers actually says that Spamhaus hijacked their IP addresses, and used them for their own gain. Huh? They also state repeatedly that Spamhaus blocks their IP addresses at the source, rendering their mail servers useless, in essence.
These guys are technically clueless. If you are going to sue someone for technical reasons, at least know what the hell you are talking about. I mean, is it just file the suit and hope for a clueless judge or something?
If this article confuses you, don't worry. It was posted yesterday in a much clearer fashion.
mod parent way up please :) that link of his contains interesting information on what lengths spammers went thru to manage people who were VAGUELY related to someone who ran spamhaus WITHOUT actually being involved in it.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Thats a rather illogical argument. If Spamhaus was blindly blocking every IP address in the 100.x.x.x range, then even though they have never heard of the people in that range, they could still be harming them. It's quite easy to harm people you have never heard of.
How many subscriptions to Playboy, TV Guide, Reader's Digest, GQ, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, Business Week, etc. do you think he needs? :-)
Yeah, but read the claim: ...efforts are calculated to disrupt and destroy...
This suggests intentional, directed harm. And since Linford claims that he did not know EMarketersAmerica before the suit, it was impossible for him to have directed his actions intentionally against the plaintiffs.
Sure, he could have harmed them unintentionally before since he did not know them. But the spammers claim otherwise.
If I sign up for Yahoo and check the boxes saying I want to receive email about something, it is not spam, no matter how much I whine about it. If I can respond to the email and request to be taken off a list and actually be taken off of it, then it isn't spam. Not all commercial email is spam.
Let's be very clear on this. Your first statement is correct. Your second statement, however, seems to claim that it's not spam if the remove address works, which is 100% bullshit.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
ISPs are private businesses and are not required, unless their contracts stipulate so, to accept mail from every domain or IP address on the Internet, so where is the case against them?
Then again, making such a defense might endanger the "common carrier" claim that a lot of ISPs make to avoid legal liability for what goes on on their network.
At any rate, as long as spam-blocking is an optional service offered to users, then the receivers can be responsible for rejecting the mail, and I can't imagine even the current US courts ruling that consumers are required to accept unwanted commercial spew (unless of course its in the context of some otherwise offered service such as ad-supported free email accounts).
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
I wonder if ValueWeb knows that they are hosting a run by multiple spammers with the intent of promoting spam. This is in violation of #9 in their AUP. I wonder if they are aware of this??
PING emarketersamerica.org (64.70.171.85)
whois 64.70.171.85@whois.arin.net
[whois.arin.net]
OrgName: CyberGate, Inc.
OrgID: CYBG
Address: 3250 W. Commercial Blvd. Suite 200
City: Ft. Lauderdale
StateProv: FL
PostalCode: 33309
Country: US
NetRange: 64.70.128.0 - 64.70.255.255
CIDR: 64.70.128.0/17
NetName: CYBERGATE-1
NetHandle: NET-64-70-128-0-1
Parent: NET-64-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS.VALUEWEB.NET
NameServer: NS2.VALUEWEB.NET
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
RegDate: 2000-04-03
Updated: 2000-11-28
TechHandle: CN313-ARIN
TechName: Network Administrator, CyberGate Network
TechPhone: +1-954-334-8080
TechEmail: netadm@valueweb.net
Be a good citizen and remove the popup ad from your mirror of the SpamHaus letter. If you must, slap a banner ad or a few sponsored links on the page, but yank the damn popup as it's diametrically opposed to the spirit of offering a mirror.
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
This will be a very interesting lawsuit. First of all, it's true that the state of FL has no jurisdiction over an individual in the UK. Second, the UK looks more dimly on spam than the US does (hard to believe, eh?). Third, this lawsuit looks like it will be VERY public. The defendant should be able to call this a slam dunk. No FL judge will probably be high enough to touch this either.
The spamhaus guy certainly dissects emarketer's absurd lawsuit, but unfortunately that is a technique better suited for Usenet flamewars. (At risk of overstating the obvious...) It isn't gonna cut it in Federal Court. Spamhaus will ultimately have to file a coherent legal briefing - which I hope Slashdot links to when it becomes available.
Unfortunately, many court cases are more about who has deeper pockets than who is right...so if Spamhaus doesn't get this court case dismissed immediately, they could be in big trouble.
If they DO go to court, they run the risk of ending up with one of those old, crusty judges - the kind that has never actually used a computer, having his(or her) secretary print out his email every day instead. In which case the proceedings could drag on and on...and Spamahaus would probably be SCREWED.
According to the information the FL. Bar Ass. has on Mark Edward Felstein, he was only admitted to the bar in 3 yrs. ago. If you are currious, click the Find a Lawyer" and see for yourself.
Too bad he's going down such a low path so soon in his carear.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Spamhaus isn't a US entity, and Steve Linford isn't a US resident, and it's highly likely that the court has no jurisdiction over his actions, so it may be much cleaner for him to say "no thanks" and not be part of the suit. That means he may not get to play the Discovery game (or at least he'd need a real lawyer rather than me advising him.) But any of the US-based defendants certainly can go file discovery motions as part of their response, even if the result of them is to demonstrate that they're not part of the suit or that they didn't do the actions they're accused of or that those actions aren't a tort.
You can have *so* much fun with discovery in this - not only should they be able to get the names and real addresses and phone numbers of all the spammers that the plaintiff alleges are part of his organization, but also
and any other information you can think of that the spammers would probably rather NOT have exposed to public view. And be sure to get all of them in electronic form, and delivered to all the defendants, because even if Steve Linford and Spamhaus aren't under US or Florida jurisdiction, they're certainly parties to the case, and it'd be a real shame if there were no particular way to impose confidentiality rules on the non-US defendants for use of that data.
Yeah, it seems like a lot of data. But the plaintiff's suit doesn't just claim something fuzzy like libel (where he might have had a chance suing in the UK, though probably less likely here) or restraint of trade, it claims that the defendants engaged in activities that caused damages to the plaintiff by interfering with the plaintiff's legitimate activities, and that means that the actual activities that the plaintiff claims to have engaged in and the defendant's actions which allegedly i
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Go straight to the source! Eddy Marin 621 NW 53rd Street Suite 135 Boca Raton, Florida 33487 T: 561-999-9850 F: 561-995-8791 Toll Free: 877-317-1568 E-mail eddy@oneroute.net
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
All I want to know is, how the hell am I supposed to tell the difference? I get e-mails from RedHat, because I signed up for their newsletters. I get them from Yahoo, because I signed up for their services.
/dev/null sort them out. If an e-mail "marketer" is using some obscure loophole in some bogus website EULA, then they're not white hats. They're just not the deepest shade of black around.
But how are you, the consumer, supposed to tell if one of your "white hats" is actually one of Yahoo's "marketing partners?" Seriously, every spam I get comes with a disclaimer that says I "opted in." I remember one especially infuriating one that listed about a dozen different ways to opt in, and at least half of them were so vague as to make it impossible to say, "no I didn't."
My philosophy is, if I'm not absolutely sure I signed up for something, then kill them all. Let
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
A substantial portion of the budget of my ISP both in time and capital is devoted these days to blocking and dealing with spam. I am personal friends with the owner of the ISP and he told me that the recent reduction in prices for dialup accounts would have been larger but he can't afford to do that due to the increased costs of dealing with spam, all of his other costs, from machinery to trunk lines, to BRI's have gone down, this is the only area of his business where costs are increasing.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
actually, because it's a florida court that means that they just have to avoid florida. so theoretically, if the spammers were to win, when they asked steve linford what he was going to do after he stopped spammers he couldn't say "i'm going to disney world!"
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
Start by disbarring the lawyer for abuse of his position as an officer of the court. Follow with criminal case for perjury. Top off with civil suits for libel and harassment.
It is pretty clear that some of the information in the lawsuit is made up. Completely, from whole cloth. For example, the claim that Spamhous's DNS registration information is incorrect seems to be an utter falsehood. The claim that the defendants converted IP addresses and servers to their own use is ridiculous.
Some Florida lawyer could make a lot of money by going after this guy with a class action suit where all of us who receive spam claim damages from his harassing our legitimate efforts to stop spam. Not to mention what Spamhaus should be able to collect for defending itself against this frivolous lawsuit.
I am also very curious what ramifications can be made from the fact that the group behind this apparently chose to incorporate entirely to issue this lawsuit. If so, it would seem to me that their corporate registration is fraudulent. If so, they should be prosecuted for that. Further, they should also lose the normal liability protection of the corporation and be eligible to be listed as co-defendants in the civil suits mentioned above. IMO. IANAL.
True, it's hard to enforce laws outside of your borders, but where economic and military power come into play, there are ways to get your point across....
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Steve Linford is the director of Spamhaus. Steve Linford has absolutely nothing to do with SPEWS, nor would it be feasible for him to run two separate anti-spam organizations. Aside from the madness of doing so, Steve Linford does not agree with the methods and policies of SPEWS. He does however support SPEWS' right to exist.
....
Does that sound mysteriously like Monty Python to anyone else?
Judith: I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Roman's, but that he can have the _right_ to have babies.
Francis: Good idea Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your _right_ to have babies, brother....err....Sister, sorry.
Reg: It's symbolic of his fight against reality.
You are reading comments into the rebuttal that aren't there. If you can't see the difference between "directed his actions intentionally against the plaintiffs" (your words) and "could not be harming the Plaintiff in any way" (the rebuttal's words), then clearly you shouldn't be debating law...
All I'm saying is that the "could not be harming the Plaintiff in any way" phrase that is repeated over and over again in the document is just plain wrong, and if that is the text the are using in their official legal response to the lawsuit, it isn't going to go in their favor. Because, to repeat myself, you can harm people you don't know. Their rebuttal needs to take this into account if they want a judge to side with them.
You mention that Linford "has an excellent countersuit." I would agree, but I am unsure if you are claiming that he has already filed one or that he could file one.
I think that not only the defendants of the case should countersue but that those who use the SBL and those who are protected by the SBL should join the suit (as a class action) against the negative effects that could be caused by hindering Spamhaus's work. I also think that anyone who owns part of this corporation should be named as a defendant in the suit. Clearly the corporation is an attempt to hide the actual principals and protect the from liability. I'm not sure of the legal basis, but I think that that protection should be voided by their active participation.
Hopefully the discovery phase will dig up some of their actual illegal behavior (forging headers, hacking boxes to send email from them), so that the courts can prosecute them. It would be great if it could be proved that some of the product distributors who benefit from this advertising could be shown to have actively participated as well. Cut off the funding for spam.
Seriously, if some lawyer wanted to take this task on, I (and many others, I'm sure) would be happy to help with the preparation of requests for useful data and interpretation of the data once it is received. Just post a response here and I will be happy to post one of my spamcatcher accounts. Just give me an idea of what the email will look like so that I don't accidentally delete it with my spam...
1. Now that his address has been posted to Slashdot, how much snail mail do you think Mr. Feldstein is going to get next week?
2. Does anyone else think it's a coincidence that the site that comes up first when you google for "free catalog" (cabelas.com) is running rather slowly right now?:)
I am anything but pro-spam, but I'm happy to see the blackhole lists get kicked around a little bit. Some of my accounts get hit more than the average person, because they are well placed on many web pages, or have been in use for years and are now forwarded to my account when people leave the company. I average about 200 spam messages per day coming into my account.
/.'d right now, or I'd complain about them, but lets check who we can.
$RANT_MODE="ON";
I also handle many networks, with many many machines. Some of our networks have other people's equipment on it, but I'm 100% positive that they don't spam from their machines. Since they frequently ask me to help with their configurations, or help with problems, I'm intimately aware of what they do.
If there are spam complaints, they filter through to me very quickly. Level3's abuse account gets most of them. They filter out most of the bogus complaints, and are quick to get with us about legitimate complaints. We did have one machine hosted on one network that was spamming, which we ejected from the network shortly afterwards.
On a monthly basis, someone will come to me saying that they've been blacklisted by one of the many lists for ambiguous reasons. Any incident that is legitimate is cleared up between us and our bandwidth provider, under the threat of having the IP or IP block blocked from all Internet access. Level3 Communications is very anti-spam. They'll cut you off for being a spammer. If we don't explain or handle an incident, we could very easily loose our lines. I have no problem with this.
The last case with Level3 was a single spam complaint, sent through SpamCop. The message wasn't a spam at all. Someone had made a purchase online with an invalid credit card number. The Email simply stated that they had attempted a purchase (with IP and invoice number), and said if they still intended to make the purchase, they should contact the sales department at the store. I know the owner of the store personally, so I called him. He freaked out when I told him there was a spam complaint. This is a business man who is the most honest person I know. (If in Ft. Lauderdale, tell Glenn I say "hi"). I read the Email to him, and he confirmed that it was a legitimate message, and the card had been bad.. He immediately cancelled the order, and blacklisted the customer. The next day I got a forwarded Email which was an apology from the customer. She sends every Email off to SpamCop, and lets them sort them out. Nice, huh?
Now on to the abuses of the spews system. SpamHaus is
65.59.224.0/25 is one of our networks. A small backwater of our network. A few older machines live there, and not much happens. SPEWS has 65.59.224.0/24 blacklisted, as well as 66.166.136.128/24 which is no relationship to us (the wrong network size is theirs, not ours). Because I have machines on the first half of 65.59.224.0/25, I'm blacklisted. 65.59.224.128/25 could be blacklisted, but I happen to know that they have quite a few hosting customers, most of who know nothing about the other customers.. Legitimately blacklisted??
ORDB has my ex-girlfriend's mail server listed. She develops and hosts sites. No spamming at all.
65.59.224.11 is listed as herbalo.com. Funny thing is, it doesn't exist on our network.. I'll personally escort anyone from spews into the colo to prove it to them.. Oh wait, I forgot, these are anonymous people who don't exist in the real world and don't feel themselves accountable for blacklisting innocent networks.
AOL has blocked one of my own servers, as well as those of two different friends (on their own networks) for "potential spam".. One of them had a *WEB* proxy server, and aparently because it existed (on port 8000), he was blacklisted from sending
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
So part of the claim in the emarketersamerica suit is that the defendents are clearly disguising their identities through providing false information to their domain registrar (which the spamhaus people deny)...
:
Yet do a little whois on emarketersamerica.org
Registrant ID:71-C
Registrant Name:SEE SPONSORING REGISTRAR
Registrant Street1:Whois Server:whois.register.com
Registrant Street2:Referral URL:www.register.com
Registrant City:N/A
Registrant Postal Code:N/A
Registrant Country:CA
Registrant Email:not@available.org
Admin ID:71-C
Admin Name:SEE SPONSORING REGISTRAR
Admin Street1:Whois Server:whois.register.com
Admin Street2:Referral URL:www.register.com
Admin City:N/A
Admin Postal Code:N/A
Admin Country:CA
Admin Email:not@available.org
Billing ID:71-C
Billing Name:SEE SPONSORING REGISTRAR
Billing Street1:Whois Server:whois.register.com
Billing Street2:Referral URL:www.register.com
Billing City:N/A
Billing Postal Code:N/A
Billing Country:CA
Billing Email:not@available.org
Tech ID:71-C
Tech Name:SEE SPONSORING REGISTRAR
Tech Street1:Whois Server:whois.register.com
Tech Street2:Referral URL:www.register.com
Tech City:N/A
Tech Postal Code:N/A
Tech Country:CA
Tech Email:not@available.org
-jag
http://starboard.flowtheory.net/
Pleadings aren't made under oath, so nothing contained in them can be perjury. If you deliberately state facts you know to be false, however, you could run into civil liability for abuse of process.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
Although I appreciate your argument, the guy doesn't have much choice. A quick look at the curvedspaces.com website shows that it's a free hosting company, that has an automatic popup. Admittedly, I didn't get one at all (I use Phoenix/Firebird/whatever), but I'd guess that that's where it's from.
If that's the case, then at the end of the day, a) he doesn't have a choice and b) he's still done better than either you or I...
Demand for Jury Trial
Plaintiff, EMARKETERSAMERICA.ORG, INC. hereby makes a demand for a jury trial of all counts so triable.
Sweet, these morons *want* a jury trial.
Jury: "Your honor, we find the defendant SpamHaus et al. innocent on all charges, and furthermore recommend the public castration and/or execution of the plantiff & all it's members.
Judge: "Sounds good to me."
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
It would be most important to obtain the complete list of email addresses they send to.
That way, the people who own the email addresses on the list can be asked if they had opted in (EMarkerters did state that they ran an opt-in scheme only...)
Steve.
... somewhat like this:
You put all of your money into a big pile. Your opponent puts all of his/her money into another big pile. Then the lawyers come along and start tearing up the money piles. Whichever lawyer finishes first loses.
-- Yoz
A reverse lookup at Google states:
Yvonne K Kemeny, (561) 997-9008, 4601 NW Boca Raton Blvd, Boca Raton, FL 33431
Either you've mistyped the number or you're playing some sort of game. Moderators -- stuff like this should be checked out first.