Swedish ISP Blocks Computers That Send Spam

snuppepuppan writes "One of Sweden's largest ISPs, Telia starts to block computers that send spam. 'The computers that Telia will block are primarily those that have been infected with "trojans" which are being used, without the customer's knowledge, to send enormous amounts of spam.'"

Comments

Re:The GPL is a licese to Steal

[ananke]

what idiot decided to mod this up as informative?

Re:Good news!

[msauve]

In the US, such an action would be illegal, as are the actions of ISPs which participate in the MAPS DUL.

18 U.S.C. 1030 reads in part:

"Whoever... knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer;...shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section."

MAPS DUL and those who participate in it quite clearly knowingly transmit information (zone transfers of the database - zone dialups.mail-abuse.org) and commands (mail system configurations) which intentionally cause unauthorized damage to protected systems.

"[T]he term "protected computer" means a computer... which is used in interstate or foreign commerce or communications, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States;" This clearly covers any computer used for Internet commerce, including eBay and many other Internet transactions, which covers just about everyone.

"The term 'damage' means any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information;" Use of the MAPS DUL clearly impairs the availability of the Internet email system and the information transferred using it.

MAPS, and it's DUL participants, are actively participating in illegal denial of service. Blocking outbound port 25 would also be illegal denial of service, as it impairs the delivery of mail to the published MX of a mail recipient.