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Savvis Grudgingly Get Savvy About Spam
ElvenMonkey writes "The BBC is reporting that Savvis has finally promised to ditch those accounts that are using its network to send spam, in an effort to reduce the damage already done against its reputation; the CEO promises that all such accounts will be closed within 10 days (working days?) Amongst these accounts are believed to be the majority of the top 150 worst spammers worldwide."
Savvis is an awesome provider. I run a free email service, and I can tell you when I was on Savvis (sharing a connection with another business), they were great. They told me when they got abuse complaints, and I took care of it. They also assign your subnet to you within Arin, so my guess is that they don't hear 90% of 'Arin complaints'.
Now I'm on RoadRunner (only access available where I am). The idiots in RR abuse will not forward me complaints, they just threaten to cut my access. They will not make an Arin change, and actually told me to buy 8 (yes, EIGHT) ips from ARIN so I wouldn't be associated with RR. Apparently the routing nightmare that would be created by assigning 8 IP's at a time is completely lost to RoadRunner tech support.
It looks to me though, that the assetts and C&W just haven't been brought into the fold as well as they should have (include the Abuse arm). I personally have complete confidence in Savvis.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Depends on who runs the blocks. On "professional" blocklists, like SPEWS, the listings should disappear as soon as it is confirmed that the spammers are gone (though -- despite the lies of a number of SPEWS-haters -- SPEWS itself does not block mail, the "blocks" would then disappear from the lists of those who filter with the lists provided by SPEWS). Other, more hard-line network admins might hold off a little while, perhaps waiting until a little after the heat death of the universe before removing Savvis IP entries.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Florida has for a long time been the haven of spammers, so the State knows all eyes are on the AG's office to see how they enforce the new law. You can read more about the law, and there is a provision to report spam, on the MyFlorida web site. The only downside to their reporting procedure is that you have to fill out a form, rather than just forward the spam email, but that may change in the future.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Yep, Savvis is an awesome provider -- if you're a spammer.
Savvis is being forced to terminate their spamming customers because they can no longer deny that they know about the spamming activity. Savvis has openly supported clients who have engaged in network abuse and even criminal activity.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
If your ISP cut off connections to them, you'd probably complain when you couldn't access a LEGITIMATE site.
Which is the problem. They're so big that they have lots of legitimate customers and a few spammers.
The only way to go after them is through their reputation and their customers. Which is what happened. They don't want to be known as a spammer's network so they have to change.
Great Spews policy again. This is why nobody should use Spews. They arbitrarily block whole blocks of IP addresses with no regard to who is getting stomped on.
SPEWS blocks IP ranges only AFTER an ISP fails to kick off spammers for an extended period of time. This is because many spam-friendly ISPs just don't care if the spammers are blocked -- they'll often move the spammers to new IPs (which they can't do now because places like SPEWS will just block the old AND the new IPs) and move legitimate people into the blocked ones as human shields. SPEWS only lists non-spammer IPs because Savvis didn't take action against spammers in the first place -- specifically, SPEWS is listing the spam-friendly ISP's IP ranges, the "innocent parties" just happen to be renting IP space from known spam-supporting outfits. Savvis brought it upon themselves by making their IP space a cesspit from which no one wants traffic. That's their fault, stop blaming SPEWS for Savvis's bad decisions.
And SPEWS doesn't block anyone. That's a common spammer lie.
There's more to both sides.. I just don't have time to enlighten the masses on what a Good company does for it's customers vs what overzealous spam outfits can do to a Good companies customers.
Any ISP that openly supports spammers on their network is not a "Good company".
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Savvis, isn't that the new pronunciation of "Agis"?
(Agis hosted Sanford Wallace for about a year while loudly proclaiming they weren't doing anything wrong. LOTS of people found out how to block IP ranges. Agis later repented, booted Wallace et al, but it was too late. Nobody who cared about their online reputation would choose them as a host, and Agis went belly-up not too long thereafter.)
With respect, I would strongly suggest that AUPs are very meaningful in the sense that they constitute a contract that may be enforced in a court of law.
For example, were you to have a contract with me for a year of Internet service and you started to use my system to spam others, were I to summarily shut you down, you would have a cause of action to sue me for non-fulfillment of our contract.
An AUP adds those clauses to any contract in effect and prevents an ISP from being sued by a spammer for sending out spam through that ISP. The spammer sues the ISP, the ISP points to the language of the AUP and the judge tells everyone to go home.
I do agree with you that Savvis does need to take action, but their action needs to be based on the statements in their AUP, not some action that may cause them to wind up needing to defend in court.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
18 csr1-ve243.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net (66.35.194.50) 210.745 ms 211.044 ms 210.92 ms
19 66.35.212.174 (66.35.212.174) 213.524 ms 212.497 ms 212.599 ms
20 slashdot.org (66.35.250.150) 209.927 ms 210.262 ms 209.923 ms
-- Somebody stuck somewhere in a big world wide web that I can't escape from