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Spamhaus to Ignore $11.7M Judgement
6031769 writes, "As reported on CNet, Spamhaus is choosing to ignore a judgement of $11.7M against them in an uncontested trial in an Illinois court. According to Spamhaus, the judgement has no impact on them, since they are a British organization." From the Spamhaus reply to the judgment: "Default judgments obtained in US county, state or federal courts have no validity in the UK and can not be enforced under the British legal system... As spamming is illegal in the UK, an Illinois court ordering a British organization to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to UK law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place."
No, that's more like saying Consumer Reports can't say "Don't buy a Ford Pinto."
"in an uncontested trial in an Illinois court."
It isn't an Illinois court, it's a federal district court that happens to be in Illinois.
Ehhh... not quite. See, e360insight is claiming that they're not a spammer, and thus their inclusion on the Spamhaus list is hurting their business, their image, is defamatory, and/or whatever else they think that they can get away with. And, because of this decision the (obviously clue-impaired) judge agreed with e360insight.
The analogy (with regards to your reference to Consumer Reports) would be if Consumer Reports published an opinion that a car company strongly disagreed with and believed was incorrect. You know, like saying "The new Ford SUV gets excellent mileage, considering it runs on the souls of orphaned children."
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
There are many out there that have had bad experiences with Spamhaus, but in this case, this guy is a known spammer. I'm surprised the court even gave credence to the lawsuit, but apparently the judge is not up on the Internet and spam. They are correct -- if he wants a judgement, he needs to file in UK court, where, given their recent history of prosecuting spammers, he stands little chance of succeeding.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I would agree with you if they didn't reach into America, but on their site they say the following:
The Spamhaus Block List
The SBL is a realtime database of IP addresses of verified spam sources (including spammers, spam gangs and spam support services), maintained by the Spamhaus Project team and supplied as a free service to help email administrators better manage incoming email streams.
The SBL is queriable in realtime by mail systems thoughout the Internet, allowing email administrators to identify or block incoming connections from IP addresses involved in the sending of Unsolicited Bulk Email.
The SBL database is updated 24/7 by a dedicated international Spamhaus team (US, UK, NL, IT, CA, JP, CN) and is broadcast by 32 SBL zone mirror servers based in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, UK and USA.
Google cannot ignore the laws of the land where their servers are based, if they want to operate in foreign countries they should follow local laws.
liqbase
Are you sure that you haven't confused Spamhaus with SPEWS or some DUL list?
It's a default judgement, so the courts really didn't say anything.
Google operate businesses in countries where they operate, so have to obey local laws as they can be punished. Services like spamhaus are not legally based in other countries so only have to obey their patron law.
Warhammer forums
I think there might be something in that the blurb says "defualt" judgement. If the defendant doesn't show up, then the case automatically goes against him, no?
Remember... this is a default judgement. If you're sued for anything and don't show up, you lose by default. There's nothing to do with the competence of the judge or the court, the merits of the case, or anything. If I sue you for moderating me down and ask for emotional damage compensation, you'd better show up to defend yourself or I'm going to win by default. If you're got a super low user id, I may ask the court to hand over your account to me.
--Jim (me)
The Natwest 3 concerns a criminal case. This is a civil case. There's no risk of extradiction.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Because (as is well known), American public corporations are not ethical. None of them. Money is the prime objective and how you get it is irrelivent.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But they blacklist networks, don't they. They simply state that users of that network send spam. I'm sure they have an entry in their database saying why each network was listed.
I used to work for a hosting company (a shitty one). Spam was indeed against the AUP. But as long as the spammer was not over using his resources or clog up the network, nothing was said. Really the only time something was said was when they sent so much spam out that the processes brought down the machine and they called for support. Then the answer was "your sending too much email". After about 4-5 calls, the AUP manager would get the issue and let the customer know that sending spam was against the AUP. And what was the price for breaking the AUP? Upgrade.
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
Absolutely. There are cases in civil law where by *responding* in a certain way in a jurisdiction you actually are acknowledging the jurisdiction of that court.
My guess is their UK lawyer told them it was lower risk to just ignore the whole thing, default judgment and all, then to spend all the money on a US lawyer to contest the jurisdiction and run a chance that they could lose a real case.
--- or, you can get your ISP / host to do it for you, hence my comments.
Once again, if you're hosting your corporate email, you're more than likely hosting larger than 1 IP. My company had a block of 32 (out of the box) and they gave us our own ASN without even asking for it. If you're running on dynamic blocks, then there's no protection for you (for good reason). If you're buying IP space, make sure to get your own blocks. Some providers offer it, some don't.
The worst case is that you can't get your own CIDR block, your ISP hosts spam providers, the spammers are within your current netblock, and the ISP is unresponsive to the spam activity.
Bye!
Because this all happened in the second worst judicial hellhole in America.
What is a judicial hellhole you ask?
[quoted from the above link]
That went waaay beyond self defense. Shooting someone in the back, from a considerable distance when he tried to run away and could not conceivably have been considered an immediate threat is not acceptable behaviour.
Tony Martin got what he deserved and the whole thing got grotesquely distorted in the press as they tried to make him out to be something other than the nutter he really was for the sake of a good story. Unfortunately, it's made a lingering impression on the public consciousness and still gets trotted out from time to time as an example of how the law is failing us, sob.
There was some back-bencher tried to get a law through earlier this year to enshrine the right to defence in law. A pathetic attempt to garner votes, as the law already makes it clear that you're allowed to defend yourself pretty much however you see fit. (All the stuff about having to lose less force than your attacker is complete nonsense, although like all law it's all pretty complicated and you don't have a completely free hand: killing people is always frowned upon and using an illegal weapon won't do you any favours.)
My last employer was one of the ten largest banks in the world. Our outbound SMTP servers where blacklisted by a "dedicated group of spam fighters" providing a blacklist service - SPEWS. I'm not sure how Spamhaus works, but I can tell you the SPEWS admins did not care much for our plight. They were chasing a particular spammer and to eliminate the problem they blocked a whole freaking subnet owned by MCI - we just happened to have our IPs in that subnet. I found that in this case, the blacklist admins were lazy (for blocking a whole subnet) and non-responsive (poor contact information is provided and pleas for removal where large ignored or flamed - following their procedure of posting in a forum to get removed). The whole process can be VERY frustrating.
Our saving grace was advising those email customers to drop SPEWS which 100% of them where willing to do.
As for this case, even though the "victim" is based in the US it really comes down to where the "crime" took place - on individual email servers using the Spamhaus BL around the world. I'm sure SH would argue in UK court that they offer a list, they don't enforce it and the onus lies on email administrators wherever they might be.
In the USA, each party pays their own costs no matter what happens. However, in the UK, if you file an action and it does not win, then you have to pay the costs for the other party. So, at the best, they can force them in the UK legal system, and because the spammer is not in the UK, they can seek the spammer puts up security for costs (to ensure they pay if they don't win). Thus the spammer would never touch the UK system as they would end up loosing the money they pay their lawyers, plus the cost for spamhaus to defend it.
ps... IANAL - anymore.
1) SpamAssassin != Spamhaus
2) So what? That's not SpamAssassin's problem, nor does it make them liable.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
IANAL, the article doesn't have many details, and my legal knowledge on this matter consists solely of Wikipedia entries, but it appears they could have argued Tortious Interference which may qualify as Minimum Contacts giving the court Personal Jurisdiction. Among other things, Personal Jurisdiction is required for enforcement of foreign judgements.
Whew. Gotta love Wikipedia.
Rucker
It's an Illinois STATE court. A state court can't impose their ruling on anyone that's not actually inside their state.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Spamhaus operates from London..
I had to setup our contract with them so I have delt with them a few times.
They don't have any offices or servers in the US.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
Ok yes that is sarcasm, so if you are truly a legitimate business wouldn't you probably have more to your own website other than just your whining about the injustices of a RBL company putting you on the list??? Anyway as a system admin, I am not saddened by this story one bit. Maybe Lindhart should have thought out their marketing practices better. People hate spam! Maybe focus that marketing money to an actual website and pump the money into getting it recognized by search engines better.
o m
As far as the lawyer, well, I won't get into my feelings on lawyers, in most cases they are right down their with spammers and tape worms.
Here is a copy of what Spamhaus.org has on them:
-----------------------
63.78.194.0/24 is listed on the Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database as being assigned to, under the control of, or providing service to a known professional spam operation run by Brian Haberstroh / Atriks.
e360Insight : bargaindepot.net / bargainshoppecorp.com
See also: SBL45648, SBL45649
www.bargaindepot.net. 3600 IN A 63.78.194.2
bargaindepot.net. 3600 IN NS ns12.bargaindepot.net.
ns12.bargaindepot.net. 172800 IN A 63.78.194.2
Registrant:
e360Insight, LLC
ATTN: BARGAINDEPOT.NET
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA. 20172-0447
Domain Name: BARGAINDEPOT.NET
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
e360Insight, LLC qp3zx6n33ee@networksolutionsprivateregistration.c
ATTN: BARGAINDEPOT.NET
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780
Record expires on 05-Nov-2008.
Record created on 17-Mar-2005.
Bulk whois optout: Y
Database last updated on 26-Apr-2005 14:32:13 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS12.BARGAINDEPOT.NET 63.78.194.2
NS13.BARGAINDEPOT.NET 63.78.194.3
UUNET Technologies, Inc. UUNET63 (NET-63-64-0-0-1)
63.64.0.0 - 63.127.255.255
E360INSIGHT, LLC UU-63-78-194-D8 (NET-63-78-194-0-1)
63.78.194.0 - 63.78.194.255
CustName: E360INSIGHT, LLC
Address: 427 S LA SALLE ST
Address: FL 4
City: CHICAGO
StateProv: IL
PostalCode: 60605-1029
Country: US
RegDate: 2005-01-27
Updated: 2005-01-27
NetRange: 63.78.194.0 - 63.78.194.255
CIDR: 63.78.194.0/24
NetName: UU-63-78-194-D8
NetHandle: NET-63-78-194-0-1
Parent: NET-63-64-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment: Addresses within this block are non-portable.
RegDate: 2005-01-27
Updated: 2005-01-27
-------------------
So maybe they should review their business practices. boo frickin hoo hoo!
Dewser - all around techy "In the immortal words of Socrates - 'I drank what?'"
And because you can't extradite someone to face civil charges anyway.