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Judge Rules In Favor Of Spamhaus
Waylon writes "U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras has ruled in favor of The Spamhaus Project. e360 Insight responded on its homepage, saying the judge's ruling was 'a devastating loss of personal freedom for all U.S. citizens'. As opposed to shutting down a voluntary service which tries to mitigate the millions of unsolicited emails that e360 Insight pumps out every single day." From the article: "In his order, Judge Kocoras wrote that the relief e360insight sought is 'too broad to be warranted in this case' and that suspending the domain name would 'cut off all lawful online activities of Spamhaus, not just those that are in contravention' of the default judgment. He also called e360insight's motion one that 'does not correspond to the gravity of the offending conduct.'"
Eh, Gmail doesn't use Spamhaus.
The judge denied e360insight's motion to suspend the Spamhaus domain, but that doesn't mean the original ruling against Spamhaus was vacated. As far as I can tell, that still stands.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Marginally irrelevant, but good news on spam: Update on Jeanson James Ancheta, botnet spammer. The short version: he's now Federal inmate number 32392-112 at the California City Correctional Institution.
> Lindtard, e360 insight lawyer
Dave Linhardt is e360. It's a one-man shop. Just another ranting chickenboner -- you should have seen him carry on on NANAE. I can't wait to see him try to collect his precious judgement in a UK court.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Did they indeed? All I read was them claiming that it would mean another 50,000,000,000 spam emails a say hitting the servers. I realize they Internet already handles tons of spam, but... that is a lot.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
go ahead, ./ers, spam the spamers: their contact.php script is a sad effort. There's no check whether fields are valid.
http://www.e360insight.com/contact.php
Actually it's telephone harassment in some states to call people repeatedly. My crazy neghbor kept calling me all night, among other harassments, so I had him busted. It was nice to see the cops take him away in handcuffs after all his threats. He finally moved.
In New York State, it's harassment to call somebody 2 or more times between the hours of (I think) 11pm and 8am.
Not that they don't deserve it.
So don't do it.
Or if you do it, don't get caught.
They seem to be litigous SOBs.
If the bandwidth becomes troublesome you could always call their media relations department at (772) 971-4816
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
And please, people, take care not to use their https server instead as that would not only use up extra CPU on their server but would also reveal that they're running RHEL and that some chopper has left the port open.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
It's high time I roll out the "what the 1st admendment actually says" talk ...
...
1st admendment is to prevent the GOVERNMENT from abridging your right to speech/expression. I can tell you to get off my servers all I want. I can ask someone else to filter your access to my servers as well.
The government CANNOT mandate that a filter be used however, but this is not the case here.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Which is why I always use example.com.
Um, you DO realize that this spammer, like most, uses zombie machines too. A fact of life is that not all zombie machines are listed with spamhaus. Anyway, good luck and enjoy your future dramatic increase in spam. Also be aware that your email address may also be used in spam "Joe Job's" (If you don't know what a joe job is, I suggest you look it up.)
People keep pointing to the issue that Spamhaus does not "do business" in Illinois as a reason that this lawsuit is bogus. Here in Iowa, my employer pays Spamhaus multi thousands of dollars a year to be provided zone transfers of the xbl and sbl. I'm sure there is someone in Illinois doing the same. Would this not be considered doing business in Illinois? With that said, I've been watching this story with intense interest as my job becomes much harder if something were to happen to Spamhaus suddenly.
www.bleepyou.com
Minor point, "SPAM" is a trademark of Hormel Foods. You mean "spam". They get quite irritated about this.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
You can reach David Linhardt at dave@e360insight.com
This does only apply to criminal judgment, not civil ones (as in the case of Spamhaus). A criminal judgment would never has been rendered this way, as criminal rules of proceeding prevent a judgment to be entered when the defendant is not present.
Pacer's pretty cheap, but anyway, if you want to see the judge's current order, here it is:
"This matter comes before the court on the motion of Plaintiff e360 Insight, LLC ("e360"), for a rule to show cause why Defendant The Spamhaus Project ("Spamhaus") should not be held in contempt for failure to comply with the injunction issued by this court on September 13, 2006.
Spamhaus has not appeared to defend the allegations against it in this case, but on October 13, 2006, it filed a notice of appeal in the Seventh Circuit seeking review of the default judgment entered on the same date as the injunction. Ordinarily, the filing of a notice of appeal divests a district court of jurisdiction to consider further matters in a case before it. See Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56, 58, 103 S. Ct. 400, 402 (1982). However, this rule does not extend to questions regarding compliance with an injunction whose effect has not been stayed. See Union Oil Co. of California v. Leavell, 220 F.3d 562, 565-66 (7th Cir. 2000). Thus, we retain jurisdiction to consider the instant motion.
In its moving papers, e360 requested three forms of relief for the claimed noncompliance: first, suspension of Spamhaus's domain name until it complies with the terms of the injunction; second, steps to prevent third parties from accessing Spamhaus's technology or permission to add them as defendants to this suit if they continue to do so; and third, a monetary sanction against Spamhaus for each day that it fails to comply with the injunction. When e360 appeared in court to present the motion, we noted the breadth of the requested relief and directed e360 to submit a draft order that was more tailored.
The proposed order is limited to only the first remedy, suspension of the domain name by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"), the entity responsible for coordinating unique identifiers used for Internet communication, or Tucows, Inc., the registrar through which Spamhaus obtained its domain name. Neither of these outfits are parties to this case. Though more circumscribed than the preceding request, this relief is still too broad to be warranted in this case. First, there has been no indication that ICANN or Tucows are not independent entities, thus preventing a conclusion that either is acting in concert with Spamhaus to such a level that they could be brought within the ambit of Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d). Though our ability to enforce an injunction is not necessarily coterminous with the rule, the limitations on its scope inform an exercise of our power to address contempt. See, e.g., Rockwell Graphic Systems, Inc. v. DEV Industries, Inc., 91 F.3d 914, 920 (7th Cir. 1996). Second, the suspension would cut off all lawful online activities of Spamhaus via its existing domain name, not just those that are in contravention of this court's order. While we will not condone or tolerate noncompliance with a valid order of this court, neither will we impose a sanction that does not correspond to the gravity of the offending conduct.
Accordingly, the motion for a rule to show cause is denied without prejudice.
Dated: October 19, 2006 CHARLES P. KOCORAS U.S. District Court Judge"
{Prof. Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center}
The judge didn't rule in favor of Spamhaus but instead, denied e360's proposed order which was an attempt to enforce the court's original judgment. That original judgment still stands against Spamhaus. Although there are obvious issues of enforcement, this may certainly be an impediment against Spamhaus in the future (that is, if they ever expand operations into the U.S. or some other scenario). There is an appeal pending in which the original judgment could be overruled but a brief has yet to be filed.