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Spammers Hijacking IP Space
Ron Guilmette writes "As reported in the Washington Post's Security Fix blog, a substantial hunk of IP address space has apparently been taken over by notorious mass e-mailing company Media Breakaway, LLC, formerly known as OptInRealBig, via means that are at best questionable. The block in question is 134.17.0.0/16, which I documented in depth in an independent investigation. (Apparently, the President of Media Breakaway has now admitted to the Washington Post that his company has been occupying and using the 134.17.0.0/16 block and that front company JKS Media, which provides routing to the block, is actually owned by Media Breakaway.) Remarkably, the president of Media Breakaway, who happens to be an attorney, is trying to defend his company's apparent snatching of this block based upon his own rather novel legal theory that ARIN doesn't have jurisdiction over any IP address space that was handed out before ARIN was formed, in 1997."
It's the only way to be sure...
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
...if everyone just blocked that IP range entirely at their routers, shutting off their connectivity?
There was a time when the Internet was a 'small' enough place that it would have even been feasible. Kind of like blacklisting a Usenet server for spam.
If the IP is simply blackholed, you are by lack of argument allowing this Spammer to put some sort of credible hold on that IP. That's like finding a squatter in a house on the street where the owners have gone on holiday - and simply putting a peice of tape across the driveway - it doesn't solve the bigger problem which is that someone walked into the house and started living there without any credible reason of doing so. It doesn't solve the problem of what's going to happen when the people return from holidays and find this squatter in their house.
Also, if we simply blackhole that IP, what's going to happen when a legitimate user tries to use that space. It's going to go to bollocks for them when they find that the rest of the net is ignoring them already.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
OptinRealBig belongs to none other than Snotty Scotty Richter. I haven't heard of that guy in a while. I was hoping he had been hit by a bus or something.
Web consulting +
What's been happening for years now is well-meaning admins blocking various IP addresses / blocks and/or domain names. Their motives are good, but after the address or domain name is blocked they almost never go back and recheck to see if the block is still needed. What this leads to over time are holes in the address space that can't be used, awkward or no routes to some addresses from some other addresses, etc. Especially in this time of zombie machines; blackhole that IP address and you've knocked some individual off line - but you've done nothing to reduce the amount of spam / viruses / worms / etc.
This is what killed ORBS and other services of that type. Easy to add domains / addresses to the blocklist, but difficult to remove them. Eventually the list becomes useless...
Much better solution: make an example out of the people who are squatting on this netblock. Break out the pitchforks and torches...
There's only one true solution to the problem of spammers. Death. I'm not joking. These people that create botnets, hijack networks and servers so that they can sell advertising are creating problems on a global scale for money. Nothing but death will stop or deter them. They need to die.
It's good that I do not own any firearms and good that I do not know where these people live and good that I lack the means to get there. If I had those things and an air-tight alibi, I wouldn't hesitate to make my first murder one of these people.
If he is president of a company that owns the company that provides routing for the block, doesn't that mean he has legal ownership of that block?
Yes, if the block is used primarily for spam, I'm all for people blackholing the range. And if he's using it for illegal purposes, yes, he should be punished (and the range appropriated). But I don't see where the term "hijacking" could be applied at all.
If I own some cars and use them in crimes, I haven't "hijacked" anyone.
What am I missing?
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I will continue to say it every time I can.
We need a strong societal repudiation of the violation of ethics. Organizations like Microsoft, SCO, and the like and people like Bill Gates, Darl McBride, etc. need to be made pariahs for the shameless unethical and illegal behavior.
"Spamming" is unethical. The only reason why it is done is because their unethical behavior is not shunned.
It really isn't that simple. I'd refer you to my own work (http://www.usenix.org/media/events/lisa07/tech/videos/josephsen.mp4, and http://media.defcon.org/dc-15/video/Defcon15-Dave_Josephsen-Homeless_Vikings.mp4 ) or that of Nick Feamster at Georgia tech. They've been hijacking address space via short-lived BGP prefix hijacks for at least 5 years now, and It is exactly the attitude of "we'll just block X" that got us here in the first place. If you use RBL's and make the arms race about IP's , then the most direct response is to attack the network layer and/or IP space. Further there are real world reasons why IP filters just aren't going to work on a global scale. For that I'd refer you to the work of Mohit Lad at UCLA. There is an economic layer on top of BGP. The effect of no-valley routing is that you're going to get route propagation from folks you think you can trust but cannot. It's a bit much to get into here, but off-handedly blacklisting more shit isn't the answer here, it's the problem.