NSI to be RBL'ed?

An anonymous reader, thank his kind soul, submitted the following: "MAPS is considering black holing NSI for its repeated spamming of the 5 million owners of domain names. I don't know about you, but I don't think being spammed is part of the "business relationship" I signed up for when I registered my domains, thus I don't think NSI should be spamming me. But, man it could hurt a lot of people if NSI does get RBL'd. Of course, it could help raise awareness of the issue, and maybe demonstrate to NSI that we don't appreciate being pushed around.". It will be interesting to see how this plays out. NSI certainly isn't making many folks happy these days. Read more for the full scoop. Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 16:02:14 -0700
From: Paul A Vixie
Subject: possible RBL event coming up involving NSI

------- Blind-Carbon-Copy

To: interest@mail-abuse.org
cc: rbl@mail-abuse.org
Subject: possible RBL event coming up involving NSI
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 16:02:14 -0700
From: Paul A Vixie

You are receiving this because you are either an interested outsider, or a staff member or volunteer, or a customer of M.A.P.S., LLC. Note our new domain name, mail-abuse.org. (The old maps.vix.com domain name gave some the false impression that MAPS was not a separate company.)

Today we received the letter below from NSI in response to our repeated attempts to get them to stop sending unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail to all domain holders. In this letter, NSI implies that they will sue us for damages and incite entities like Amazon.com to do likewise if we decide to blackhole them, and then go on to say that they have no intention of stopping the current business practice of these which caused our complaints.

They are pretty much daring us to blackhole them. The board of MAPS, LLC will make its final determination in the next few days, and if we do decide to blackhole NSI it's going to get ugly. As an interested party, we want you all to know what's happening.

=================================

July 30, 1999

VIA FIRST CLASS AND
ELECTRONIC MAIL

Nick Nicholas, Executive Director
Mail Abuse Prevention System, LLC
950 Charter Street
Redwood City, CA 94063

Re: Nomination of NSI for Black List

Dear Mr. Nicholas:

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your email to me dated July 16, 1999, regarding the Realtime Blackhole List ("Black List") managed by the Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC.

Enclosed is a copy of a letter I sent today to Mr. James Wagner, President of Hypertouch, Inc., the complainant who apparently prompted your July 16 email to me. Network Solutions has removed Mr. Wagner's name from its mailing list. As noted in the letter, Mr. Wagner could have avoided receiving the subject email in the first place had he simply followed the mailing list removal procedure specified in an email transmitted to him on March 30, 1999.

There can be no doubt that Network Solutions has an existing business relationship with the administrative, technical and billing contacts for a given domain name registered with Network Solutions. These people are the principal points of contact through which Network Solutions transacts business with its customers. They have been so designated by our customers in their domain name registration agreements with Network Solutions.

These are precisely the types of relationships that the California legislature wanted to shield from the restrictions contained in its unsolicited email statutes. Indeed, the statute's protection of communications between persons involved in existing business relationships reflects the state's determination that such communications are not "spam," but rather vital catalysts to free and open commerce. We are aware of no law that prohibits companies from communicating with their own customers.

We respectfully suggest that MAPS and any other person involved in the compilation and dissemination of the Black List adopt a definition of spam that is consistent with the principles recognized by California. Any more expansive definition is overly broad and may unreasonably restrain trade. Indeed, it is apparent that Mr. Wagner's principal concern about Network Solutions' emails is the competitive threat they represent to his company's ISP business. Those emails reference Internet companies that are competitors of Mr. Wagner's company, Hypertouch, Inc. It appears Hypertouch, Inc. hopes to shelter itself from such competition by combining with those who control the Black List and its technology to restrain such competition.

If inclusion on the Black List will effectively block Network Solutions from contacting 40% of the Internet, as you claimed in your email of July 29, 1999, MAPS's actions would have severe and irreparable consequences on the company's relationship with its customers. Network Solutions has over 5,000,000 customers. Consequently, if you place Network Solutions on the Black List, 2,000,000 (40%) of its own customers presumably would be unable to receive important information from Network Solutions, including invoices and deactivation notices, possibly leading to the revocation of their domain name registrations. You should be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions should a company such as Amazon.com lose its domain name, and thus its e-commerce business, as a result of having its notices and invoices intercepted and destroyed. It is difficult to believe that MAPS would be willing to take such drastic actions based on the self-serving complaint of Mr. Wagner.

Indeed, MAPS's overly expansive definition of spam exposes MAPS and those who own or control the Black List to, inter alia, civil claims of: (1) illegal combination in restraint of trade violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. ? 1; (2) unfair competition; and (3) intentional interference with contractual relationships.

Network Solutions will not hesitate to take all actions necessary to protect its rights and ensure that its channels of communications to its own customers remain open. I hope that such measures will be unnecessary and that you will opt not to include the company on the Black List. p

Please advise me of your decision and do not hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss this matter further.

Very truly yours,
Jonathan W. Emery ==============

Comments

L.O.L....

[trims]

I love lawyers. All they seem to know how to do is threaten and bully, regardless of how empty their threats are.

As I understand it, RBL is a subscription service. That is, the sites that use the RBL have chosen to participate, and are voluntarily not receiving email from anyone on the list. So, if you can't send mail to me, it's because I've chosen not to listen to you. All the ISP's that I've seen that use the RBL announce this fact, so businesses that use them should be aware of this.

Secondly, email is not a legally binding (or allowable) method of conducting business. You can't send invoices only by email, and then claim in court that you gave proper notice (at least in the US). Email has no guaranty of delievery, and the courts have not reconized it as a reliable method for transmitting legal/business documents. So NSI's invoice threat is moot. If they aren't sending invoices to Amazon via methods other than email, then terminate Amazon.com for some reason that was indicated in the email, well, guess who's liable for interference of interstate commerce? NSI!

Dolts.

I don't like the RBL. I think it's a poor (both technical and political) method of attempting to control SPAM. However, I dislike NSI even more. And if the Commerce Department is now stating that the whois database is it's property (which it is), then I can't wait for them to stick it to NSI for illegal use of government property for private commercial gain.

NSI sucks hard. They just need to die. Or at least fire all their top management.

-Erik

Re:L.O.L....

[ajs]

"They are pretty much daring us to blackhole them. The board of MAPS, LLC will make its final determination in the next few days, and if we do decide to blackhole NSI it's going to get ugly. As an interested party, we want you all to know what's happening."

Is Paul an attorney? I don't think so. Interpreting Emery's email as a "dare" strikes me as a somewhat juvenile attitude.

The use of the word "dare" was perhaps unfortunate, but isn't NSI simply calling MAPS' bluff? If MAPS doesn't follow through with their stated MO, isn't this going to weaken MAPS' ability to impliment such Spam-reduction in the future? Perception is key, here.

The additional danger of the juvenile attitudes of both Emery and Vixie here is the dick-measuring element. Without a doubt a lot of unsuspecting people will be confused, inconvenienced, and possibly hurt by an NSI blockade -- this would amount essentially to conviction without trial IMHO.

Ok, repeat after me... RBL is not a government, nor is it a law, nor is it implimented by either of the above. The Black-holing of NSI will be a public action taken by the public. The equvalent would be a newsletter that displayed picutres of salesmen that stick their feet in doors in order to give a sales pitch. The newsletter does not lock people's doors. It simply gives them a good idea of when that might be appropriate. In the case of the RBL, there are automatic ways to have your door lock, but that doesn't change the fact that the public recipient of the hostile sales pitch (yes, Spamming is textbook hostile sales) is the one shutting it off, and they can choose not to.

The case that keeps getting pointed out is where an ISP uses RBL and will be blocking NSI mail to all of their users. This is much like the case where an office building management company does not let hostile salesment into the building to see the tenents. The tenents are going to get grumpy at some point, and say "hey, I wanted to see that guy, he's selling widgets that I need". This is what has already been mentioned where some ISPs will stop using RBL based on the NSI blackhole. This is a Good Thing(tm). It demonstrates that these ISPs are willing participants, and they can and will leave if and when they feel that it is no longer appropriate.

What kind of a geek are you if you can't figure out how to operate your own bloody mail filters?

What kind of geek are you if you don't create a way for non-geeks to do the same thing.... Gee, that would be RBL!

-AJS

MAPS sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

MAPS sucks. I dun like MAPS. Spam sucks, but MAPS sucks even more.

mail-abuse.org is simply a collection of poorly (crappily even) written documents (sounds more like propaganda to me actually) randomly linked in an unorganized manner. It took me forever (so I am a bit dumber than the elite hackers that run mail-abuse.org) to figure out what the RBL was about, and I find that somewhat scary considering the great impact the RBL could possibly have on me.

Imagine the confusion a poor random user goes through upon realizing his email, for some unknown reason, cannot reach the intended destination and is referred to mail-abuse.org/rbl/. He goes there, and what help does he find?

"We have not singled you out", you are only 'collateral damage' in the war against spam. Oh well, too bad. If you want to get your email through, go talk to your system administrator.

I find that very irresponsible. We all know the frustration of calling some big company and having your call juggled between two departments. This is exactly what is happening here. MAPS is simply pushing the responsibility for blacklisting an IP and taking a passive role in solving the problem.

"If we made a mistake, oh well. We'll just wait until someone notices that they've been fucked and contacts us, then we'll try and push the responsiblity on their system administrators, and wait a bit more. And since we usually fix things up within minutes, the system administrators are the ones responsible for the users wasted time".

RBL is overkill. It keeps unsolicted email away from those who haven't solicited it, but it also keeps everything else away too.

Here's an interesting situation:

What if I love recieving spam? What if I WANT to recieve 'spam'? What if what you consider unsolicted email is actually what I like to read? Are you now able to decide what emails I can recieve, and what emails I cannot?

Just my two cents, but the solution to spam is not to censor everything.

Anyway...that was a fragmented rambling and messy opinion piece. If you understand it and realize that MAPS sucks, great. If not, well..I was never a good writer anyway.

unsolicited flames sent to lgrimani@hotmail.com will get reported to MAPS!

Re:MAPS sucks.

[Russ Nelson]

Fine, if you don't like the RBL, don't subscribe to it. The whole point is that it's voluntary. Nobody can "decide what emails I can recieve (sic), and what emails I cannot?" And if you actually examined the RBL instead of expressing your prejudice against it, you'd find that it blocks very few hosts. They're very conservative of who they add. By policy, then only add someone after attempting to contact them by email and telephone. You can verify this for yourself. Try getting a host added to the RBL.
-russ

The implications are tremendous

[ronn]

As an ISP that hosts a couple of hundred domains, if we didn't get the mail from Internic, it would be very difficult to explain to customers. We are a user of RBL and if they do eventually put Internic on RBL we would have no choice but to turn RBL off. Especially since they re-established the email invoices. It's not that we don't want to but to keep the bills paid we *have* to.

Hahahahaha!!!

[tgd]

That was FUNNY.

I wonder if they really thought anyone would give a flying fsck about some non-existant risk of Amazon suing them. If I was Amazon.com, and my ONLY billing invoice was set to be e-mail, and I lost my domain, there's three things I'd do:

1) Sue Network Solutions for removing my domain because of a lack of a response on a non legally-binding communcation medium.

2) Fire the admin who set up the domain not to have postal billing notification

3) Contact anyone I could to have said admin "disappeared" ;)

Personally, I don't understand why someone would set up e-mail notification in the first place. I mean, come on! Sure, most clients are that stupid, but most ISP's should have the brains to point out to the clients the problems inherant in doing that.

Blacklist them. Serves them right. As has been said many times before, Network Solutions do not own the Internet, they're just unfairly utilizing an inappropriate monopoly situation created by a US Government that repeatly shows itself to be the premier organization of cluelessness and idiocity in the world.

Maybe the Government should be blacklisted to, just on general principle. :)

Re:Geek hypocracy make me sick

[sjames]

Either ya allow the censorware morons out there censor any page with a naughty wordy-word or ya don't censor anyone that spams

Most of the people upset about censorware is that they miss many naughty words, and censor other sites that have none.

Then there's the fact that RBL really is reviewed by human beings, and tries to work with the site that is about to be black holed (censored) to give them a chance to avoid the action.

They are both opt-in agreements. No one has to be apart of that arrangement if they do not wish to be.

RBL is opt in. Most censorware providers are actively involved in efforts to require censorware for schools and libraries. In that case, there is no 'opt' at all. Part of their involvement is to 'assure' legislators that every site is checked and re-checked by human beings (patently false).

That's the difference you're looking for. That and that RBL actually works.

Something that NSI seems to be unaware of...

[schon]

.. is that MAPS has gone up against bigger companies and won...

Anyone remember when Microsoft was RBL'ed?

They poised, and they threatened, and then they backed down... MS is bigger than NSI could ever hope to be, and they have WAY more money to throw at lawyers.

AOL, also was blackholed as well; with the same results; denials, threats, submission.

If MS couldn't win, then what makes NSI think they will? This letter just shows exactly how clueless they are. Someone should send them a wake-up call. Paul Vixie doesn't back down.

Definition of "customer"

[tgeller]

There are two weaknesses in NSI's argument:

1) NSI's definition of "customer" is bogus. Yes, a company has certain rights to communicate with its customers (see below). But the status of "customer" implies the meeting of a willing buyer and willing seller. Because NSI has had a monopoly these past few years, we can't assume "willing buyer". Who knows how many people would have gone to a different source for TLDs had one been available? I know I would have. Therefore, we as buyers are in an *enforced* customer relationship, and NSI shouldn't assume that the usual privileges apply.

2) Even if we were truly NSI's "customers", opt-out bulk e-mail is still not part of the "usual privileges" package vendors earn from such a relationship. I've seen the e-mail in question -- it's a pure sales pitch, *not* administrative. It's not central (or even related) to the functioning of the relationship, and one has no opportunity to opt-out at the time the relationship is started. In short: appallingly bad marketing. But what moves NSI from the world of Bad Marketing and into the sphere of Theft is the cost-transference nature of e-mail.

--Tom

Re:MAPS sucks. (why was this flamebaited?)

[Tackhead]

> ...poorly (crappily even) written documents...
> ...I am a bit dumber than the elite hackers that run mail-abuse.org..
> ...unsolicited flames sent to lgrimani@hotmail.com will get reported to MAPS!

Opens with ad hominem arguments and ends with moot threats. I think I can see why it got flamebaited.

That said, the AC who wrote the article did have some good points, which probably bear repeating:

• The RBL and similar blackholing technologies are distressing and confusing for newbies. While using the RBL is voluntary at the ISP level, the newbie typically has no idea that his ISP is using it. (He just wonders why his friends on ISPs that don't use it are getting 50 spams a day to his 5-10 :)
• If an ISP lands itself on the RBL, there is collateral damage,
  and consequently,
• The RBL is a very heavy mallet to swing at a site. Whether or not this constitutes overkill, of course, is left as an exercise for /.

One problem, though - most of these concerns are valid only for situations in which an ISP is RBLed, and customers of the ISP wonder why their mail is blocked. For a blocking of NSI (or RealNetworks' mail servers), only those machines would be blackholed - and thus, only users on those spamming machines (in this case, presumably just a mailing 'bot) are likely to suffer collateral damage.

An RBL for an ISP is different - it passes the support load from the newbie customers of the ISP on to the support department of the ISP. On the other hand - when all else, including the efforts of the RBL team to resolve the situation peacefully, has failed, maybe that's the only option left. If an ISP chooses to harbor spammers, its customers will suffer, and leave.

Maybe that's fair, maybe it's not (and it's certainly a valid subject for debate), but that's not what we're talking about here.

An RBL for a spam-spewing mail server in a single domain inconveniences only the ability of that server to spew spam. If the server exists solely as a spam hydrant, then the collateral damage is essentially zero.

Finally, in MAPS' defence, it's hard to get a site on the RBL. Writing Nick (Nick Nicholas, former pacbell.net abuse god :) and saying "I mailed abuse@isp.com and they ignored me" isn't enough. A history of abuse must be established and documented, as well as attempts by phone as well as e-mail to resolve the situation. The MAPS team then goes out and attempts to resolve the situation themselves. Their decision to place a site on the RBL isn't an everyday occurrence; it's a last resort reserved for the most brazen of offenders.

Re:NSI could have avoided this --- Re:MAPS sucks.

[ahodgson]

NSI is spamming non-registry info. Specifically, 2 weeks ago they spammed out an ad for discounted Verisign certificates to all tech contacts.

Sure you have a choice. RBL exceptions.

[rcgraves]

> We are a user of RBL and if they do eventually
> put Internic on RBL we would have no choice
> but to turn RBL off.

No, just add them to ACCESSDB (/etc/mail/access)
as OK.

Any time the RBL blocks someone, you get an
easily parsed log message. If you're worried
about losing mail, make RBL return a 45x rather
than 55x; the sender's server will retry.

In a year of using the RBL I don't believe we've
inconvenienced more than a handful of
non-spammers. The only case that comes to mind is
an open relay at UPenn -- 99% of what the RBL
delayed from that relay was spam, but there might
have been some legit users too. And then they
fixed the problem.

MAPS doesn't go off half-cocked like ORBS. They
only add to the list after the site has had ample
opportunity to respond. It's not really
"realtime."

Re:Sure you have a choice. RBL exceptions.

[Trepidity]

I'd have to pretty much agree with you. MAPS/RBL seems to be fairly responsible.

ORBS, on the other hand, sucks. I've had a bunch of my own mail get bounced by ORBS for various reasons, either because the mailserver I was using was open-relay or because the ORBS people happened to be in a bad mood.

I find the cure, in that case, worse than the problem.

Absolutely.

[Chris Johnson]

The problem here is what people can get used to- and the potential of that to cause damage.
Maybe you personally don't object to deleting spam. I, myself, don't especially mind sorting known-good email into special mailboxes and then having the inbox be the spamtrap, sometimes meaning that cmd-A delete is all I need to do. I've discarded good messages because I thought they were spam, a couple times, and it didn't cause me too much trouble, just a bit of ribbing from my boss who'd got his message deleted by mistake.
However, I fully support these draconian measures against spammers, because the problem is the 'I could do that' factor. There are a certain number of new spammers every day, and many of them noisily advocate spamming to others, and some of the spams are themselves for spam tools. It's a recipe for 'meltdown'.
Even a fairly humble linux box can saturate a T1. If any concessions are made to spamming, and it gains any sort of acceptability, it's a 'tragedy of the commons' situation but will happen so fast it'll make your head spin- and suddenly, the networks will be saturated, ISPs and backbones collapsing under the weight of one person in a hundred, or one in ten, deciding that 'it doesn't cost anything' to send their advertising note to, well, heck, how about sending it to everybody? There's this neat program a spam pointed them to, and it can run 24/7...
I get spams authored in Frontpage using some non-English language that might be Japanese or some 2-byte language. I've been getting quite a few of those, more and more. Why be restricted to 'customers' who can read your language? Why not just send email to everybody on the internet and then those who can't understand it should just throw it away- or 'opt out'? Let's _everybody_ do that. Then each of us will only have to throw away 1 email/day from everybody in the world. No, that's silly, call it one in a thousand. So each of us will only have to throw away or opt out of several million spams a day...
Hell with that. RBL 'em. The net is not necessarily a safe place. In particular, spammers don't have rights to network access, and have no reason to expect fairness.

Golden opportunity to displace NSI?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Scenario:

- MAPS blackholes NSI
- NSI starts deregistering domains - perhaps starting with MAPS' own.
- Network connectivity starts to go to hell.
- One or more alternate registries set up root servers and publish the old domains' data, along with new registrants. They have essentially all the domains while NSI, having deregistered many, has fewer. (Use of their services, of course, is strictly voluntary.)
- Sysadmins reconfig their named.root to pick up the new registries in preference to NSI's, in order to retain maximum connectivity.
- The net is now migrated to competitive registries.

NSI's misbehavior and the (entirely appropriate) blackholing of NSI thus create a Shelling Point for the migration of the net away from the NSI monopoly.

(For those not aware of them, Shelling Points are those moments in history where a large bulk of people, without explicit advanced agreement, realize that "This is the moment for action X, and everybody else knows it too." The British attempt to sieze the colonists' arms was a Shelling Point for the American Revolution. The acquittal of the policemen accused of beating Rodney King was the Shelling Point for the L.A. Riots, and so on. With a Shelling Point a mass of people can act in concert to great effect - for good or bad. Without one people must forge an agreement on timing, "go off" according to individual thresholds which don't match, or be boiled like a frog in a slowly heated pot.)

I work for a large national ISP. Here's the deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

You said:

"What if I love recieving spam? What if I WANT to recieve 'spam'? What if what you consider unsolicted email is actually what I like to read? Are you now able to decide what emails I can recieve, and what emails I cannot?"

I work for an ISP. We block sites like popsite.net because the ONLY E-MAILS we EVER get from them are SPAM. Spam costs us lots of $$$, for these reasons:

1. We have to have a netabuse team (several people) who do NOTHING ALL DAY except watch the mail and news servers for crackers and spammers. Believe me, they are seldom idle!

2. Our sysadmins have to keep an eye on the mail, news, and other servers as well.

3. Our network operations center has to spend time contacting the various networks when Abuse is either saturated with tracking all the jerks and assholes, or out for the evening. You may have noticed that it's kind of expensive to call the office of another network provider (or anybody else for that matter) 2,500 miles away...

4. We have to add huge amounts of extra disk space to handle news and e-mail. Much of this is occupied by spam. This costs us MONEY that SHOULD be spent on building/leasing POPs, hardware/memory upgrades, etc. Instead, we have to spend our member's money defending them from crackers and spammers. It's not fair to us, and it's REALLY not fair to them!

5. This is kind of off on a tangent, but it bears saying. When someone unloads a ton of spam onto our servers, WE SEE IT. We have an algorithm that checks the mail servers' syslogs for repetitive instances of text in the headers, etc. When it sees this, it notifies us. Think you can get away with it? We'll call your provider, have them knock you offline, and then forward them the logs so that you get CANCELLED. Same if you try to crack our systems or initiate a DOS attack against anything we own. We'll get you kicked off and we'll also do everything we can to get you cancelled from whatever ISP you're coming from. And since most dialup gear keeps a record of your phone number, we might even call you and demand to speak to your mommy at 3AM. B3W4RE, SKR1P7 K1DD135!!! Whenever you try to spam or crack us, WE SEE IT. Don't think that a dynamic IP makes you anonymous, because every ISP in the world logs what IP was used and at what time. They have to for legal reasons.

Re:A tidy reminder...

[mwa]

Prelude: This is going to ramble a little, as I've been jumping around the net getting more info from ICANN, IANA, NIS, etc. Bear with me.....

My first though was to reply to this with an "Amen". NSI is not, has never been, and will never be the "Internet Authority" (Patent Pending [or so they think]).

Aside from the other officially sanctioned registrars, I seem to recall reading about a volunteer organization (probably on /.) offering to provide DNS services without the value-added BS of NSI. Anyway, with more registrars being accredited, I'd say its time to put NSI behind us completely.

While considering the implications of all this, I was perusing www.iana.org and was delighted at the prominent notation:

Please note that this transitional site presents both initial steps and currently accepted practices that are subject to input by the international Internet community and approval by the Board of Directors.

If you go to their site, there is a forum for public comments. /.'em with honest, frank, unflaming input on why the agreement with NSI should be terminated.

Now, if you want to be horrified, go to www.internic.net to read about the coming changes in Domain registration. First, you'll notice that you're really at networksolutions.com. But wait! If you read really, really slow (just leave the window open), you will be automatically forwarded to the NSI front door.

Going deeper into the ICANN FAQ, I found Ammendment 11 to the Dept. of Commerce/NSI contract. An excerpt regarding existing NSI customers:

• Commencing upon the Phase 1 deployment of the Shared Registration System, and for a period of 18 months thereafter, NSI shall permit any customer with whom it has a contract pursuant to which NSI provides registration services that is either facially or effectively exclusive as to registration services, to terminate the registration provisions of such contract (following payment of all amounts due up through the time of such termination) and obtain registration services from other registrars; provided, however, that NSI may enter into agreements pursuant to which NSI's counterparty agrees not to utilize proprietary intellectual property or confidential proprietary information provided by NSI to the counterparty pursuant to their agreement.

Now, I wonder why NSI has been putting up such a forcefull argument that the info in the WHOIS database is "proprietary intellectual property". As far as I can see, you can change registrars by giving them the same contact information you originally gave NSI. It may be proprietary in their database, but it is not when it's your personal information on an application form.

If I'm reading that right, anyone registered with NSI can switch to another registrar, with a pro-rated refund of domain fees.

Back to the original topic: Putting NSI on the RBL would be a serious wake-up call that without the participation of each and every transport provider on the 'net, they are worthless (Ok, MORE worthless).

Re:Geek hypocracy make me sick

[ajs]

Most of the people upset about censorware is that they miss many naughty words, and censor other sites that have none.

So, if I were to create the technically perfect Web censorship software, Jon Katz would not be annoyed at its use? "Most of the people" who usually complain would not? No.

I and others who are bothered by censorship are usually bothered because censorship implies a power of control. Control of ideas, in fact, which is one of the most powerful forms of control.

The RBL presents the same danger, but the original poster was incorrect in assuming that that danger can be acted upon. Because the RBL is voluntary (and in fact is only the most popular of several such efforts, some of which are more technically sound, but have a higher barrier to entry) it can never have the same impact as, say, the V-chip which is required in every television set in the US.

I have a problem with some of the applications of the RBL, however. For example, WebTV applies the RBL to your mail whether you like it or not, and that's exactly the problem with things like the V-chip (granted, this is WebTV's problem, not MAPS').

NSI is not being censored, they are being refused access to the pockets of millions of consumers because of bad business practices. The consumers do not have to deny access (except as noted above), but they WILL because they don't WANT unsolicited EMail. If NSI wants to put those messages on their Web site, and slam out ad banners to every major Web portal on the planet, there's nothing wrong with that. BUT, it would cost them money, and NSI doesn't want to have to spend any actuall money! Therein lies the rub. Spam costs money, but not to the sender. Thus it is refered to as theft. NSI is commiting theft, and what's worse, they are doing so because of their relationship with the US government that gives them a monopoly over one of the most important communications technologies in history.

Let me repeat, this is not a censorship issue, this is a simple case of abuse. NSI is abusing their customers, and their customers are not pleased (that includes me).

Re:Geek hypocracy make me sick

[sjames]

Jon Katz would not be annoyed at its use? "Most of the people" who usually complain would not? No.

Most of them would not complain if it was opt-in as well. I was perhaps not explicit enough that censorware would have to be both accurate and opt-in to be acceptable to most'geeks'

If you blackhole us ...

[JamesHenstridge]

I am surprised that they didn't try the more effective "if you blackhole us, we will delete your domain". It would be more effective, and its legal footing would be just as shaky

Good riddance!

[dattaway]

The sooner on the blacklist, the better. What right does NSI and every joe business have to spam me? Did I pay NSI $70 for their service of providing my information so they can own it and spam me some abuse with it? If vigilante justice through the RBL is not allowed, then its time for baseball bats. One way or another, I'm going to get relief!

Re:Good riddance!

[dattaway]

I used to answer those calls that the caller ID listed as "unavailable." It seems like any long distance service change or getting ISDN would get me on every credit card company marketing list. I sleep days. I get very cranky when I answer the phone to some telemarketer wanting to sell me a credit card. I give them insults about their job, their ability to father children, etc... They have even retaliated against me for venting by conviently cancelling my long distance for "fraud." It pisses me off to no end to have some stranger interrupt my sleep, then to interrupt my utilities. Its gotten to the point where I will try to hunt the person down! I've gone mad!

Can you stop it?

[dillon_rinker]

According to the lawyer's letter, there are instructions in NSI's emails for being removed from the mailing list. Is this true?

NSI Drivel

[mrsam]

The only way for Amazon.com, or anyone else, to have their domain registration-related E-mail traffic disrupted would be if amazon.com willingly subscribed to the MAPS RBL feed.

NSI is whistling through their ass here. MAPS RBL is a purely voluntarily blacklist. If someone does not wish to have their mail to/from NSI blocked as a result of the RBL, it will take approximately five seconds for them to disable RBL filtering on their mail server/routers, or provide an exception for NSI's IP address space. Someone should ask the Looney Tune who wrote that letter whether or not he would have any objections if someone were to have him sign up to a few thousand mailing lists, on a condition that every one of them will have a working remove address. According to this Looney Tune, as long as there's a functioning remove address, there's no problem, so he will have no reason to object.
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NSI could have avoided this --- Re:MAPS sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a fairly long time subscriber to the RBL service I find that it does the job nicely. I look at my log files and find several spam messages blocked and the quantity of that crap that appears in my mailbox has been reduced noticeably.

There are some key words that have to be recognized. One, I am a subscriber. They created their own list. I, as an administrative decision, chose to use their list. Two, they make it abundantly clear that, or at least they did when I signed up for the service, that RBL is not perfect, that you have to be willing to occasionally throw out the baby with the bathwater. For me, spam had gotten so bad that I finally relented and enabled RBL. I've been happy ever since.

As for the NSI debacle. It comes down to one key point. I haven't seen their spam message (well, not the most recent one). If I use the whois database to mine for email addresses and send SPAM, NSI will try to (1) sue me?, (2) block my access to the database, (3) who knows what else. Yet, they are doing the exact same thing.

Bottom line. I used them as a registry service. I created a business relationship with them as a registry service. As such I suppose I would get some spam from them as a registry service. However, if they started spamming me with messages about hosting, or non-registry issues -- that that most definitely is SPAM. Look at it this way. Let's say magazine publisher XYZ Corporation publishes magazines on 50 different topics ranging from Apples to Zebras, and you subscribed for a magazine on wireless data. Your now on their mailing list. You've created a business relationship with them. Would you be upset if you got junk mail from XYZ Corporation encouraging you to subscribe to adult mags?

The line between spam and acceptable commercial email is getting slimmer and slimmer. In a way, depending on what information is being sent out, NSI does have a valid business relationship with people in their database and can send email to them. They've learned from all those that mined the whois database for email addresses just how valuable such a targeted list of names can be.

NSI could have avoided all of this by 'announcing' in their first SPAM message "You are receiving this from NSI because you have at least one registered domain name in our database. You have been included on a list which will send you periodic updates on new services and features available from NSI. If you do not wish to receive these messages, here is how to remove yourself from this list. If you take no action, you will automatically receive news on any new and important services and features available from NSI."

That first message would not have advertised anything, yet it would have alerted everyone on the list of what was to come and could have avoided this entire problem!

Bad Attitude

[sjames]

NSI: We're a 600 pound gorilla, and we intend to behave as badly as we want to. Get in our way, and we'll squash you.

If RBL is to mean anything, they really have no choice but to blacklist NSI at this point. MANY people have complained about SPAM from NSI.

NSI, because of their special monopoly position, has a higher obligation than most companies to not spam. It's not as if most of the people on their list could have chosen another registrar that doesn't spam (at least not when they gave NSI their email address).

For those who will have problems if NSI is blacklisted, there are several options. Tell NSI to send invoices by snail mail, de-configure RBL, or go to another registrar. I suggest the latter if at all possible.

MAPS RBL, NSI, and other blockers.

[strredwolf]

The MAPS RBL is the last resort in blocking spam from spewers such as NSI and Real Networks (which got thrown in earlier this month). The process starts off that: Someone on news.admin.net-abuse.email gets repeatedly spammed by a domain, gets repeatedly refused by a domain to stop spamming or the spammer, or sees on a spam a site that is never taken down. (RBL is used for spammers and the servers that others provide for such spammers) Next, after repeated phone calls and evidence gathering, an RBL request containing all the information is sent to MAPS. Nick (in the e-mail) calls the company to work things out. If nothing happens (and they're very flexible to work with), the servers in quesiton get thrown in the RBL until the company who owns those servers repents.

The MAPS RBL has blocked whole backbones before (AGIS, for the Cyberpromotions fiasco they had). Real Networks got thrown in, even after they sent a legal threat to MAPS. MAPS has not received any orders against the listing.

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Spammed? Click here for free slack on how to fight it!

Geek hypocracy make me sick

[clifyt]

What the fuck is this different than the subject that showed up two days ago (RE:Censorware...)??? Ya'll complain when someone censors your account for no apparent reason, threating to take action and use the law, but when you want to do this, its perfectly legitimate.

This is no different than any other self-regulation. Either ya allow the censorware morons out there censor any page with a naughty wordy-word or ya don't censor anyone that spams you. They are both opt-in agreements. No one has to be apart of that arrangement if they do not wish to be.

I am opposed to both spam and censorship, but unless we pass laws, then there is no way to deal with both...oh yeah, I forgot, geeks don't get involved with politics unless cryptography is involved.

Nevermind...

clif

Wrong default

[Ungrounded Lightning]

> If you do not wish to receive these messages, here is how to remove yourself...

Make that "If you wish to receive these messages, here is how to add yourself" and I could concede the point - provided they put a checkbox in their signup form for new registrations and/or gave the instructions in their signup confirmation mail, and only sent the above, ONCE to OLD accounts.

We consider it spam if somebody repeatedly sends mail to everybody on a list he buys unless they opt out. Why should it be different for a "somebody" who just happens to have had a government mandate to monopolize the internet registry?