Stopping spammers is stopping proliferation of ideas?
Sure it is. Just like locking your house is stopping free enterprise, and locking your car is stopping free personal movement.
Spammers are thieves, plain and simple. They lie, cheat, and steal. That's all spam is - theft via e-mail. Some of it is a little more elaborate than the chain-letter MMfools, but it's all theft, by definition.
The Three Laws of Spambotics (with apologies to the Good Doctor Asimov) are:
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Rule #2: If a spammer appears to be telling the truth, refer to Rule #1.
Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
There is also a Zeroth Law, but I will leave the discovery of that as an exercise for the reader. If you can't discover what it is, perhaps you fall under Rule #3.
Ironically, one anti-spammer who tried to contact peacefire.org to express the anti-spam side of the story found that his email to peacefire.org was being blocked by Media3. Ironic and hypocritical or what?
Now, if PEACEFIRE.ORG wants to be associated with Web sites that exist for the sole purpose of committing theft and trespass, why, that's their business; but any sane, intelligent sysadmin would have been looking for a new hosting service once it became apparent that their current service is spamware-friendly.
MAPS is the tip of the iceberg; only about 40% of the Internet uses MAPS to block spam and spamware sites. As much as another 50% is using local deny routing tables, which means that PEACEFIRE has, by placing themselves on a spamware-friendly service, made themselves inaccessible to up to 90% of Internet users today.
And it's easy to get out of the MAPS RBL. It's close to impossible to even find out who's maintaining all those other lists; getting out of them could easily be a career in itself. We're talking about thousands of lists, all of them maintained on a "block the spammers forever" basis.
Think about it: MAPS lists a clear set of requirements to get into the RBL, and to get out.
How do you get on the RIVER.COM blocking list, though? Do you know? And if you do get on it, how do you get off?
RIVER.COM is just one example. whois will turn up thousands upon thousands more - but you can't tell you're on the list until you try to e-mail them.
What's new about this is that we now have documentary evidence that AT&T and PSInet have both conspired with spammers to look the other way whilst the spammers commit theft and trespass; and since PSInet is incorporated in Virginia, their conspiracy is probably a felony crime, while AT&T's is mere tortious behavior.
However, in both cases, the existence of the "pink contract" constitutes evidence of classic "simple conspiracy," which is also a criminal offense, and since it crosses State lines in both cases, it's probably under Federal jurisdiction.
Slashdot Mirror
"by banning an IP because of a company selling software to spam, is the moral equivalent to the MPAA suing and taking down sites that host DeCSS"
Excuse me?
Exactly how does MAPS profit from posting a list of spamware IP addresses?
That ought to go in the Guiness Book of World Records under the heading of "Worst Analogy of 2000."
Stopping spammers is stopping proliferation of ideas?
Sure it is. Just like locking your house is stopping free enterprise, and locking your car is stopping free personal movement.
Spammers are thieves, plain and simple. They lie, cheat, and steal. That's all spam is - theft via e-mail. Some of it is a little more elaborate than the chain-letter MMfools, but it's all theft, by definition.
The Three Laws of Spambotics (with apologies to the Good Doctor Asimov) are:
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Rule #2: If a spammer appears to be telling the truth, refer to Rule #1.
Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
There is also a Zeroth Law, but I will leave the discovery of that as an exercise for the reader. If you can't discover what it is, perhaps you fall under Rule #3.
peacefire.org happens to be in the middle of a net block that houses a major nest of spammers or spamware vendors:
209.211.253.68 http://www.extractor-pro98.com/
209.211.253.69 http://www.list-sorcerer.com
209.211.253.70 http://www.massmailer.com
209.211.253.71 http://www.bulkemailpeople.com
209.211.253.72 http://www.desktopserver98.com/
209.211.253.73 http://www.e-mailblaster.com
209.211.253.74 http://www.marketingmasters.com/bulkserv.htm
209.211.253.79 http://www.4microsoft2000.com/index1.html
209.211.253.84 http://www.bulkers.net
209.211.253.88 http://www.bulkbarn.com/
209.211.253.89 http://www.web-promotions.com/
209.211.253.126 http://www.bulkisp.com/
209.211.253.139 http://www.firstlinesoft.com/
==} 209.211.253.169 http://www.peacefire.org {==
209.211.253.248 http://www.bulkhost.net
209.211.253.248 http://www.bulk-isp.net
209.211.253.248 http://www.bulkispcorp.net
209.211.253.248 http://www.bulk-isp.com
209.211.253.248 http://www.bulkisp.nu
209.211.253.248 http://www.bulkisp.net
209.211.253.248 http://www.bulkispcorp.com
Ironically, one anti-spammer who tried to contact peacefire.org to express the anti-spam side of the story found that his email to peacefire.org was being blocked by Media3. Ironic and hypocritical or what?
Now, if PEACEFIRE.ORG wants to be associated with Web sites that exist for the sole purpose of committing theft and trespass, why, that's their business; but any sane, intelligent sysadmin would have been looking for a new hosting service once it became apparent that their current service is spamware-friendly.
MAPS is the tip of the iceberg; only about 40% of the Internet uses MAPS to block spam and spamware sites. As much as another 50% is using local deny routing tables, which means that PEACEFIRE has, by placing themselves on a spamware-friendly service, made themselves inaccessible to up to 90% of Internet users today.
And it's easy to get out of the MAPS RBL. It's close to impossible to even find out who's maintaining all those other lists; getting out of them could easily be a career in itself. We're talking about thousands of lists, all of them maintained on a "block the spammers forever" basis.
Think about it: MAPS lists a clear set of requirements to get into the RBL, and to get out.
How do you get on the RIVER.COM blocking list, though? Do you know? And if you do get on it, how do you get off?
RIVER.COM is just one example. whois will turn up thousands upon thousands more - but you can't tell you're on the list until you try to e-mail them.
The article reads like a press release from Exactis.
Where are the *facts*? Not in this article, that's for sure.
What's new about this is that we now have documentary evidence that AT&T and PSInet have both conspired with spammers to look the other way whilst the spammers commit theft and trespass; and since PSInet is incorporated in Virginia, their conspiracy is probably a felony crime, while AT&T's is mere tortious behavior.
However, in both cases, the existence of the "pink contract" constitutes evidence of classic "simple conspiracy," which is also a criminal offense, and since it crosses State lines in both cases, it's probably under Federal jurisdiction.