Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 00:49:21 -0500 From: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <sysop@mixcom.com> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: jbryant@tfs.net, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Regulating Mail was (Re: ESCAPE! blah...) Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970510004921.00bb6064@mixcom.com>
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At 11:19 PM 5/8/97 -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: >I agree. However, I think that waiting for congress to face, let >alone deal with, this problem is a strategy guaranteed to have all of >us reading spam in ever increasing quantities, right up to the start >of the next millenium and probably well beyond it. And in the mean time more and more banwidth/clock cycles will be wasted, not to mention users either do or will be paying to received them when residential phone service is metered and some areas are. --snip-- >Such realistic initiatives, IMHO, are: > > 1. Registering any and all spammers with Paul Vixie's > spammer blacklist (http://spam.abuse.net/spam/). He, at least, > is one of the very few people trying to organize this process > somewhat. > > 2. Blocking, as ISPs, any and all traffic from known spammers. > THIS IS CRUCIAL! By denying the spammers access to your customer > base, you are achieving two objectives: First, you are sparing > your customers from the ravages of SPAM. Second, you are imposing > a harsh penalty on any other ISP who might host spammers since > you're blocking all traffic from them. The problem with this is they relay mail off other network's server and THIS IS THE BIGGEST PART OF THE PROBLEM. Only local servers and customers should be able to bounce mail off your servers. > Refuse to peer with ISPs who host spammers or otherwise do business > with them. Basically, *make life as hard as possible* for > spammers or spam-hosting ISPs so that the cost-effectiveness of > this medium is eroded for them. Only once the monetary > incentive is removed, or the punishments become severe > enough, will this stop (e.g. robbing a Brink's truck may be > "profitable", but the likelyhood of being shot to death in the > process or hounded to the ends of the earth afterwards > makes it considerably less desirable). This is difficult and can cost business. We block hotmail right now and thankfully the few customers that have friends/associates that are trying to send mail and cannot are understanding of our position. > 3. START EXCHANGING MORE INFORMATION! It's an all-too-common > scenario now that notorious spammers simply jump from one > ISP to another. Wore out your welcome at ATT.NET? No > problem! IBM.NET will be *happy* to take your cash! > IBM.NET now starting to get snippy after that last 100,000 > entry spam? No problem, there are dozens of ISPs who > are so desparate for a buck that they'd sell services to > Jeffrey Dahmer for his Shrunken Heads Page if he had > the money. This kind of money-before-everything-else- > and-damn-the-ethics approach to selling services has got > to stop, and you guys are the only ones to stop it. This would be good. I'd be willing to share the user's name and credit card name (if different) with other ISP, as well as why they are blacklisted. --snip part about hang gliding (something I want to do... someday)-- >Now the ISPs can take it one of two ways: > >1. You can continue to jealously guard your customer lists and > refuse to talk to any other ISPs since you know they're just out > to steal your precious bodily fluids anyway and can't be trusted. So far there have been no problems for myself dealing with other local ISPs, whether it was a problem user or what ever. >2. You can realize that selling services to spammers is a truly bad > thing and it's time for you to start passing blacklists around, just > as various merchants (whom, I might add, are also in competition with > one another but grew up and got past arguing that point) do with bad- > check writers and notorious forgers. You can generally see the > array of pictures up behind the sales counter. Have to remember that customers will go where they will. And if they do leave, don't alienate them. Funny thing is today we met with our TCG rep and were talking about the 3 T1 we have over Time Warner's fiber. They don't mind the competition and know that we need the redundancy. We prefer either of them, but we don't recommend Ameritech. ;-) Bashing other providers is a no-no, but if someone want to give us a testimonial, we're willing to use it. >You could even put the equivalent of an "IHGA" together to manage the >blacklist and publish a newsletter of relevant topics. > >But first and before any of this can happen, the ISPs need to grow up >and stop trying to poke eachother in the eyes with sticks and start >cooperating. Sadly, my perception of about 80% of the ISP market is >that they wouldn't paddle on the same side of the boat if they needed >to do so in order to escape an approaching tsunami, preferring instead >to drown rather than give eachother the time of day. <sigh> >That's not only sad, but if spammers take over the internet and break >it as a reasonable medium, it will be *solely* through poor business >practices (and even less ethics) like this, and the ISPs will be >squarely to blame for opening the gates to the barbarian hordes in >exchange for a piece of the action on their raping and pillaging. It is quite clear here that my resignation will be tendered minutes after I hear that we will support mass mailing. My only plea to other is to stop being used as a relay. Earthlink is going after CyberPromo, but they have yet to stop allowing relay. Ditto for Netcom. ------------------------------------------- Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator jeff@mixcom.net MIX Communications Serving the Internet since 1990
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