http://meshier.com/spamhaus.html
I don't have a take either way - I've lost real hours to the spamming fucks that have tried to commandeer this BBS for their own purposes. There isn't a perfect solution. People just aren't making this shit up to slander Spamhaus, it's more likely that they've fucked up a few times. That being said, I don't particularly believe that the average ISP would act if Spamhaus didn't wield the amount of power that they do, so this is best it's going to get.
Becoming what you oppose http://www.jetcafe.org/dave/usenet/dheditorial6.html
Editorial by Dave Hayes
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Many folks have asked me why I stopped "contributing" to the everlasting debates in NANA (news.admin.net-abuse.*). I generally respond with something along the lines of "I don't wish to become that which I oppose". Indeed, recently I've "plonked" several entities (among them the terrorists known as "spamhaus" and "spews") simply because I no longer wish to beat my head against the stone wall of ignorance.
Terrorists? Yes that's right. One definition of "terrorism" is "attacking innocents in the name of your cause". Nowhere is this more ironic and extreme than in the deeds of my old nemesi, the anti-spammer zealotry collective, some of whom are now known as spamhaus and spews. The terrorism they practice is implemented in the form of "mail blacklists".
Blacklists are not a new notion. In the 1950's, the infamous McCarthy blacklists contained names of "possible communists", which ultimately led us to a more sterile culture.
The social costs of what came to be called McCarthyism have yet to be computed. By conferring its prestige on the red hunt, the state did more than bring misery to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Communists, former Communists, fellow travelers, and unlucky liberals. It weakened American culture and it weakened itself. ---Victor Navasky, Naming Names (New York: Viking Press, 1980)
Modern internet technology has created our own version(s) of social blacklists. Many anti-spam zealots have turned to this method for freeing their mailboxes from spam. Simply expressed, these organizations maintain databases which are supposed to contain the IP addresses of known spammers. They then provide these databases to various electronic mail servers, so that the servers can reject email based on what's in these databases.
The bottom line is, if the machine that sends your email is on this list, a number of mail servers will automatically reject all email from your server.
If (and only if) they restricted these blacklists to actual spammers, I doubt very seriously that I would have problem with this practice. If we could trust human beings to maintain a logical and calm viewpoint about life, I doubt that I would have a problem with these blacklists. Unfortunately we cannot trust these things in either case.
Fact: Spamhaus and spews have added innocent IP blocks to their blacklists.
The anti-spammer idealotry goes like this: "Anyone who gets service from a network friendly to spammers is supporting the spammers and therefore our enemy." (The friend of my enemy is my enemy too?)
So here's how this goes. Once a network provider is branded "a communist"...er excuse me..."a spammer", ALL of their IP ranges are blocked. Typically a network provider is providing services for smaller service providers, many of whom would never and have never engaged in spamming of any kind. No notice is really given on these blacklisting events, rather you find out when mail starts bouncing to some destination. Usually an end customer is the first to notice, and that customers is directed by the bounce to complain to...their own ISP!
In essence, the customer is tricked into presenting the terrorist anti-spam agenda to the ISP. The ISP turns around and finds out that -their- provider (or provider's provider) is what the anti-spam zealots want "silenced". Until that target complies with their arbitrary agenda (usually of the form "stop spamming", but this is not always true...see below), everyone else has to suffer with electronic mail blocks.
What's wrong with this? Everything.
First and foremost, the most often heard reason anti-spammers are so rabid about anti-spam is "it makes electronic mail unusable for average people". If this is true, then how does blocking innocent email help this situation? In fact, blacklisting innocents contributes to the problem. The hypocrisy here is so thick I doubt even a knife can cut it.
The dishonor of the practice of blacklists is amazing. Many naive internet mail administrators add blacklists like spamhaus "because they work to reduce spam". Lots of these sites have no idea that they are being cut off from legitimate email because of these machinations. If their customers really knew that they were cutoff, I wonder how many would still buy service? Getting rid of spam is one thing, blocking that key business email that means $100K in sales is quite another.
Lets take this one step further. Person A buys email service from ISP X who is using Spamhaus to block spam email. Person A's daughter, who's income is very low due to being a student in college, buys email service from ISP Y (because it's cheap) who uses IAP S as their connectivity. ISP Y buys network from IAP S because it's cheap. Due to real life constraints, the only contact Person A has with their daughter is email.
IAP S suddenly gets put on the anti-spam master blacklist. The same day, Person A's daughter has a car accident. A roommate desperately tries to send email to Person A but it's blocked. Worse, it's blocked because these zealots have an idealogical cause which is set up to be more important than a person's life. This is the height of dishonor.
The practice is quite criminal by many definitions and with criminals on all sides:
Any ISP that is blocked is told to "comply with our demands or be blacklisted" (a.k.a. extortion).
Attacking innocents in the name of their cause (a.k.a. terrorism).
Since the control of the blacklist is out of the hands of the service provider who subscribes to it, by law you must clearly state "random people may be blocked to your email box by other people who are not under our control" before selling "email services". I've never seen this stated on any ISP ad. (a.k.a false advertising)
Blacklisting ISPs is a good way of knocking them out of business (a.k.a restraint of trade)
If spam ever goes away, these organizations will also. Thus they have a vested interest in keeping spam alive (a.k.a playing both sides of the street)
Do note that the anti-spammers claim these practices are not criminal and will "reduce economic support for the 'spam friendly' ISPs". This claim is quite erroneous:
Fact: Spammer companies have far more money than most innocents.
Yep, to the tune of millions of dollars per month. SPAM is big business. Do you think that the income of one little ISP with 1000 customers is going to make any difference against the large income of a spam company? No! All that does is clear more bandwidth for the spammers to use, should the little ISP cave in and switch to another provider.
While there's no proof (that I'm aware of), it's not so far fetched to open up questions of collusion between "the providers that are anti-spam" and the "anti-spam blacklists". Certain providers, to compete, may pay the blacklist groups lots of money to keep attacking innocents, which gets them more customers in the long run as ISPs fold because they cant afford the connectivity provided by the "anti-spam supporter" providers.
I've established some things here:
In my opinion, blacklists are bad.
The anti-spammers are resorting to clearly criminal activities to further their goals: extortion, restraint-of-trade, terrorism.
The effect the anti-spammers are trying to have by blocking innocents only works to destroy email connectivity, the cure is worse than the disease.
This brings me to my concluding point. The original complaint against spammers included accusations of being criminal. Most spammers are considered criminal. Yet look at the anti-spammers! In their undying eternal zeal to end spam, they have become just what they oppose! Criminals and email destroyers. Gee, isn't this what they call the spammers?
The aware person realizes that fighting something only makes it stronger. Indeed, when you see two people rabidly on one side or the other, it's very hard to distinguish the two. They almost appear to be the same person, willing to commit any atrocity for the sake of their ideology or economics. What more do I need to know?
So, in a roundabout way, that's why I don't participate. I've done my days of tilting at windmills. I've presented my pearls, but the swine didn't hear any of them. They've misrepresented my position countless times for their own agendas, failed to understand even the most basic of the concepts I've explained, and twisted what I've said to make me out to be something I am not. ("Spam supporter"...lol)
I have finally realized that it has less to do with the ability to understand, it's mostly that they are not willing to understand. So in that climate I should once again venture forth into that primal never-ending argumentia that is NANA?
No. I'm sorry. I have far better things to do.
Dave Hayes
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Why we HATE Spamhaus. http://www.qdsecurity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=31
Yes, that's right. We hate SpamHaus... and we're an anti-spam campaigning security company!
Today we have been unable to deliver download links, product information, client emails and technical support to our customers because SpamHaus has blocked our entire IP range. Not only does this cause delays in answering emails, it also causes financial loss to our legitimate, spam free, business.
For those not familiar with SpamHaus, they're an organization that maintains a 'Black List' of servers that have been sending spam.
Now, don't get us wrong. We hate spam. Filtering through thousands of Viagra, mortgage, dating and other garbage emails isn’t our idea of fun, but these anti-spam vigilantes take preventing spam too far.
Here's the problem with SpamHaus:
When a single server sends spam, SpamHaus doesn't just block that server. SpamHaus blocks the entire network. SpamHaus blocks the entire IP range, that’s up to 255 separate servers. This means up to 254 business suddenly loose their ability to communicate via email. This is like locking 254 business out of a shared high rise office building because one business was making annoying calls. Hardly fair.
According to SpamHaus, once a single IP is blocked 'There can be no functioning web site, mail or DNS server still serving.'
Frankly, we wouldn't be surprised to see SpamHaus defending themselves against a class action for financial losses due to their service.
When it comes to SpamHaus, the solution is worse than the problem.
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If you actually want to stop spam, without ruining businesses, using something like Spam Monitor (http://www.qdsecurity.com/securitystore ... nitor.html).
NCIAA
USA
1 Posts
Posted - 07/22/2005 : 08:30:09
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The NCIAA is interested in joining this effort. Any party interested in filing this action has our complete support! Steve Linwood has blatantly admitted to using spamhaus for his own personal blacklist. His practice of intercepting and blocking mail has now reached the Music Industry and will NOT be tolerated. According to the FBI Spamhaus is under US Investigation. For those interested in initiating a class action suit, and the siezure of their assets please contact the NCIAA at (212) 213-5900 x 111
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http://www.paulgraham.com/spamhaussbl.html
(I received this mail from a small ISP. The sender asked me to omit his name for fear of retribution.)
I manage a small ISP that for years utilized Spamhaus's SBL list. We have been in the ISP business since 1995 and thanks to this we managed to buy our IP netblock when they could be purchased, not leased like now.
We recently leased IPs off of our network to opt-in marketers. Later we found out these guys were some of the biggest spammers on the planet. (They were represented by a third party concealing their identity until the mailings started.)
The IP addresses they were operating from were removed from our network, swip'd to them and were routing though big name global network providers. As soon as we started receiving UCE complaints we began recovering the IPs back to our network. One of the clients managed to delay our attempts for a couple of months due to a poorly written lease arrangement and an old AUP policy. We could stop spammers inside our network but not when the IPs were hosted on someone else's network. At long last we did manage to get the lessee off the IP range and recover the IPs but the damage was done.
Now we have been labeled by Spamhaus as a "spam support service" though according to their own definitions this label does not apply. We won't even talk about the incorrect, borderline slander that was posted by Spamhaus regarding our company in its SBL entry. We have been blacklisted for what we have been led to believe is a six month period and are losing customers daily.
Spamhaus Spam Support Service Definition:
Services providing 'bullet-proof' hosting for spam service purposes, serving 'spamware' sites, or knowingly providing services for spam service purposes.
We did not provide any hosting services, we served no sites at all (spamware or otherwise), and we did not "knowingly" provide service for spam service purposes.
In reality when we found these guys were providing spam services, we alerted Spamhaus to the range it was coming from and reclaimed the IPs as quickly as possible. Barring any legal matters. What we got from Spamhaus in response to this was an upgraded blacklist entry that encompassed our entire netblock. All 16k IPs, not just the couple hundred the spam was coming from. Their response, "When an ISP contacts us about a spam source we just go ahead and blacklist all of the IPs the ISP owns/leases."
According to their De-listing policy:
IPs are removed immediately from the SBL upon receipt of notification from the IP owner (Internet Service Provider) that the spamming activity has been terminated.
RIGHT!
Our ISP is celebrating 10 years in business serving our local market. We have never allowed spam from our network and will not. We have adopted Spamhaus's AUP in good faith as it covers any issues and ISP could find itself dealing with. We alerted Spamhaus to this and a few other things and basically what we got back from them was this: we believe that for the right money the owner of the IPs would lease them out again, but if you keep yourself clean for 6 months we will release the block on your IPs.
Now it gets even better. After reclaiming all of our IPs back from their swip'd locations we took steps to lease IPs from our upstream so that Spamhaus could continue to block our IPs and our legitimate user mail could be delivered without blacklisting by Spamhaus. This worked great for about 3 weeks. Until we found that Spamhaus had blocked our upstream provider's IPs in relation to our blocked IPs. Once again, no spam has ever come from our servers, save occasional users with Virus/Trojan infected machines. So why did Spamhaus block these IPs? We don't know.
So we made arrangements to send our mail to a relay server, a closed relay server that only allows mail for relay from our mail server. Now the mail server that was allowing us to relay through them is blocked also.
So we continue to lose clients who have been with us for 10 years because one man has decided, in his opinion, that we are a spam support service.
http://www.paulgraham.com/spamhausblacklist.html
June 2005
In 1997, a group of anti-spam vigilantes called MAPS started a blacklist of mail servers owned by or compromised by spammers. Mail server administrators could use this list to block sources of spam. At least, that was what most of them thought they were getting.
The problem was, as vigilantes so often do, the guys at MAPS got carried away. They started to include servers on the list that they knew weren't sources of spam, to pressure whoever owned the server to do what they wanted. For example, in order to get revenge on people they believed were spamming, MAPS would blacklist the mail server of the company hosting their site.
MAPS knew these mail servers weren't spam sources. But they'd blacklist them anyway. Everyone else sharing that server would then have their mail blocked. And MAPS could insist that the hosting company delete the site of the (supposed) spammer as the price of all the ISP's other, innocent, users having their mail unblocked.
This is, strictly speaking, terrorism: harming innnocent people as a way to pressure some central authority into doing what you want.
The innocent people whose mail got blocked as a result of this kind of trick weren't "collateral damage." They weren't harmed by accident. It was in order to harm these innocent people, and thus put pressure on their ISP, that MAPS blacklisted them.
This kind of tactic gradually brought MAPS into disrepute. Most mail server administrators dropped their list and switched to another blacklist, the Spamhaus SBL, which was created specifically to avoid MAPS-style abuses. They were only going to list real spammers. And for a couple years they did.
Unfortunately, as so often happens, power corrupted them. About a year ago, I started to hear reports that Spamhaus was starting to use the same tactics MAPS had.
John Reid of Spamhaus told me this wasn't true-- that the SBL was still clean, and that they only blacklisted hosting companies' mail servers when they were spam hosts who took on innocent users as camouflage:
The sad fact is, some of these "spammer friendly hosts" will also try load up with as many non-spammers as they can to try and show legitimacy. We try at all costs to avoid listing legit places and people, and only if the host tells us or shows us in no uncertain terms that they don't plan to cease hosting spammers will we list them in their entirety.
I wanted to believe him. But before I could reply to his mail, I got first-hand evidence that the SBL has in fact gone bad.
As of this writing, any filter relying on the SBL is now marking email with the url "paulgraham.com" as spam. Why? Because the guys at the SBL want to pressure Yahoo, where paulgraham.com is hosted, to delete the site of a company they believe is spamming.
This clearly contradicts what John Reid wrote in his email to me. Yahoo is not a "spam friendly" ISP that takes on a few innocent users to "show legitimacy." And Spamhaus knows it. Of the tens of thousands of sites Yahoo hosts, how many do they claim have spammed? Two.
This case illustrates an important failing of blacklists. Unlike filters, they're run by humans. And humans are all too likely to abuse the kind of power that blacklists embody. Perhaps someone will start another blacklist that tries to avoid such abuses. But how long before that one becomes corrupt too?
No doubt this particular case will get sorted out, and mail containing my url will stop getting blocked. But this example is enough to prove that the whole idea of blacklists is broken. Blacklists have a structural flaw: there is no one to watch the watchers.
Clarification: Many people seem to assume that Spamhaus merely blacklisted the IP address of a single spammer's site. In fact, as well as the spammer's IP address they also blacklisted 66.163.161.45, aka store.yahoo.com, which is shared by thousands of Yahoo stores.
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