while i'm on the subject of filtering, here's today's list of spammers

Thu Feb 20 14:02:07 UTC 1997

On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Neil J. McRae wrote:

> On Thu, 20 Feb 1997 03:55:09 -0800 (PST) 
>  Tom Glover <tomg at boiled.egg.com> wrote:
> 
> > Yep, I'm concerned. I find the precedent frightening and the use of
> > "public" resources to satisfy a "private" goal to also be frightening.
> > Even though the "private" goal is admirable. 
> > 
> 
> Yep, I'm concerned. I find the precedent frightening, that the protection
> of a "public" resource is causing such attacking responses. Nobody
> wants to have to filter anyone, but its the el crapola ISP's that allow
> spamming and such to go on that makes the need for this. If Paul's
> filtering causes problems for the ISP then thats their tough luck, if
> they sort out their spammers then they wouldn't have this problem. It 
> might go along way to address this problem. I'm SICK of seeing the
> same make money fast post in the BIND, GATED and Ascend lists.
> Its easy to have a go at Paul but atleast he is trying to
> do something about it. If more people had his attitude then
> there wouldn't be any spamming. Put up or shut up people.
> 
> Regards,
> Neil.
> --

Thanks, Neil. I largely agree with you. Perhaps I'm hoping there is a
better way. Perhaps there isn't. It appears to me that a discussion of
what those ways might be could prove productive. It certainly has a better
chance of proving so than slamming Paul for taking a position, and, I
repeat, an admirable one at that. As an ISP I have had my share of SPAMs
originating from misguided and malevolent (I differentiate between the
two) customers. The malevolent ones have their accounts terminated
immediately and the misguided ones get a warning (only one). Problem is
that they simply move their accounts to another unsuspecting ISP and do
the same thing all over again. What are the legal implications of putting
up a Web site with the names, addresses, phone numbers etc. of customers
(not just sites) who have SPAMmed? Then when I get a new customer I can
check him against that Web site. I've considered doing that but am
concerned about the legalities. Perhaps this already exists. If so, where? 

Like you, and many others, I've become very worried about SPAM and recent
malevolent customer actions from one of my sites created all kinds of
problems. I took care of it immediately but not before sites targeted me
without even giving me a chance to explain. That's non-productive. I'm
also quite sure the schmuck who perpetrated the SPM simply went to another
ISP and will do the same thing again. That indicates the ISPs need to work
smarter together to avoid this.

Sorry for rambling on the NANOG list but I'm getting frustrated over this.
If anyone wants to continue this discussion with me let's take it offline.

--
Regards,
Tom
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