Reporting Little Blue Men

Wed Jan 21 22:38:10 UTC 1998

Dean Anderson <dean at av8.com> writes:
> <snip>
> There are several laws being violated, but
> the FBI basically isn't getting involved in the spam wars.  The first
> violators were the anti-spammers who put in the blocking. The second
> violators were the spammers who use relaying to get around that.
> Anti-spammers are illegally intercepting (blocking) electronic
> communications, and reading email, and the spammers are illegally exceeding
> their authorization to access computers.  The anti-spammers are illegally
> preventing access to computers and networks engaged in interstate commerce.
> Anti-spammers illegally exceed their authority to cancel usenet messages.

	Its bad enough that we have to put up with non-operational
	banter on the NANOG list, but having to deal with morons is
	particularly offensive.  The court has already upheld the
	right of ISPs to block spam, and the right of ISPs to sue
	spammers on behalf of their subscribers.

	The following is an excerpt from a case on the ACLU's web site at
	http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/updates/nov13clu.html :

		"A District Court in Pennsylvania has ruled that AOL
		is not a state actor subject to the First Amendment,
		and therefore can block unsolicited commercial e-mail
		(spam).  ...  Judge Weiner found that there were no
		disputes over the facts of the case, and issued a
		summary judgment opinion.  He held that AOL is not a
		state actor, and is not working in conjunction with the
		government.  As a wholly private actor, AOL is not
		required to open its network to Cyberpromo, and is
		therefore within its rights to block e-mail from the
		Cyberpromo's domains."

	If you really think spam does not hurt anybody, try explaining
	to your 10 year old daughter why she keeps getting email for
	"hot pussy sites" in her mail box -- this is something that a
	child should never have to deal with.  For this reason,
	US Net provides one of the largest anti-spam filter lists
	on the Internet, and we gladly help other ISPs in tightening
	their mail systems down so they can eliminate nearly all spam
	coming to their site.  Our list is available via email auto
	responder at spamlist at us.net -- over 700 ISPs pull this list
	regularly to block spam.  Filters can not stop all spam, but
	they can have a dramatic impact on the amount of spam that
	actually gets through to your site.

	While Paul's BGP feed is excellent for blocking spam, we can
	not use it because our customers demand being able to get to
	the "entire Internet".  Instead, we use filters to block mail
	coming to dial-up customers, and we provide information and
	tools to help our network customers kill spam on their own
	mail servers.  We are working hard to make the Internet a
	*much* smaller place for spammers ...

	Dave Stoddard
	US Net Incorporated
	301-572-5926
	dgs at us.net