How to Handle ISPs Who Turn a Blind Eye to Criminal Activity?

Fri Oct 12 21:23:15 UTC 2007

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- -- Mike Lewinski <mike at rockynet.com> wrote:

>On a side note, now that I've gotten back on -post.... I will say that 
I've had pretty dismal experiences working with Law Enforcement over the 
years as a service provider. When you have to explain to the Feds just 
what IRC (for example) is, you've lost the battle :( After repeated 
attempts at getting what seems to be blatant criminal activity 
investigated, a provider might start to think "If Law Enforcement 
doesn't care, why should I?" (I've avoided falling into that trap, but 
it is frustrating to boot someone for illegal activities and see them go 
on to pull the same thing at another provider even after providing 
evidence to authorities.).
>

Exactly.

Sometimes I think to myself that "...ISPs have Terms of Service and
Acceptable Use Policies, so they have the scope and tools they need
to boot a 'customer" who break the rules."

But all too often, it would appear, the potential loss of revenue
seems to win out over enforcing those policies.

And as you say, if the ISP boots them, they just set up shop elsewhere.

So, back to my original question: If you alert an ISP that "bad and
possibly criminal" activity is taking place by one of their customer,
and they do not take corrective action (even after a year), what do
you do?

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/