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

Sat Oct 13 21:27:25 UTC 2007

Sean Donelan wrote:

> I don't know of any ISP that regularly (i.e. more than once) refuses to
> obey lawful orders of authorities in the relevant jurisdiction to take
> action.

No disagreement there, but take a look at the wording. "orders of
authorities". Inference: It's ok if someone I'm leasing bandwidth
to is spamming, sending out DoS attacks, child pornography. I don't
have any subpoenas, therefore I won't take any actions.

> The number of complaints isn't proof.

> Should ISPs be responsible for the network stuff (traceability,
> disruption of service, etc) and let the appropriate authorities enforce
> the laws of each jurisdiction?

Scenario:

I run silsdomain.com which is leasing facilities in donelanNetworks.com
My infrastructure consists of insecure servers which have been
compromised and are now:

1) sending spam
2) housing malware
3) running botnets
4) hosting child porn

Concerned networker, individual, anyone contacts admins at donelanNetworks.com:

------

Dear Donelan Network Admins,

We've been trying to get in touch with someone at silsdomain.com which
is being hosted from your IP space. It has come to our attention that
silsdomain has been carrying out illicit and illegal activities. We've
attempted to contact someone directly at silsdomain to no avail and we
have yet to receive resolution, we are now attempting to contact you
in hopes of curtailing some of these activities.

Sincerely,
Someone else on the Internet

------

My inference from your message is, the appropriate response to an
email or letter like this would be:

------

Dear Someone else on the Internet,

What you may see as child porn, others may see as art. What you may
think of botnet traffic, we've labeled academic penetration testing.
What you may view as spam, we view as opt-out redirection to opt-in.
What you view as malware, we view as enhanced features in Windows
that offers you advertisements and the weather.

We appreciate you contacting us however we are only a network
provider and not an authority on law enforcement. So while child
porn may be illegal in the US let us not forget in Japan it is
ok to bed underage children.

Please contact overwhelmed law enforcement authorities chasing
terrorists and provide them with the information necessary to
assess your claim.

Sincerely
DonelanNetworks Staff.

------

So let me not distort this any more than my own interpretation
of your message. I understand the need for certain traffic to
go through networks as evil as some traffic may be, perhaps
there is an investigation already under way and sites are being
left opened in hopes of "catching bigger fish". I also know
factually that there are individuals in this industry who care
about nothing more than making quarterly earnings and keeping
their accounts in order.

Personally, if I were a business owner, I would attempt my
best to keep my networks in order and ensure that traffic being
sent *from* my network to the world wasn't tainted in any
shape form or fashion. What goes around comes around... Keep
turning a blind eye to issues like botnets and spam... When
the poop hits the fan and you are forced to curtail these
activities when you've knowingly allowed them, they'll turn
right back around and haunt you.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
J. Oquendo
echo @infiltrated|sed 's/^/sil/g;s/$/.net/g'
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x1383A743

"I hear much of people's calling out to punish the
guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the
innocent." Daniel Defoe