Internet providers cut off host of spam e-mail

[RamboLiberal]

Source: LA Times

Reporting from Washington -- The volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide may have dropped drastically Wednesday after a San Jose Web-hosting firm, identified by many in the computer security community as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity, was taken offline.

McColo Co., which computer security experts say serves as a U.S. staging ground for international firms that sell items including counterfeit pharmaceuticals and child pornography, ceased operations after two Internet providers blocked Web access.

SecureWorks, an Atlanta security-services provider, estimates that McColo was responsible for 75% of all spam sent in the U.S. each day.

-----

Paul Ferguson, a threat researcher with computer security firm Trend Micro, said that despite the actions by McColo's Internet providers, U.S. authorities should have looked into the company and its customers a long time ago.

"There is damning evidence that this activity has been going on there for way too long, and plenty of people in the security community have gone out of their way to raise awareness about this network," he said. "It's a statement on the inefficiencies of trying to pursue legal prosecution of these guys that it takes so long for anything to be done about it."


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spam13-2008nov13,0,226322.story

---

As the IT person in my company :bounce:! Be curious to take a look at the stats on my spam filter this week.

[Ghost Dog]

1. Where there's a will, there's a way.

My Spam filter has noticed. :thumbsup:

[cliffordu]

2. YAY!!!!!!

[Endangered Specie]

3. Now they just need to be lined up and shot....

kidding of course, but I really do hate spam

[awoke_in_2003]

5. They should be lined up

and forced to eat Spam. Wait, shooting them may be more humane :)

[jb5150]

6. Spam is very tasty

Dice it up and add it to macaroni and cheese.

[Doctor Cynic]

4. But I got 27 spam emails in the past 2 days!

[flyingfysh]

15. you're complaining about 27?

Sometimes I get over 200 in a day.

[bunner]

7. spam

my spam went way down-thank god

[Festivito]

8. Without court order? Might they someday block DU for other reasons?

We jumped for joy when a drug dealer gets caught making deals with a cell phone that gets picked up by a TV receiver. RESULT: We have no phone privacy from Bush when using a cell phone. Then we got less, because Bush picked up land-line calls also, but at least illegally.

Now, these guys stop this spammer. Great. But, why did they take so long? Why did no one take the case to a court with so much time and evidence involved?

They can just stop anyone at anytime for whatever reason they choose?

I just wonder a lot, is all.

[JimDandy]

11. Because there'll be a new sheriff in town soon.

All the sudden a lot of agencies are doing what they should have done for the last eight years. Are they feeling empowered or scared?

[Festivito]

25. This was not an agency, it was a commercial ISP. /nt

[blondeatlast]

27. A business can choose to provide, or not provide, services to whomever they choose.

That's why DU can block trolls at will.

People need to understand CLEARLY that the First Amendment applies only to the government. Period.

I'm an ex-librarian and this confusion makes my head hurt!

[Festivito]

32. Can local energy supplier cut you for being black or Hindu?

No.

These ISPs rely on government supplied and nurtured internet backbones.

No, they should not be able to deny my access to DU because they find it "controversial."

[blondeatlast]

37. No, but I can choose to go with a solar-energy supplier rather than Arizona Public Service if I so

choose.

The spam company can choose another hosting service. Since I am an APS customer, they can refuse to serve me if I use their power to resell it to others.

[Festivito]

38. Not if APS cuts trunk service to SES.

They just refuse to service SES. (Solar-energy Supplier)

Next, the reason they can "refuse to serve" you if you resell is that, that action is regulated, you'd be in the wrong, and if you went to court to regain your right to service, the court would laugh at you, the court cannot return your right to service knowing you would go back to breaking the law.

[blondeatlast]

39. You're right, I'm wrong (or vv), but I still side with the ISP. It might actually take a court

to determine which of us is correct--which is exactly as it should be.

I think it's okay for a business to refuse to serve another business that hurts OTHER businesses that business A provides legitimate service to.

With what I know, I suspect that you win. I'm fine with that, but if so, I don't like that precedent.

I happen to like stringently-regulated capitalism, but capitalism nonetheless.

[Festivito]

40. or vice versa-LOL. I dislike precedent putting corp.s over my vote.

Our democracy should be the power in charge over any corporation in our jurisdiction. That is regulated capitalism.

Capitalism was never in question here.

My view is that pure socialism is like pure capitalism, they both end in tyranny. We must have a mix. Whether that mix has capitalism curbed by social democracy concerns, or socialism curbed by capital democracy concerns is immaterial.

What is of concern is corporations(Corpo-Tyrannous), in this case ISPs, overriding my right to due process when they decide to limit my right to communicate with others across their internet TUBES because they saw fit to deny someone whom we all realized needed no further right to due process.

Everyone deserves due process, even egregious email spammers, red-handed thieves, in-bed cheaters, and politicians in general.

Mein Gott! You have a lot of posts. 42508.

[blondeatlast]

44. In that case, for your sake, I hope they sue. In fact, in my case, I hope they sue.

Mein Gott! As it happens, I'm moving to Germany in a couple of months. what an interesting observation, though; even I didn't know that.

[jmowreader]

46. You may want to choose a different example...

What you're talking about is called submetering. It's legal and in some markets--apartment buildings, mobile home parks and commercial buildings come to mind--the utility prefers to do business this way. Instead of sending separate bills to everyone in the complex, reading a bunch of meters and maybe taking it in the shorts when someone runs up the electric bill then flees in the middle of the night, they send the property manager one bill and he charges the tenants for their share of the bill. And yes, it's legal to sell the electricity at a profit.

[Regret My New Name]

42. It's not illegal to be black, hindu or surf DU...

However, if it was illegal (however wrong it would be) then the issue wouldn't be with the company but rather the laws in place. Thus the problem would be more with the laws than with the company who took the action.

Now, I would also hope that law enforcement are also looking into the people behind the illegal activity.

[thesquanderer]

16. No court order needed

re: "They can just stop anyone at anytime for whatever reason they choose?"

Yes. But remember, the "they" here isn't the government, it's the ISPs. You have a TOS with your ISP, and if they think you're violating them, they can shut you down, they don't need a court order. It's a private service, which they are not obligated to provide to you.

From what it sounds like, the company's ISPs cut them off after being alerted to all the spam complaints and/or the type of spam complaints traced to them (which presumably violated TOS). Once the company lost their ISPs, they shut their doors, as they had no means by which to market their service. I suppose the company, if they feel they were wrongly accused of violating TOS, could sue the ISPs for unfairly cutting them off and wrecking their business, if they wanted to go to court. But if their business was illegal and/or they did violate TOS, they would lose. Presumably that being the case, the sensible path was to shut their doors.

[Festivito]

26. My point is that it is not democracy/government.

When I send an email, do I have to agree to each carrier's TOS. I don't think so.

Suppose, for example, all email are routed through the neo-CON website whose TOS says they get to read, edit and send your email if they feel like it. WOULD YOU AGREE TO THAT? Have you, just by sending an email.

It should be handled by regulation, not by willy nilly corporate decision making.

[thesquanderer]

41. seems like a reach

The spam wasn't merely "going through" these ISP's servers (I mean, all spam goes through a lot of places on its way from its source to your mailbox)... This company was using their account with these two ISPs to generate tons of spam and/or illegal content. It is therefore within the rights of the ISPs to terminate service to this company for violating the TOS that was specifically agreed to when that company signed up with that ISP. At least that's how it seems to be. I don't see what's scary about it. If I started sending out tons of spam, I think my ISP would be within their rights to terminate my account, and I don't have a problem with that.

I'm just actually surprised that so much spam was even coming from a company hosted by a domestic ISP. I figured they would be using an off-shore ISP without the rules and regs. But maybe so much of that stuff is effectively blocked at the ISP level now that they had to go domestic?

[Xithras]

45. Umm...it's called freedom.

And as a business owner, I take serious issue with your point there. Through my company, I can choose to do business, or to not do business, with any other company I choose and for any reason I choose. As a timely example, I just asked one of my employees yesterday to dig through our client and supplier lists and to check and see if any were donors to the Yes on 8 campaign. If we find any, I plan on terminating any relationship with them. I CHOOSE to not do business with bigoted dirtbags. I am cutting them off for their political opinion (actually, if we find CLIENTS on the list, we're considering just raising prices on them and forwarding the new funds to gay rights groups...one of my employees suggested it).

What you call "willy nilly corporate decision making", I call the constitutionally protected right to free association.

If these companies decided that they didn't want to do business with spammers any longer, that was their right.

[Ghost Dog]

28. It's a matter of keeping the 'long arm of the law' well-regulated

and under the control of the People, isn't it.

ed. I'd be pretty sure, at least if this was Europe, that there'd be law-enforcement somewhere 'behind the scenes' here...

[Festivito]

34. Yes. That's how I see it. Europe? I don't know.

This country is about US having the right to regulate and judge US ourselves.

If we wish to delegate that to companies, fine, that can be our decision. I just don't think it is a good thing for us to do.

[barbtries]

9. i hope you report back

it would be great to see it gone. i've had a netidentity email account for over 10 years and i get 50 spam items for every valid piece of mail. i will be so happy to see that gone.

[HopeHoops]

10. Just a little trivia - "SPAM" is a contraction of "Spiced Ham"

This can be verified on the Hormel web site. Now the REALLY curious part: the only "spice" in SPAM is SALT!

[Ian David]

12. Bush's CAN-SPAM Act just made things worse.

Rather than allow the free-market to go after spammers, they removed the right of individuals to sue them, and left that ability in the hands of a few very large ISPs.

[Gman]

13. I was wondering if my email was working yesterday

this is great!

[lelgt60]

14. Read the LA Times article...not all good

First, as Festivito said, this appears to be an arbitrary corporate action by Global Crossing because of "malicious" activity. You could be next.

Second, some specialists now think it will be harder to filter SPAM because it will be coming from much more diverse locations.

Don't for a second think these people will go away.

[Miss Chybil]

21. There's always a down side isn't there?

But, you know what? Two days without spam is good for me. It's better than none. So, if they come back - hopefully, somebody will notice their malicious behavior again and shut them down again. I'm really not worried it could be me. I don't do spam and companies have the right to refuse service to anyone, anyway. So, don't be so doom and gloom. Celebrate, if only for a moment...

[Ghost Dog]

30. Hmm. So why isn't it just illegal, in US,

like in other jurisdictions?

[sellitman]

17. Shit...

There goes Rush's Oxycontin supply for the forseeable future. Same for his Viagra.

[Ghost Dog]

31. You mean I won't be able to "enlarge my penis"

any more? :silly:

ed. My first DUzy, please :)

[ArmeniansForObama]

18. Thanks for the post! I woke up this morning and thought, where's all my spam??

[MorningGlow]

19. It worked!

I only had 15 messages in my spam folder and 10 more in my inbox that Thunderbird didn't automatically identify as spam. AMAZING. I usually get three times as many as that overnight! :bounce: :woohoo: :bounce:

[Vidar]

20. YeeHaw!!! In honor of this momentous occasion, I off these humble lyrics:

Lovely spam, wonderful spa-a-m,
Lovely spam, wonderful S Spam,
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am,
Spa-a-a-a-a-a-a-am,
SPA-A-A-A-A-A-A-AM,
SPA-A-A-A-A-A-A-AM,
LOVELY SPAM, LOVELY SPAM,
LOVELY SPAM, LOVELY SPAM,
LOVELY SPA-A-A-A-AM...
SPA-AM, SPA-AM, SPA-AM, SPA-A-A-AM!

[Peacetrain]

22. Well now I will have to go check!! Anything that does not come

from a known source goes automatically into my garbage file, and is deleted automatically ever couple of days.

[Hawkeye-X]

23. We provide E-mail service for a small number of clients

and we were blocked by Barracuda a LOT.

Certainly to say - the clients of ours were PISSED.. and are still PISSED today about it - as we work hard to get our servers off the blacklists.

Hawkeye-X

[BlueJazz]

24. If it were up to this IT person, spam would be banned Period. The idea that...

..people receiving mail from their Loved Ones, Business partners or what have you, have to plow through
tons of "Enlarge your Dick 4 INCHES!!!" or "Ladies! Would you like to have HUGE TITS!" pisses me off to no end.

PLUS..it costs us all to have Companies wade thru that Bullshit.

I say Ban the whole Damn Mess....

[Ghost Dog]

35. It costs everyone a lot of time and money

as well as inconvenience and sometimes outright offense.

On a serious note, now we know who, among others, to sue: it was Global Crossing all this time until now.

[DS1]

29. Can we break their fingers and dunk their faces in acid baths, too?

They sure earned it

[DU GrovelBot]

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[slackmaster]

36. String the bastards up by the nuts and let them rot in the sun

:nuke:

[Regret My New Name]

43. I seem to rarley ever get spam these days...

Maybe 'cause I don't put my email address on every pretty web form I see. :P

[mattfromnossa]

47. Now someone needs to do something about

spambots. What a pain in the butt they are.