Re: Lawsuit threat against RBL users

["Steven J. Sobol" <sjsobol () nacs net>]

On Thu, Nov 19, 1998 at 09:26:01AM +0000, BrandonButterworth wrote:

> Some people don't know where to draw the line though, is it just the ISP
> that hosts the site or all sites linked to that site and so
> on until there isn't a net?

The answer, IMHO...  in all of these cases Provider X should shut down
the dialup account.

Case 1. If it's a spam on Provider X advertising a website hosted by
Provider X, Provider X should shut down the website, thus removing the
spammer's reason to spam.

Case 2. If it's a spam on Provider X advertising a site hosted on Provider
Y, Provider Y should shut down the website, thus removing the spammer's
reason to spam.

Case 3. If it's a spam on Provider X advertising a site hosted on Provider Y
that clicks through to a site on Provider Z, Providers Y and Z should
shut down the offending web sites IF AND ONLY IF it is obvious that the Y
page exists to try to shield the site hosted on Z from people who aren't
paying attention.

This is as far as it should ever go, and you have to be extremely careful
with Case 3.

> This isn't hypothetical as we've been in that position, a spammers
> site had a link to ours (and attached a copy of that page to a spam)
> so one spamee decided we must be spammers too and filtered us.
>
> As an innocent 3rd party who has no control over who links to our site
> (or mentions it in spam) it becomes a simple DOS (lets make a site that
> links to the top 100 web sites and make up a spam)

Yes, if you're just filtering blindly because you see something linked
to a spamvertized site, it does end up becoming a major problem.


-- 
Steve Sobol [sjsobol () nacs net]
Part-time Support Droid [support () nacs net]
NACS Spaminator [abuse () nacs net]

Spotted on a bumper sticker: "Possum. The other white meat."