Re: XSServer / Taking down a spam friendly provider

[William Pitcock <nenolod () systeminplace net>]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:22:53 -0400
Chris <caldcv () gmail com> wrote:

> > McColo and Atrivo were disconnected for much larger sins than
> > spamming someone's wordpress blog.
>
> Many of you do not understand the scope of "just spamming a Wordpress
> blog".

I do understand the scope of shady SEO companies.

> This is a huge business. Shady "SEO" companies are charging
> individuals at least $250 per month to use their spam tools of choice
> to spam forums and Wordpress blogs. I got one of the major players on
> the run right now because he cannot seem to keep his "business page"
> hosted with a company longer than a few weeks and I keep playing
> whack-a-mole with him.

McColo and Atrivo were not terminated because of spam.  If you believe
they are, then you are simply misinformed.  Atrivo and McColo were
terminated over their network being used extensively for botnet
control centers.

Really!  Not spam!

> Guess what? Innocent people's websites are being deranked on Google
> for hiring these guys with their shady backlink services and their
> money is being taken.

Bummer.  Indeed, it sucks to be them.  Newsflash: only morons hire
"SEO companies."  Perhaps Google is just working on increasing
relevance quality by penalizing them for being morons.  I would say it
is a brilliant strategy, myself.

> Yes I know they got what they deserved, but it's so obvious with
> these backlink guys using cheap virtual private servers for a month,
> getting shutdown and getting a new IP address that something needs to
> be done.

Ok, and when they go to another budget VPS provider other than
XSServer?  I am just wondering if you have a strategy for that
scenario.  Will you come and whine on NANOG about that provider too?

> XSServer could have simply amused me with a default auto reply to make
> it look like they are doing something.

Wow, thanks for the pro tip.  You're telling me that if I just replace
my abuse () systeminplace net contact with an autoresponder that most
people will just assume that we are "doing something" and I can go and
spend all my time on hookers and booze instead of terminating spammers?

Shit.  Why didn't anyone tell me earlier?

> > Will your host allow you to block IP ranges?
>
> Not the solution I was looking for because blocking IP ranges and
> using scripts / services / etc like Akismet or others is simply
> ignoring the problem, not solving it.
>
> For folks who say hosting companies are not helpful: Linode, Amazon,
> BurstNET, Ubiquity Servers and others are extremely responsive to
> abuse complaints.

William