North American Network Operators Group

Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical

Re: surge in spam email (fwd)

  • From: Derek J. Balling
  • Date: Wed Aug 09 20:26:25 2000

At 3:54 PM -0700 8/9/00, Nicole Harrington. wrote:
The real need is to crack down on the websites and email domains that they are
promoting. 99% of which are here in the US.
Abovenet for one.. albeit a little gung ho, will shutdown any website
advertised in a spam unless the owner can prove it wasn't them who did or
authorized the spam. Unfortunatly, this is what is needed in most cases.
Not to sound dense... how do you prove that you DIDN'T pay someone to spam for you?

Me: See, here's my company's bank statements, we didn't pay them a thing.
AboveNet: You could have paid cash.
Me: See, here's my personal bank statement.
AboveNet: What's this ATM transaction? What did you use that cash there for?
Me: That was to have some spending cash at the ballpark.
AboveNet: Do You have receipts for the refreshments to show that this money had nothing to do with the spam?
...etc.

While I commend the anti-spam attitude, "prove you had nothing to do with it" is impossible, meaning "if you're an abovenet customer, your connectivity is subject to the whim of any spammer you piss off somehow who decides to get you kicked off by spamming your name around the world."

(Presuming that your statement re: abovenet's policy is an accurate synopsis)

D