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Judge Rules In Favor Of Spamhaus

Posted by Zonk on Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:45 PM
from the yay-spam-for-everybody-wait dept.
Government Spam The Courts The Internet News
Waylon writes "U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras has ruled in favor of The Spamhaus Project. e360 Insight responded on its homepage, saying the judge's ruling was 'a devastating loss of personal freedom for all U.S. citizens'. As opposed to shutting down a voluntary service which tries to mitigate the millions of unsolicited emails that e360 Insight pumps out every single day." From the article: "In his order, Judge Kocoras wrote that the relief e360insight sought is 'too broad to be warranted in this case' and that suspending the domain name would 'cut off all lawful online activities of Spamhaus, not just those that are in contravention' of the default judgment. He also called e360insight's motion one that 'does not correspond to the gravity of the offending conduct.'"
+ -
story

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[+] Spamhaus Responds To Spammers' Lawsuit 464 comments
ShaiHulud-23 writes "A suit was recently filed by EMarketersAmerica.org, a fledgling secret organization of spammers, against the Spamhaus Project, (and other anti-spam sites) seeking to prevent the publication of the anonymous plaintiffs' IP addresses in the Spamhaus Block List (SBL). The suit requested a response from the named defendants, and Spamhaus director Steve Linford has provided one, dismantling the spammers' case point by point."
[+] IT: Spamhaus to Ignore $11.7M Judgement 471 comments
6031769 writes, "As reported on CNet, Spamhaus is choosing to ignore a judgement of $11.7M against them in an uncontested trial in an Illinois court. According to Spamhaus, the judgement has no impact on them, since they are a British organization." From the Spamhaus reply to the judgment: "Default judgments obtained in US county, state or federal courts have no validity in the UK and can not be enforced under the British legal system... As spamming is illegal in the UK, an Illinois court ordering a British organization to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to UK law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place."
[+] Perspectives on Spamhaus's Dilemma 420 comments
The Illinois court that told Spamhaus to stop blocking the spammer filing suit against them — an order which Spamhaus ignored — is now considering ordering ICANN to pull Spamhaus's domain records. While Gadi Evron, whose blog posting is linked above, urges everyone to beat the judge with a clue stick, a guest writer on his blog counsels much greater restraint. Anti-spam lawyer Matthew Prince explains how Spamhaus got into its current pickle — apparently by following conflicting legal advice at two points in the process — and what they might have to do to get out. One spamfighter of my acquaintance says that Spamhaus's SBL and XBL blocklists knock out 75% of the spam at his servers before it hits and requires more CPU-intensive filtering. If ICANN is ordered to unplug Spamhaus from the DNS, and does so, is the Net prepared to deal with a 4-fold increase in spam hitting MTAs overnight?
[+] IT: One Last Spamhaus Warning Before The End 632 comments
kog777 writes to mention that Spamhaus has released a final warning about an increase in junk email, as they prepare to lose their domain to an Illinois court ruling. From the article: "According to Spamhaus, more than 650 million Internet users - including those at the White House, the U.S. Army and the European Parliament - benefit from Spamhaus' 'blacklist' of spammers that helps identify which messages to block, send to a 'junk' folder or accept. Losing the domain name would make it more difficult for service providers and others to obtain the lists. 'If the domain got suspended, it would be an enormous hit for the Net,' said Steve Linford, Spamhaus' chief executive officer. 'It would create an enormous amount of damage on the Internet.'"
[+] IT: ICANN Grants Temporary Reprieve to Spamhaus 271 comments
daringone writes "ICANN released a statement that says they "...cannot comply with any order requiring it to suspend or place a client hold on Spamhaus.org or any specific domain name" They do, however leave the door open for the registrar that registered the domain name to then be forced to turn the lights off for Spamhaus."
[+] IT: Judge In e360 Vs. Comcast Rules e360 a Spammer 156 comments
Brielle Bruns writes "Yesterday, Judge James B. Zagel dismissed claims against Comcast by e360. In the decision, the judge says: 'Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer.' This clears the path for Comcast's counter-suit." e360 is the spammer that got a default judgement against Spamhaus, as we have discussed on numerous occasions.
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  • Way to go down kicking and screaming inanities...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jaygridley (1016588)
      Anyone notice that the case is referred to as Spamhaus v e360Insight on their main page? Kinda implies that they're the victim.

      • Re:"a devastating loss of personal freedom for..." (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BlogPope (886961) on Sunday October 22 2006, @12:30AM (#16533654)
        Well Spamhaus said their demise would be the end of the internet, so its basically kids in the play ground.

        Well, they are the ONLY Real Time Black list on the internet, which of course is the ONLY anti-spam measure available to mail admins, and I'm pretty sure email traffic volumes are orders of magnitude larger than other protocols, such as http & Bitorrent.

        So yeah, I agree with Slashdot in agreein with Spamhaus on the horros to be unleashed if this order had gone through.

  • Loss of personal freedom (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2006, @10:52PM (#16533288)
    e360 Insight responded on its homepage, saying the judge's ruling was 'a devastating loss of personal freedom for all U.S. citizens'.

    It's true! Our constitutional right to not be able to get a dns lookup on spamhus.org has been torn away from us. Why oh why does Judge Kocoras hate us so much? :(

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Geak (790376)
      Now we are going to need bigger tubes to handle all the extra internets that will be getting. Does anybody know this judges email address and perhaps have a copy of spamhaus's RBL? Perhaps the judge's email address should be handed over to every spammer in the RBL. Then he will need a bigger tube to handle all the extra internets he will be getting. Maybe he will buy some of the Viagra advertised in the internets so he can have a bigger tube.

  • Finally common sense, thank you (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dindi (78034) on Saturday October 21 2006, @10:55PM (#16533300) Homepage
    Oh well, it is nice to see that over rules and regulations sometimes common sense and the people behind it does not get punished.

    All i have to say about it after seeing 568 messages today in my mailbox. Yes, 2 is a valid mail, the rest is buy viagra and get a college degree scam.

    cheers

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by AgNO3 (878843)
      All i have to say about it after seeing 568 messages today in my mailbox. Yes, 2 is a valid mail, the rest is buy viagra and get a college degree scam.

      cheers


      College degree Scam??? You mean I am not really a Ph.D.?

  • Damned activist judges... (Score:5, Funny)

    by chill (34294) on Saturday October 21 2006, @10:58PM (#16533316) Homepage Journal
    ...making law from the bench! This one ruling for some fooreen company over a good-old, red, white and blue U.S. homegrown! How dare he! Probably a Democrat and communist, too.

    What?

    Spam? Yeah, it is good with a little cheese and...

    Oh, THAT stuff!? Those guys need to be publically whipped and castrated! There ought to be a law that protects decent citizens from all that perverted material arriving in your mailbox without asking. I mean, one visit to whitehouse.com, fill in one little form and give 'em one little credit card and all of a sudden I get this crap in my mailbox! What if my kid opens my email?

    Won't somebody please think of the children?

  • More at stake than just SPAM... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chabil Ha' (875116) on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:01PM (#16533324)
    I really think that the judge realized that more was at stake than just SPAM. It has set an important precedant regarding the Internet and jurisdiction. Even though the US controls most of it, it is important to realize that the Internet is an ethereal place without solid jurisdictional boundaries. If the judge had signed away on pulling the domain name, it would have casted a devastating taint on how Law treats 'where' the Interent exactly is.

    • Re:More at stake than just SPAM... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by EvilCowzGoMoo (781227) on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:06PM (#16533352) Journal
      Notice that the Judge did not overturn the $11.7 million default judgment, only the attempt to suspend the domain name. While this is a victory in that we won't suddenly get hit with 10x more spam tomarrow... Spamhaus is not off the hook yet. This is likely to be just the start of some potentialy very good, or very bad legislation.

      We live in interesting times.

  • Let's make one thing clear, the original judgment is of no value.

    Lindtard, e360 insight lawyer, actually LIED to the court by stating that Spamhaus did business in Illinois. This is patently false.

    Spamhaus has stated such to the judge, but the judge chose to ignore that advice and press forward with the case.

    Upon seeing that it would not be able to get heard by the court, Spamhaus wisely decided to withdraw completely. Being based in Britain, Spamhaus would not be bound by any judgment that would arise, and since the court chose to be bamboozled by the chickenboning spammers, the judgment rendered would be of no value anyways.

    The judge ruled in favour of the plaintiff by default, but such a judgment is ineffective as US judgments do not apply to the UK.

    The case redux came about when chickenboning Lindtard drew an amazingly broad order that the judge refused to enterinate, as being "far too broad in regard to the violation effected".

    However, given the potential disruption if Spamhaus.org would be suspended, a prominent Chicago law firm has offered it's services pro-bono.

    So we can expect the chickenboning Lindtard's gang of e360 insight to have their gonads flattenned pretty quick by the court pretty soon (if not by Angel's Anvil Delivery Service)...

    Let this be a warning to spammers: YOU CHICKENBONERS CANNOT EXPECT TO WIN, AND AS PEOPLE ARE GETTING MORE AND MORE TIRED OF YOUR SHENANIGANS, YOU CAN BE EXPECTED TO BE HUNTED AND SEE YOUR SPAMMING OPERATIONS KILLED PRETTY MUCH EFFECTIVELY.

    • Re:The straight dope (Score:5, Informative)

      by nuzak (959558) on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:40PM (#16533464) Journal
      > Lindtard, e360 insight lawyer

      Dave Linhardt is e360. It's a one-man shop. Just another ranting chickenboner -- you should have seen him carry on on NANAE. I can't wait to see him try to collect his precious judgement in a UK court.

      • Re:The straight dope (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JustNiz (692889) on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:33PM (#16533440)
        If the US started doing that, it wouldn't take long before the rest of the world stopped using ICANN's top-level domain, and effectively put the whole US on a subnet of some even higher level non-US domain.

      • Re:The straight dope (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:45PM (#16533492)
        Actually, if the judge had ordered ICANN (an American corporation) to pull the plug on the domain, it most definitely would have affected them, regardless of the physical jurisdiction of the court.

        Actually, even if the judge ordered ICANN to suspend their domain, ICANN would not be able to comply, because it is not within ICANN's power to do so.

        The judge could order the registrar to pull the domain though.

        The amount of power the US could potentially have over the Internet is rather frightening

        The US has minimal power over the internet. The internet is a set of standards for computer networks. The US has some power over some domain names because the companies that manage these domain names are located in the US.

        And should the US abuse its position, I'm sure other countries will compensate. Why does ICANN have such power? Because internet users say that they do. Why are the DNS roots authoritative? Because internet users say that they are. Should a critical mass of internet users disagree, then they lose this power.

        Despite all the bitching about ICANN, generally speaking, they do a decent job. Certainly far better than the UN/ITU proposals to bring it under the control of the dictator's debating club on the east river.

        • Re:The straight dope (Score:5, Interesting)

          by cortana (588495) <samNO@SPAMrobots.org.uk> on Sunday October 22 2006, @06:25AM (#16535388) Homepage
          Despite all the bitching about ICANN, generally speaking, they do a decent job. Certainly far better than the UN/ITU proposals to bring it under the control of the dictator's debating club on the east river.
          This is so true, and it is refreshing to be reminded that I'm not the only one who thinks that turning control of the DNS over to the UN would be a disaster.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Pig Hogger (10379)
        This does only apply to criminal judgment, not civil ones (as in the case of Spamhaus). A criminal judgment would never has been rendered this way, as criminal rules of proceeding prevent a judgment to be entered when the defendant is not present.
  • http://www.e360insight.com/index.html [e360insight.com]

    You will notice that, at the bottom of the page, there is a contact us type button.

    I think we've all learned something important here today.

  • Ruling against Spamhaus still stands... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Frosty Piss (770223) on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:16PM (#16533380)
    The judge denied e360insight's motion to suspend the Spamhaus domain, but that doesn't mean the original ruling against Spamhaus was vacated. As far as I can tell, that still stands.

    • Re:Ruling against Spamhaus still stands... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:59PM (#16533540)
      The judge denied e360insight's motion to suspend the Spamhaus domain, but that doesn't mean the original ruling against Spamhaus was vacated. As far as I can tell, that still stands.

      Yes, they got a judgment against Spamhaus. Judgments are meaningless if they aren't enforceable. Good luck enforcing it in the USA, since Spamhaus does not do business in the USA and has no assets in the USA to seize.

      While some foreign judgments are enforceable in the UK, e360insight will have to go to a UK court and explain why their default judgment is valid, and why US law applies to a UK company which does no business in the USA. And since they're now in the UK, e360insight will have to explain why they are violating UK law relating to spam.

      Highly unlikely to be enforced.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by penix1 (722987)

        Yes, they got a judgment against Spamhaus. Judgments are meaningless if they aren't enforceable. Good luck enforcing it in the USA, since Spamhaus does not do business in the USA and has no assets in the USA to seize.

        Careful here. They DO have assets in the USA.

        From http://www.spamhaus.org/faq/answers.lasso?section= Spamhaus%20SBL [spamhaus.org]

        For high redundancy there are over 40 public SBL mirrors located in many nations around the world. Each SBL mirror is independently run as a free service to the Internet community

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by toriver (11308)
          Not if "independently run" means "not run by us but by volunteers" or the like.

  • Update on botnet spammer (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats (122034) on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:31PM (#16533430) Homepage

    Marginally irrelevant, but good news on spam: Update on Jeanson James Ancheta, botnet spammer. [slashdot.org] The short version: he's now Federal inmate number 32392-112 at the California City Correctional Institution.

  • Note to E360INSIGHT: FUCK YOU (Score:4, Interesting)

    by merc (115854) <slashdot@upt.org> on Sunday October 22 2006, @01:16AM (#16533900) Homepage
    E360: I'm the head of network abuse for Arizona's oldest ISP and your IP addresses have been in our filters here LONG before the Spamhaus complaints against you.

    There is a very hot spot for you in hell someday.

    This decision has nothing to do with Freedom of Speech, it's about scum spammers taking advantage of the legal system.

    Spammers: Die In A Fire.

    Spamhaus: Keep doing a good job.

    For those that think I'm trolling, look at my slashdot ID number, I've been around a long time.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tim C (15259)
      For those that think I'm trolling, look at my slashdot ID number, I've been around a long time.

      Newbie.

  • This ruling is PRO freedom of speech (Score:4, Insightful)

    by merc (115854) <slashdot@upt.org> on Sunday October 22 2006, @01:19AM (#16533914) Homepage
    The freedom of speech also means the freedom to NOT listen to speech.

    This is a win for those who believe in property rights.

    My servers. My rules.
  • If you are a reporter working on a deadline, you can call our media relations department at (772) 971-4816. Select the option to have us paged if you need to reach us immediately.

    Anyone hooked on meth tonight and feel like making a few phone calls?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by nbauman (624611)
      Actually it's telephone harassment in some states to call people repeatedly. My crazy neghbor kept calling me all night, among other harassments, so I had him busted. It was nice to see the cops take him away in handcuffs after all his threats. He finally moved.

      In New York State, it's harassment to call somebody 2 or more times between the hours of (I think) 11pm and 8am.

      Not that they don't deserve it.

      So don't do it.

      Or if you do it, don't get caught.

      They seem to be litigous SOBs.

  • I suggest following e360Insight's advice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pseudorand (603231) on Sunday October 22 2006, @09:22AM (#16536330)
    e360Insight's web site urges us to contact our Senators and Representatives, which is just what I did:

    Dear Senator|Representative <XYZ>:

    e360Insight, an American company, has recently sued Spamhaus, a British company, claiming that Spamhous's service, which lists the e-mail addresses and domain names of known spammers, has violated e360Insight's rights.

    Spamhaus provides an invaluable service. Those of us responsible for administering e-mail services know and love the company. Though most users aren't aware of it, almost anyone who uses e-mail receives less unwanted e-mail because of Spamhaus.

    e360Insight, as best I can tell from their website, is a major SENDER of unsolicited and/or unwanted SPAM messages. Their argument is incorrect because only individual e-mail administrators have the ability to block e-mail. Spamhaus has no such ability. We CHOOSE to use or ignore Spamhaus recommendations. If such recommendations compromised the e-mail service we provided, we would quickly stop using them due to user complaints.

    A federal court has already ordered Spamhaus to pay $11.7 million (an unenforceable measure, since Spamhaus isn't in the US). e360Insight has also asked that Spamhaus's domain be shut down (which was was rejected by U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras). Please encourage Judget Kocoras and any other federal judges involved to dismiss e360Insight's frivolously lawsuit and protect the rights of American's to use Spamhaus, a valuable service that makes e-mail a usable form of communication.

    http://www.house.gov/ [house.gov]

    http://www.senate.gov/ [senate.gov]

  • Why can't we shut them down? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jma05 (897351) on Sunday October 22 2006, @03:44PM (#16538912)
    I am being naive here. I can understand why it may be a bit difficult Joe Spammer who operates from basement and hides hides his identity. But a company like e360 should be easy to target. Right? Should not all we do be

    1.) file a class action lawsuit
    2.) ask them to show their full "client" email list to a judiciary (under NDA maybe)
    3.) check with recipients of randomly selected emails - if they really did ask to be sent all these "advertisements".

    • Re:Go to the source (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gorshkov (932507) <gorshkov@oghma.[ ]ca ['on.' in gap]> on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:30PM (#16533422)
      Please, for the sake of fairness, please go to the e360insight website Read for yourself what they have to say. Consider it carefully, go back later to gain additional insights. (Heh, I said insights.)

      Un-bloody-real .... I went and visited the poor benighted spammers. I couldn't resist the urge - I clicked on the "contact us" link. ANd what's the first thing it did? They wanted my EMAIL address.

      Well, they can contact me at dream-freaking@on.com - that's the one I gave when I posted the following comment to what they had on the link supplied:

      First - if you think I'm going to give a spammer my email address, you're sadly mistaken.

      Second - spamhaus, as you very well know, doesn't block a damned thing - individual mail admins - like ME - decide ON OUR OWN if we want to take their recommendations or not.

      And before you get pissy about a UK organisation ignoring a USA court, just thank god that they have, and that they CAN - becuase otherwise you'd be hauled to court in every country that had decent anti-spam legislation.

      And I'm pretty sure that you'd consider THAT to be an affront to the liberties of every red-blooded american as well, wouldn't you?

      • I was going to ask them if they were interested in C|@l!s tabs. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, so maybe I should write a script to tell them a few thousand times?

      • Re:Go to the source (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tim C (15259) on Sunday October 22 2006, @06:16AM (#16535336)
        I clicked on the "contact us" link. ANd what's the first thing it did? They wanted my EMAIL address.

        Well, yeah; presumably they think you want to contact them so as to set up a dialogue with them, not a monologue. They may be stupid, no good lowlife spamming shits, but expecting an email address as part of a contact form is perfectly reasonable. (Not that I'd give them mine, of course, but that's beside the point)

        Well, they can contact me at dream-freaking@on.com

        This was one of my biggest pet hates a couple of years ago - people using syntactically-legal addresses on real domains that are nothing to do with them. Same goes for the guy who used an address at yeahright.com, which is also a registered domain.

        What if that's an actual, valid email address and you've just condemned some poor schmuck to even more spam? If you wouldn't trust a site with your own email address, don't trust it with a potentially valid one either; use a "fake but possible" tld (such as .tld, .ab.cd, etc) instead.

      • Re:Go to the source (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:22PM (#16533402)
        Oh please, for the love of God, I plead with you not to abuse the internet resources of e360insight [e360insight.com]. These good people are concerned about YOUR personal freedom, which you'd know if you went to their webpage to read their material. Please don't flood their contact page [e360insight.com] with insults and don't post random email addresses [mailto]. I don't want people to put a huge loan on their web server -- I simply want each and every person at Slashdot to make up their own mind, based on their own exploration the information on their website [e360insight.com]

        • Re:Go to the source (Score:5, Insightful)

          by tomhudson (43916) <hudson&videotron,ca> on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:33PM (#16533438) Journal
          Just a quick note ... their contact form script requires a valid email address. Why not use nospam@360insight.com ... or admin@360insight.com, etc.

          • Re:Go to the source (Score:5, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:46PM (#16533496)
            Please, oh please! In the memory of my dear departed Aunt Myrtle please don't abuse their contact page! If you want to provide them with insightful (heh, I said insightful again) commentary, it is only reasonable to provide them with a real email address so they can reply! Using a random fake email address [robietherobot.com] when you contact [e360insight.com] them would just be wrong. These freedom loving people are fighting for your rights!
              • It doesn't matter - its just to pass the stupid email validation and rub their nose in it when they think the population is behind them. You can use george.bush@whitehouse.gov - though if you do, please make the message VERY supportive of them - (add in allusions to terr'rists on the net and how spamhaus is helping hide WMDs in North Korea and Syria).

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by DrSkwid (118965)
          If the bandwidth becomes troublesome you could always call their media relations department at (772) 971-4816

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by jezor (51922)
          Pacer's pretty cheap, but anyway, if you want to see the judge's current order, here it is:

          "This matter comes before the court on the motion of Plaintiff e360 Insight, LLC ("e360"), for a rule to show cause why Defendant The Spamhaus Project ("Spamhaus") should not be held in contempt for failure to comply with the injunction issued by this court on September 13, 2006.

          Spamhaus has not appeared to defend the allegations against it in this case, but on October 13, 2006, it filed a notice of appeal in the Seve

    • Re:GMAIL FTW! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by silentbozo (542534) on Saturday October 21 2006, @11:58PM (#16533536) Journal
      I recently started bouncing all the spam my filters can detect to a GMail account. After 1 week of operation, here's what GMail is reporting:

      "You are currently using 839 MB (30%) of your 2776 MB."

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by prockcore (543967)
      Let's see, a bunch of guys puts together a database of known spammers


      That's your problem right there. They put together a database of *reported* spammers. Our local newspaper was erroneously put on a blacklist for spamming. In order to be removed they had to donate $50 to an approved charity. The *only* charity on the list? That's right, spamhaus's legal defense fund.

      I don't use blacklists because the people who run them are extortionists.

    • Re:Whew (Score:4, Insightful)

      by swd2 (803324) on Sunday October 22 2006, @12:34AM (#16533668)
      Sure you could have handled it, To be honest Spamhaus is mostly using other peoples dnsrbl's anyway. I get alot more out of tqmcube.com or cbl.abuseat.org than the Spamhaus's.
      Plus you should never be rejecting from these lists anyway, just scoring and allowing your users to decide what should be rejected.

       

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jacksonj04 (800021)
      Minor point, "SPAM" is a trademark of Hormel Foods. You mean "spam". They get quite irritated about this.

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