Judge Rules In Favor Of Spamhaus

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.'"

"a devastating loss of personal freedom for..."

[The MAZZTer]

Way to go down kicking and screaming inanities...

Re:

[jaygridley]

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

Re:

[Kierthos]

Hey, all parties involved may be chock full of hyperbole, but at least this judge made the correct call.

Re:

[coolgeek]

"A devastating loss of cash and personal satisfaction for David Lindhardt"

I'm not sure if the judge moonlights as an amateur comic, but his ruling sure cracked me up. Hope e360 burns up more of their money getting denied satisfaction by the legal system.

I heard spamhaus got flooded with examples of spam from e360...maybe someone should put together a consortium of those people to go sue e360 for abuse and then ask for their domain registrar to suspend their domain. Now, that would be funny.

Re:"a devastating loss of personal freedom for..."

[BlogPope]

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.

Re:

[cbhacking]

Did they indeed? All I read was them claiming that it would mean another 50,000,000,000 spam emails a say hitting the servers. I realize they Internet already handles tons of spam, but... that is a lot.

Re:"a devastating loss of personal freedom for..."

[Dun Malg]

Don't you have a war to sign up for, you YELLOW Republican.

Don't you have a five year plan to work on, you commie PINKO. :P

(This is fun! Now someone do a libertarian one!)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

(This is fun! Now someone do a libertarian one!)

Don't you have an environmentally unfriendly industry to deregulate, you anti-GREEN libertarian?

Go to the source

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, for the sake of fairness, please go to the e360insight website [e360insight.com] Read for yourself what they have to say. Consider it carefully, go back later to gain additional insights. (Heh, I said insights.)

Re:Go to the source

[Gorshkov]

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 [e-mail] - 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?

Re:

[19061969]

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

[Tim C]

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 [e-mail]

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:

[tdemark]

Which is why I always use example.com [rfc-editor.org].

Re:

[VendettaMF]

Whoever registered fake.com had to know what they were getting into...

Re:

[Tim C]

And yes, spoof your email address just like all good spammers.

But unlike "all good spammers", don't use a valid domain; some of us are tired of getting 1500+ emails per day because some idiot decided to use our domain in their spoofed addresses.

Re:

[yabos]

Or just use e360insight.com mwahaha

Re:

[fostware]

[e-mail] and [e-mail] are always favorites :P

Re:

[mabhatter654]

They appear to have tried to follow Spamhaus' rules, but Spamhaus won't have it..won't even tell them what the rules are, just that they've been "flagged" as spammers and there's no more discussion... which has been a known thing on slashdot for a while. The RBL guys are assholes... we all know that, it's inevitable that they'd get sued like this eventually.

The question is what extent is Spamhaus' liability? On one hand they mearly maintain the list of know spam IP and domains.... they don't run the ema

Re:Go to the source

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[tomhudson]

Just a quick note ... their contact form script requires a valid email address. Why not use [e-mail] ... or [e-mail], etc.

Re:Go to the source

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Go to the source

[6031769]

And please, people, take care not to use their https server [e360insight.com] instead as that would not only use up extra CPU on their server but would also reveal that they're running RHEL and that some chopper has left the port open.

Re:

[MooUK]

Best idea I've read all day.

Re:

[tomhudson]

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 [e-mail] - 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:

[DrSkwid]

If the bandwidth becomes troublesome you could always call their media relations department at [phone]

Re:

[Eggplant62]

I don't suppose e360 tried registered mail, return receipt requested via snail mail, did they? Or did e360 simply send Spamhaus email from the same e360 servers that are blocklisted and then said Spamhaus didn't respond?

I'm wishing I had a Pacer account.

Re:

[jezor]

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

Loss of personal freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

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:

[Geak]

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

[dindi]

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:

[AgNO3]

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.?

Re:

[sfjoe]

Oh well, it is nice to see that over rules and regulations sometimes common sense and the people behind it does not get punished.

Actually it is usually the case that common sense prevails under the law. However, that makes for a dull story and doesn't make the news.

GMAIL FTW!

[EvilCowzGoMoo]

Even though I am "currently using 94 MB (3%) of your 2776 MB".....

I'd rather not have the other 97% filled with spam.

Good call :)

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, Gmail doesn't use Spamhaus.

Re:

[penix1]

"However its likely that if spamhaus's claim that they do hold back 90% of the spam on the internet is true... even services that do not use spamhous would be indirectly effected."

Just how do you arrive at that conclusion? It's a blocklist that doesn't block shit if you (or your ISP) don't use it. They make that claim because there are a lot of mail admins that do use it. You are making the same assumption the spammers like this one are making. They don't block at the sender but at the receiving side. Spamm

Re:

[dodobh]

It can bounce through a bunch of relays anyway.

MUA -> Local server -> central corporate server -> outbound gateway -> MX as firewall -> delivery server.

Just that most of these are either internal, or carefully control who can use them for relaying.

Re:

[ocelotbob]

Not really. A lot of spam these days comes from zombied/trojaned machines, which are already well covered by other blocklists, like CBL [abuseat.org]. Were spamhaus to go away, chances are spam levels would remain about the same for people not using the tools. Spammers just don't care if they're blocked or not, all things considered.

Re:

[ajs318]

I fixed a Microsoft Exchange server once. I installed Debian and Exim on it.

Re:GMAIL FTW!

[silentbozo]

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:

[Dun Malg]

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."

Gmail doesn't simply delete spam, it puts directly in a spam "folder", where it sits for 30 days before being automatically deleted. All that spam you've redirected is sitting there waiting for you, most of it probably tagged "spam". The number above tells us absolutely nothing about gmail's spam-catching abilit

Re:

[really?]

I think he meant that all the stuff in that account was spam, as he's bouncing spam only to that account. So, almost 1GB a week ...

Damned activist judges...

[chill]

...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?

Re:Damned activist judges...

[Suhas]

>>Won't somebody please think of the children? I am sure Mark Foley is thinking of the children.

More at stake than just SPAM...

[Chabil Ha']

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...

[EvilCowzGoMoo]

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.

Re:

[hey hey hey]

This is likely to be just the start of some potentialy very good, or very bad legislation.

I think you mean rulings. Courts rule, and Legislatures, well, legislate.

Re:

[garcia]

I really think that the judge realized that more was at stake than just SPAM.

Judges already ruled that SPAM has no stake in this at all. Now if you're talking spam...

The straight dope

[Pig Hogger]

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:

[mr_matticus]

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. The amount of power the US could potentially have over the Internet is rather frightening--which is why there is an Internet governance debate. The biggest sticking point is the lack of an international checking body--a sort of UN for the Internet--that could intervene and stop a US court order from oversteppin

Re:The straight dope

[JustNiz]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

No jurisdiction.

[www.sorehands.com]

There was no jurisdiction on the court over ICANN. A court can't issue a an order
against a non-party to a case.

In California, that is why there is a joinder in divorce cases, to get the pension plans and such to be subject to the orders of the court.

Re:The straight dope

[cortana]

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:

[davecb]

Fortunately, the registrar in question is in Canada.

--dave

Re:The straight dope

[nuzak]

> 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:

[Pig Hogger]

Of course I've seen him rant on NANAE. He's almost as funny as Tim "Put that bottle down" Bolen...

Re:

[oohshiny]

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.

Except, of course, if the people ever do any business in the US. And for anybody involved in computers, that's kind of hard to avoid. Viz the arrest of a transit passenger running an on-line gambling site legally, outside the US.

Re:

[Pig Hogger]

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.

Re:

[DrSkwid]

If Spamhaus are so British, why do they give their prices in US Dollars :

"Prices are quoted for convenience in US Dollars. UK/European VAT Residents need to add UK VAT at 17.5%. Data Feed is a service supplied and maintained by an independent contractor licensed by The Spamhaus Project to sell and provide access by subscription to Spamhaus DNSBL data."

Re:

[makomk]

If Spamhaus are so British, why do they give their prices in US Dollars

Because far more people know the conversion rate from their currency to US dollars than do to UK pounds?

Re:

[cortana]

I'm not sure, but I have the feeling that there may just be a clue to the answer to your question buried in the question itself.

Why

[1310nm]

Let's see, a bunch of guys puts together a database of known spammers, which people then use for RBLs. This is quite unfair to the spammers! Anyone with at least a peanut in the noggin should have called bullshit on the lawsuit before it even got legs.

Re:

[kelk1]

But bull is all over the place. It seems to me that spam should be addressed just like the no phone call list. Make it worldwide and addressed by whatever institution that can.

But when we (and /. people are likely to filter out 90% of the crap) receive again and again, for years and years, messages targeted at get 'some brand of stay hard all night' pills or 'get bigger and longer' miracle solution, isn't there be an easier way to get rid of the pest at the source itself?

There are many scavenger occupations

Re:Why

[Legion303]

"isn't there be an easier way to get rid of the pest at the source itself?"

Yes: a good rifle.

Re:

[AgNO3]

Uh because spam house for reasons listed in the previous articles did not show up for the court case giving the judge no choice but to rule in favor of the complainant. (see the part where e360 said spamhouse does business in the us but they don't so they just gave the judge a nice piss off) Basically the judge wanted spam house to come to Illinois to prove they didn't do business there (lame) and once the decision was made, well cascade failure of the judicial system. I love it when /.'s make really du

Re:

[prockcore]

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.

Bullshit

[schon]

I call bullshit.

Spamhaus doesn't charge (or require "donations") to be delisted.

Provide some proof for your absurd assertions, or STFU.

Re:

[sk8king]

That is what has happened to us. One of our mail servers has been listed on one blacklist [I believe SORBS, but I'm not sure] for a very long time. The only way to get it delisted was to donate $50 to some charity [they didn't specify though]. I was just checking and couldn't find it listed so maybe they delisted it after a year or so.

But that was annoying. The lists should expire IP addresses after a period of time [1 day-1 month or whatever]. This was the only list that we experienced this problem wi

The important thing to take away from this

[grasshoppa]

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.

Re:The important thing to take away from this

[dubbreak]

As long as you are visiting the site you may as well download this 191 page pdf [e360insight.com]. If we all download it we can better understand the case. This 27 page pdf might be worth checking out as well [e360insight.com], you know, to get the facts straight.

Re:

[molnarcs]

Copy this into a textfile, then sh textfile.sh:

!/bin/sh
x=1
while [ "$x" -le 600 ]; do
wget http://www.e360insight.com/Motion-for-TRO.pdf
x=$(expr $x + 1)
sleep 2
done

This will download it a few times :)

Re:

[grasshoppa]

What I found funny is your Email address is a required field in the form. There is no way I'm giving them my Email address.

I found it delightfully ironic.

My mail server uses spamhaus. I gave went ahead and gave it to them. :D

Re:

[walt-sjc]

Um, you DO realize that this spammer, like most, uses zombie machines too. A fact of life is that not all zombie machines are listed with spamhaus. Anyway, good luck and enjoy your future dramatic increase in spam. Also be aware that your email address may also be used in spam "Joe Job's" (If you don't know what a joe job is, I suggest you look it up.)

Ruling against Spamhaus still stands...

[Frosty Piss]

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...

[Anonymous Coward]

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:

[penix1]

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:

[toriver]

Not if "independently run" means "not run by us but by volunteers" or the like.

Update on botnet spammer

[Animats]

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.

Re:

[Guppy06]

You've got mail... from a correctional facility!

GOOD!

[Chas]

I'd been hoping something this stupid wouldn't be allowed to stand long...

Spamhaus should have said "no jusrisdiction"

[cbhacking]

at the start... but they didn't. FTA:

Had Spamhaus made the "no jurisdiction" argument at the onset, it may very well have gotten the case dismissed. Instead, it finds itself in the undesirable and difficult position of having to appeal a summary judgment.

I hope to hell they're able to avoid the default judgement in any case, but from what it looks like they successfully fought the Illinois filing (by arguing that they weren't in Illinois, and getting it moved up to the Federal level... not that they're in

"Contact us" script on E360Insight is a joke

[postmortem]

go ahead, ./ers, spam the spamers: their contact.php script is a sad effort. There's no check whether fields are valid.

http://www.e360insight.com/contact.php [e360insight.com]

Note to E360INSIGHT: FUCK YOU

[merc]

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:

[Tim C]

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

Newbie.

Re:

[MikeBabcock]

I was going to say something similar, but you out-rank me in this penis-size contest.

You misspelled that...

[ZxCv]

It's spelled "N00B13".

;-)

This ruling is PRO freedom of speech

[merc]

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.

Re:This ruling is PRO freedom of speech

[tomstdenis]

It's high time I roll out the "what the 1st admendment actually says" talk ...

1st admendment is to prevent the GOVERNMENT from abridging your right to speech/expression. I can tell you to get off my servers all I want. I can ask someone else to filter your access to my servers as well.

The government CANNOT mandate that a filter be used however, but this is not the case here. ...

Tom

Meth addicts - please read!

[seanvaandering]

If you are a reporter working on a deadline, you can call our media relations department at [phone]. 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:

[nbauman]

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.

Re:

[fdiskne1]

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

Yeah, so all you Slashdotters out there, don't call more than once, but at least call once. How many Slashdotters are there anyway? Just one page per Slashdotter should be plenty methinks.

outta curiosity

[atarione]

do you suppose those fuckers [e360insight.com] have a spam filter on their mail server???

and if so is it using spamhaus's list???????

Open letter to e360Insight

[golodh]

I have sent E360Insight the following reply, while giving them the following email address: [e-mail]

Let me explain this first. Spamgourmet is an organistion that allows you to give out limited-use email aliases of the form [e-mail].

-Anyname can be any alphanumerical string (i don't know how long, but be sensible).

-n stands for the number of emails that will be relayed to your own email account (called the "protected account").

-yourname is the alia

"Does not do business in Illinois" argument

[louissypher]

People keep pointing to the issue that Spamhaus does not "do business" in Illinois as a reason that this lawsuit is bogus. Here in Iowa, my employer pays Spamhaus multi thousands of dollars a year to be provided zone transfers of the xbl and sbl. I'm sure there is someone in Illinois doing the same. Would this not be considered doing business in Illinois? With that said, I've been watching this story with intense interest as my job becomes much harder if something were to happen to Spamhaus suddenly.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Iowa, my employer pays Spamhaus multi thousands of dollars a year to be provided zone transfers of the xbl and sbl. I'm sure there is someone in Illinois doing the same. Would this not be considered doing business in Illinois?

Excellent question. The question of where does a transaction occur is an old one, and there is a great deal of legal precedent to determine the answer.

Did your transaction take place in Iowa or the UK? Is Spamhaus in Iowa? Is Spamhaus licensed/registered to do business in Iowa?

I suggest following e360Insight's advice

[pseudorand]

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?

[jma05]

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:Whew

[swd2]

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:

[Tweekster]

My users put that authority in my hands, they dont want to deal with it and they dont have the time.

I use the blacklists because it makes them happy, and they dont care if that single email is blocked, because only an idiot would rely 100% on email for something major.

Re:

[jacksonj04]

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