October 1997 - Test - lists.nanog.org

Re: Spam Control Considered Harmful
by Scott Hazen Mueller 29 Oct '97

29 Oct '97

>I am worried about the tools we are developing and deploying to control spam. Fundamentally, we are no smarter than anyone else. Competent engineers are not uniformly "good", heck we can't even all agree on what constitutes "good". Creating the tools ourselves does not create the demand for those tools - if some party (a totalitarian government of whatever stripe, for example) wants them badly enough, they will create them, or dangle enough money in front of someone who can to entice them to do so. That said, I feel that the only technological solution to the spam problem is a large-scale re-structuring of Internet mail to provide for secure authentication and cost sharing for received e-mail. The scale and cost of such a deployment makes something like that a political and social problem, however. Other technological solutions are holding actions only. -- Scott Hazen Mueller zorch(a)wenet.net +1 415 281 6550 x269 Vice President Engineering, Whole Earth Networks (Hooked and The Well)

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RE: NAP Architecture
by Rodney Joffe 29 Oct '97

29 Oct '97

> -----Original Message----- > From: the Riz [SMTP:riz@beast.boogers.sf.ca.us] > Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 1997 10:07 AM > To: blkirk(a)float.eli.net > Cc: nanog(a)merit.edu > Subject: Re: NAP Architecture > > This *is* becoming more popular; in the US, the main problem is that > many > (most?) of the exchange points are operated by telcos, who are > tariffed. > This means that any connection between separate entities is a > "circuit" > that they must charge a certain minimum amount for. As more telcos > manage > to move their exchange point operations into the non-regulated portion > of > their respected businesses, this may change, and exchanges are > currently > being built by non-telco entities, which are allowed to have more > reasonable charges to connect cages in the same facility together. > (Disclaimer: in my other life, I work for one such facility... the > PAIX in > Palo Alto) > > Baloney....... I defy anyone to show me a "tariff" for interconnects at a NAP. There is no such thing. 'cos, as y'all know, if it was tariffed, there wouldn't be any 'special' deals. The phrase is "Highway robbery". The problem is they don't even have the class to let you see the gun.

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Re: IP spoofing and spamming
by Sean Donelan 29 Oct '97

29 Oct '97

>What does your contract say you can do? First and foremost >contact your legal department to ensure that you can cut >service within the parameters of the contract, or your >company can defend itself for terminating the contract >without cause. Also contact your senior management about the issue. There are many legal questions the legal department really can't decide. they can only provide advice about the potential liabilities among the different choices. The senior management of several large providers seem to be getting blindsided by these issues. If you don't tell them, who will? In the end, any action or even inaction, can result in legal liability thus it becomes a business decision that management must make. In a bizzare way, it is easier for the little guys because they are essentially judgement proof. The big guys have deep pockets so the risks are larger monetarially. But in either case, the final decision rests with management. Since this is an operations forum, rather than a management or legal forum; IMHO the operations folk need to LOUDLY raise the issue with their senior management. Also it is called the "INTER"net for a reason, the 'harm' being done might be on another provider's network. So plan how you handle that case also, because on a different day you might be on the receiving end of the harm originating on a different providers network. There are precedents from other industries where limited cooperation on security and fraud prevention can pass anti-trust. Talk to your lawyers, and then get senior management to make a decision. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation

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Re: NAP Architecture
by dlr＠bungi.com 29 Oct '97

29 Oct '97

[In the message entitled "Re: NAP Architecture" on Oct 29, 9:06, the Riz writes:] > > This *is* becoming more popular; in the US, the main problem is that many > (most?) of the exchange points are operated by telcos, who are tariffed. > This means that any connection between separate entities is a "circuit" > that they must charge a certain minimum amount for. As more telcos manage > to move their exchange point operations into the non-regulated portion of > their respected businesses, this may change, and exchanges are currently > being built by non-telco entities, which are allowed to have more > reasonable charges to connect cages in the same facility together. > (Disclaimer: in my other life, I work for one such facility... the PAIX in > Palo Alto) > I'm confused. PAIX charges a similar amount ($1000/mo) for dry copper between two consenting parties at PAIX. Again, for $27 worth of wire, and $300 worth of labour? This is reasonable? IMHO, $50/month is reasonable for copper cross-connects, with a $300 installation charge. Even $100 per month. But $1000? -- Dave Rand dlr(a)bungi.com http://www.bungi.com

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Re: NAP Architecture
by dlr＠bungi.com 29 Oct '97

29 Oct '97

[In the message entitled "Re: NAP Architecture" on Oct 29, 19:04, Leigh Porter writes:] > > I'm confused. PAIX charges a similar amount ($1000/mo) for dry copper > > > > between two consenting parties at PAIX. Again, for $27 worth of wire, > > > > and $300 worth of labour? This is reasonable? > > > > IMHO, $50/month is reasonable for copper cross-connects, with a $300 > > installation charge. Even $100 per month. But $1000? > > You could always go wireless and not tell anybody ;-) > > In fact, if the traffic were not too bad a few interconnects could sit > on > a small wireless LAN nicely.... > > Is that $1000 a MONTH or just a one-off installation charge? That is a monthly charge. PAIX is apparently working on better pricing, but there is no word of when that will take effect. We have bloodied our salesperson over this already. IMHO, I think that we should work together to negotiate private interconnect pricing that is reasonable and fair to all parties. Right now, certain companies are getting good pricing. Hopefully, we can extend that to all participants at the MAEs and other interconnects. Any volunteers to organize this? Is anyone interested? -- Dave Rand dlr(a)bungi.com http://www.bungi.com

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Re: IP spoofing and spamming
by Hank Nussbacher 29 Oct '97

29 Oct '97

At 07:34 PM 10/28/97 -0600, Karl Denninger wrote: >The Internet works because people don't abuse other's resources. If people >abuse my resources, I stop allowing the abuse. If they threaten to sue, I >laugh and tell them to go right ahead. We write our contracts so that we >can shut off people who spam, even on the first offense. > I would be interested in seeing a copy of that contract. When suits (lawyers) get involved, how do you show that a violation has happened? Remember, no complaint has come to you and you would have had to sniff his line and open his smtp pkts to see he was spamming which would invoke a countersuit. -Hank

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RE: Spam Control Considered Harmful
by Jordan Mendelson 29 Oct '97

29 Oct '97

On Tuesday, October 28, 1997 11:27 AM, Alex Bligh [SMTP:amb@gxn.net] wrote: > > The Moral Majority and The Promise Keepers and other fundamentalist groups > > sit on white horses waiting to ride in and save us from ourselves. What is > > being said below needs to be considered. Firstly, Paul mentioned the need > > to have strong checks and balances. What does that mean and how do we keep > > him honest and ensure "we are using our powers for good"? I personally do spam filtering for our site. Actually, it's not "spam" filtering per se. If you don't have a domain in the from addr which resolves, your mail is rejected. If you are not a customer of ours and try to relay mail off our servers, your mail is rejected. This to me seems completely just. Why should you send mail with a false return to address and why if you are not my customer should you send mail? Now, filtering based on hostname & blackholing is a bit extreme. It limits the user's right to choose. As long as the commercial soliciter has a valid reply-to address which you can use to bitch and complain, then I feel it's fine. However, I believe repeated unsolicited commercial email is harassment. For the same reason you can't call a person on the phone in the US 4 or 5 times unsolicited (it's against the law last I checked). It's wasting my time. On the Internet, it's wasting my bandwidth and resources. Does anyone have any stats on what percentage of networks is spam? I figure probably around 5%. Jordan -- Jordan Mendelson : www.wserv.com/~jordy/ Web Services, Inc. : www.wserv.com

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IP spoofing and spamming
by Hank Nussbacher 28 Oct '97

28 Oct '97

Please no religionics. Part of the below is true - part is what will happen in the near future: I have a spammer I am trying to block. He is multihomed to me and ISP X. He has address a.b.c.d from me and address a.b.c.e from ISP X. Users started seeing spams from a.b.c.e and complained to ISP X. He shut off SMTP to the customer but the spamming continued. Turns out the user defaults out to me no matter what, so his address was a.b.c.e when coming out of me. For me that is a spoofed address. I then go to block his spoofed address. User then says, it is a valid address and I have no business blocking his IP addresses, whether he has them from me or ISP X. I then say I'll block SMTP and the user says, "show me one letter from a user on the Internet complaining to you that I am spamming". Since his dns is located elsewhere and since the IP addresses are not mine, the users aren't complaining to me - but to ISP X and perhaps ISP Y (providing him secondary DNS service). All the ISP X & Y attempts to shut out the spam aren't affective due to the multihoming. What do we do in these cases? Thanks, Hank

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None
by rlevally＠cias.net 28 Oct '97

28 Oct '97

X-PGP Fingerprint: E762 AFB2 1047 FF4F 4B4D 5CBA 5816 31BF 35F3 A4A5 X-Sender: rlevally(a)cias.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 20:22:28 -0600 To: nanog(a)merit.edu From: "L. Reynolds LeVally" <rlevally(a)cias.net> Subject: Re: Spam Control Considered Harmful In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971028202259.030aa6b0(a)agis.net> References: <199710290053.AA05148(a)world.std.com> <Pine.SGI.3.96.971028113733.7727A-100000(a)master.netasset.com> <19971028111523.09658(a)priori.net> <Pine.SGI.3.96.971028113733.7727A-100000(a)master.netasset.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Info: AUP http://www.cias.net/aup.htm At 08:22 PM 10/28/97 -0500, Phil Lawlor wrote: >I agree with the fundamental principle, however, some people are making >money at UBE without regard to who, or how many people they piss off. The >money is being made in selling software to do spamming, or running services >that spam. At AGIS, we've seen it all. Address mungers, relay hijackers, >bcc bombers, etc. [...] >Phil Lawlor >President >AGIS >Voice - 313-730-1130 >Fax - 313-563-6119 I would suggest that AGIS continues to make money harboring spammers. Since your NOC ignores these complaints, I assume that you want my log files directed instead to your personal mailbox. LR LeVally Internet Services Manager Camelot Corp.

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Re: IP spoofing and spamming
by Hank Nussbacher 28 Oct '97

28 Oct '97

At 05:30 PM 10/28/97 -0800, J.D. Falk wrote: > Are you under any contractural obligation to transit that IP > address? The user in question seems to think you are, but you > should check that as well; most contracts that I've seen do > not mention multihoming specificially, and this could be the > perfect loophole for you to use while you give him the 30 days > notice or whatever it takes to disconnect him completely. Lawyers have a funny way of reading contracts. Some read them that anything not spelled out is allowed, whereas others read them that anything not spelled is not allowed. I guess ISPs on NANOG should be aware of this new spam/ip-spoofing method when writing contracts with their clients. -Hank > >********************************************************* >J.D. Falk voice: +1-650-482-2840 >Supervisor, Network Operations fax: +1-650-482-2844 >PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net > >"The People You Know. The People You Trust." >********************************************************* > >

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