Subject: SPEWS: RE: [Asrg] Please no flamewars

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 06:34:04 -0800

Unfortunately Vernon keeps calling me a liar, I am not.

It is much easier to ask people not to engage in flamewars 
when they are not the party being libelled. Note that I have
made no comments about Vernon except to ask if he is a
member of the cabal he spends so much time defending and
to point out that his ad-hominem attacks are unhelpful.

SPEWS really did blacklist us and the entire net that we
are on. SPEWS states that it is their policy to blacklist
all of an ISPs customers if they do not respond.

It is not 'obvious' that they do not do what their web site
says they do - blacklist innocent customers of an ISP they
dislike in an attempt to gain leverage against the ISP.

Nor is it obvious that a blacklist could not be out of 
control:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/08/orbs/
"MAPS also had a run-in with ORBS. In 1999, MAPS listed ORBS on its Realtime
Blackhole List, in response to several complaints about the way that ORBS
was supposedly abusing networks. The group removed ORBS and stopped blocking
it from its own servers three months later, but not before ORBS threw MAPS
into its own black hole. Even Suespammers.org found itself blocked over a
dispute with ORBS. Until the day the list died, spam fighters who used
Brown's list couldn't access the Suespammers site, a major resource that
might have helped them in their war on unsolicited e-mail. "

http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2000-07/msg01235.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-218552.html?legacy=cnet

Unless Vernon posts a denial that he is a member of the 
spews cabal I will conclude that Vernon is a member and 
direct any process the lawyers may want to serve in his 
direction if the spews cabal takes similar action in future.

		Phill
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---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:50:49 -0700 (MST)

> From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>

> ...
> ...

In <[email-masked]>
Phillip Hallam-Baker also wrote

] Vernon keeps repeating the lie that I am knowingly misrepresenting spews

> are on.

No one has doubted that SPEWS listed CIDR blocks covering some or all
of Verisign, despite the lack of supporting evidence such as a SPEWS
case number.  The claims that SPEWS listed all of UUNET are otherwise.

>         SPEWS states that it is their policy to blacklist

I think that is inaccurate but close enough to SPEWS' apparent policy
of "collateral damage."  In my view that is a major mistake, a change
from what SPEWS claimed to be doing at its start, and a less important
one of the reasons I do not use SPEWS' list.

To pretend to have some relevance to the purpose of this mailing list,
please compare SPEWS to a CA that certifies mail as probably not spam.
By some accounts, SMTP clients not listed by SPEWS rarely send spam.
In effect, SPEWS has issued certs for all of the Internet and revoked
them for those outfits that have shown they are likely to send spam or
approve of or tolerate sending spam.  Checking these certs affects the
processing incoming mail by at most a 30% increase in the DNS operations
done on all incoming mail.  They are an excellent implementation of a
not-spam cert, subject only to questions about non-technical policies
and procedures.

> ...
> was supposedly abusing networks. ...

I think ORBS was not "out of control" but worse.  I think ORBS was a
sender of unsolicted bulk email (relay scans) that tried to use what
might be called extortion against MAPS and its creditors.  SPEWS was
reportedly created in part in reaction to features of ORBS.

> ...

That is called a "cartooney" in some circles and may be sufficient to
get Verisign listed by a DNS email blacklist that specializes in
"cartooneys."

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]
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---

From: Chuq Von Rospach <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:54:36 -0800

> and

The lawyer-threat has appeared. It seems to indicate that any possible 
productive use of this forum has now ended, and we should all go home 
now.

If I call all of your fascists, will someone declare Godwin's law for 
me, so we can all go get a latte?

---

From: "Chris Lewis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 15:25:02 -0500

> Unfortunately Vernon keeps calling me a liar, I am not.

Did he call you a liar, or simply mistaken? Tho, if the mistakes are 
repeated often enough after the mistakes are pointed out, there's little 
difference.

> all of an ISPs customers if they do not respond.

Incorrect. It is their policy to escalate blacklists, up to and 
including the entire ISP.  It just hadn't gotten that far yet.

> Nor is it obvious that a blacklist could not be out of 

Anything can be out of control.  ORBS was clearly rogue.  No sane person 
would have ever used it once any of that came to light.  As it did.

> spews cabal I will conclude that Vernon is a member

Splorf.  You'll like antispews.org and operation "Sherman Tank".

Regular coffee for me thanks.