The Cerebral Dump

My initial letter of complaint:

From: kayetie@cerebraldump.comNOSPAM Subject: blog spammer Date: September 18, 2004 3:03:20 PM EDT To: abuse@stsn.com-NOSPAM, LANAdmin@STSN.COM-NOSPAM

Dear Abuse Team,

I am reporting a webblog spammer from your services before this gets out of hand. Please see that your user stops & refrains from posting on my weblog. The post is below with the corresponding IP of the poster. See that it stops.

Seriously,

Kayetie
kayetie@cerebraldump.comNOSPAM

BEGIN WEBLOG SPAM:
------------------
IP Address: 63.240.243.76
Name: Party Poker
Email Address: dave@hurricane.com
URL: http://www.party-poker-player.com/

Comments:

http://www.party-poker-player.com/ - Party Poker
------------------
END WEBLOG SPAM:

Response from STSN.com:

From: jharle@stsn.comNOSPAM Subject: RE: blog spammer Date: September 19, 2004 11:23:36 PM EDT To: kayetie@cerebraldump.comNOSPAM

Kayetie,

Below is our standard abuse complaint response, which does apply (it is
impossible to determine which of our guests was translated to
63.240.243.76 historically). However, even if we could track down this
guest, I am unclear what it is you would expect us to do. It appears as
though your site allows anyone to post information; i.e., a username and
password or other security mechanism for posts does not seem to be
implemented. Kindly illuminate me on what your expectations would be.

...

Greetings,

STSN (http://www.stsn.com) is an Internet provider for the hospitality
industry. The majority of our customers use our broadband Internet
service from hotel rooms. Most abuse complaints stem from guests
[usually unknowingly] attempting to relay viruses through our SMTP
gateways, sending unsolicited bulk e-mail, or performing port scans on
foreign networks. While these activities do violate our acceptable terms
of use policies, and we do put forth the effort to block ports of
offending users when we're lucky enough to catch them, it is difficult
for us to track these users at times because of the short-term nature of
their connections. Additionally, public IP addresses being reported as
abusive by third-parties are droplets in large pools of translated
addresses, with very small timeout values (five minutes). In other
words, unless we can be alerted to abusive actions by our customers in
real-time, there is not much we can do to combat the problem.

Thank you for your understanding and assistance.

Sincerely,
Jim

Jim Harle
Sr. Network Engineer
Network Operations
STSN, Inc.
http://www.stsn.com
801.563.2000
jharle@stsn.comNOSPAM

My Response:

From: kayetie@cerebraldump.comNOSPAM Subject: Re: blog spammer Date: September 20, 2004 12:24:10 AM EDT To: jharle@stsn.comNOSPAM

Dear Jim,

The fact that I allow people to comment and post on my sight does not give 'said' user the right to spam it with advertisements for part poker, and penis enlargement. This is the equivalent to unsolicited email. I didn't ask for it. The fact that I accept email does not give 'said' user the right to send me unsolicited garbage.

What I want is the user to stop spamming my comments with advertisements/spam. Below is another example of more shit your users are posting.

Sincerely,

Kayetie

BEGIN SPAM:
-------------
IP Address: 63.240.243.44
Name: Payday Loans
Email Address: andrew@i-wellbutrin.com
URL: http://www.americacashfast.com

Comments:

http://www.americacashfast.com/ - Payday Loans
-------------
END SPAM:

Was I a little harsh, well, yes. I mean, all he had to do was send back their generic response and nothing more. I would have gladly moved on and proceeded with blocking the IPs from posting to my weblog as they happen. No sweat off my back. Instead... He comes off argumentative, as if I am doing something wrong by notifying him that his users are spamming. I was clear that I wanted 'said' spammer to stop & refrain with my initial letter of complaint. Most ISPs have abuse policies for spam, right? If that is so, why ask me what I wish to see come of 'it'?

Further Response From STSN.com:

From: jharle@stsn.comNOSPAM Subject: RE: ::Re: blog spammer Date: September 22, 2004 2:07:05 AM EDT To: kayetie@cerebraldump.comNOSPAM

Hi Kayetie,

While I agree that the "unsolicited garbage" is wrong and the person(s)
responsible is the human equivalent of sour milk, the nature of a public
network [the Internet] spawns transient users, and I would contend that
a public Web site allowing anyone to post information is closer to
"asking for trouble" than receiving unsolicited e-mail. If you allow
the public postings, in my opinion, you're looking at taking the good
with the bad, as no ISP is going to take action for someone planting
off-topic information (regardless of intent) in an essentially public
forum. Now, if it were an "electronic thing" grazing for postable Web
site pages and littering on everything it finds, that would be more
grounds to justify action by the offending hosts' ISP.

How many times does this happen to your site? Do you think you are the
victim of a vindictive/adolescent person(s), or does the "electronic
attack" seem more feasible? Incidentally, the two incidents you've
pointed out are coming from the Orlando, FL area (as evidenced by the
DNS PTR records).

Sincerely,

Jim

P.S. The opinions expressed in this message are my own, and not
necessarily those of my employer, STSN.

My Response:

From: kayetie@cerebraldump.comNOSPAM
Subject: Re: ::Re: blog spammer
Date: September 23, 2004 11:20:32 AM EDT
To: jharle@stsn.comNOSPAM

Dear Jim,

That's fine. You may contend all you like. You have informed me that STSN.com has no clue as to who the individual spammer is, so my only resolve is to block IPs & use a Blacklist. We are not talking about off-topic postings here. We are talking about spam for payday loans, penis enlargement, party poker, etc. Spam under any definition.

"How many times does this happen to your site?" ... One too many. A victim? No. Attack? No. I am merely informing you, and asking that you have 'said' user(s) stop spamming me. That is all. I don't care what state the spammer comes from. That is your concern as Administrator, and for you as an Administrator to deal with on your end.

No further response from you or STSN.com is needed. Your initial standard complaint response was good enough to let me know that I should just be blocking the IPs from STSN.com. Good day.

Sincerely,

Kayetie