When nerds become terrorists

One of the IPs of a server I manage in a data center has been caught up in an Outblaze /24 RBL. Outblaze admits that the spam is really from a different IP range than ours:

That’s a spammer to whom your provider has given multiple (several dozen) /27 and /26 sized blocks spread across their IP space

Our IP addresses are not in these spammer ranges, but Outblaze threw our (innocent of spamming) IPs into their block anyway. This is a typical supposed good-guy anti-spammer tactic; it is effectively a form of terrorism. They want us to do their bidding for them. They have unilaterally declared some IP as a spammer and now they want us (without any direct evidence that they are spammers – only the hearsay evidence from Outblaze) to report them to our data center provider, which we of course have to do. Outblaze wants us to take their word for it that these are bad guys, the same way the COPS TV show does.

Please ask [data center provider] to kick this spammer off their networks, and I will lift the block on this (and other) /24s that high spam volumes from the above spammer have caused.

All these RBL sites are bogus – I’m against spam, but these sites do more harm than good. They are vigilante organizations run by fascists – it’s their way or the highway – and they are practicing a form of restraint of trade. These are kids that got beat up on the playground and now they are getting back. It’s kind of silly. If a spamming sites gets on the RBL, no big deal — it’s in their operating plan – they just move on. But if a good guy gets on their RBL, they are screwed – there is no third party checking these guys and no court of appeal.

1 comment for “When nerds become terrorists

  1. I agree, these guys a scumbags. They are destroying legitimate businesses with their terrorist practices. They get away with it because they are off shore, ie, in Hong Kong.

    Here’s this assholes number btw: 203-286-1424

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