[ppml] Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2002-6 REALITY CHECK

[Lee Howard]

On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Dr. Jeffrey Race wrote:

> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 13:38:08 +0700
> From: Dr. Jeffrey Race <jrace at attglobal.net>
> To: Philip Smith <pfs at cisco.com>
> Cc: ARIN PPML <ppml at arin.net>
> Subject: RE: [ppml] Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2002-6 REALITY
>     CHECK
> 
> On Thu, 14 Nov 2002 15:14:00 +1000, Philip Smith wrote:
> >What does spam have to do with the bodies allocating address space?
[. . .]
> >2. What has negligently used address space got to do with the RIRs. They 
> >allocate to the ISPs, and on rare occasions to the end user. ISPs assign 
> to 
> >the end-users, so if someone is negligently using this assignment, don't 
> >you think it would be a better idea to tell the organisation who has 
> >delegated responsibility of this address space to the end user?
> 
> Yes, in fact that is the SOP, but some ISPs intentionally profit from
> these criminal activities, and until they are threatened, they will
> continue to profit.   Same idea as the UUNet/WorldCom accounting
> frauds.   Nothing happened to the criminals at the top of the organization
> for a long time.  If the regulators had been doing their jobs the
> accounting frauds would have been much smaller in impact.

Were you intentionally trolling for me?

I'm not competent to comment on WorldCom's accounting.  I can say that I
am personally distressed about it, but it seems to me that action was
taken pretty quickly after it was discovered.
 
> And by the way, the irony is that UUNet/MCI are one of the biggest
> profiteers, if not the biggest, on spam.   I offered a complete,
> ready-to-eat, criminal prosecution (under Virginia Computer Crime Act)
> to UUNet legal staff, who refused to take action.   I asked their
> staff attorney under what direction this policy was taken.  He said
> "Mr. Ebbers".   Is the picture clear now?

I'm not familiar with the specifics of the case above.  I can imagine
that we might have limited resources for litigation, and spam might not 
be the highest priority right now.  Again, I'm not really competent to 
comment.

I've personally, gleefully, shut down spammers' connectivity.  I have
always doubted that UUNET's portion of spam is disproportionately larger
than its portion of other Internet traffic.  If you have a beef with 
what we do about spam, talk to us directly or take it to NANAE where 
you'll find many people to share in bashing UUNET and WorldCom.  It's 
not appropriate for ARIN PPML, however.

I'm willing to let us be used as an example of an ISP, though.  If you
want to say:

	For example, say UUNET assigns a /24 to a customer, who spams,
	gets blacklisted, and is shut down.  UUNET assigns the /24 to
	another customer.  Is UUNET responsible for knowing that the
	network was blacklisted, and getting it removed from the list?

	Later, UUNET returns the /14 allocation to ARIN.  Is ARIN or
	UUNET or anyone responsible for removing that /24 from the 
	blacklist before it is allocated to another ARIN member?


Lee



> Dr. Jeffrey Race, President
> Cambridge Electronics Laboratories