REPOST: PSINet Response to USENET Death Penalty
PSINet Net Abuse Team
news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
news.admin.net-abuse.bulletins
news.admin.net-abuse.policy
news.announce
Outlined below are many methodologies utilized by PSINet and its
Net-Abuse team to reduce the amount of network abuse that occurs. This
would include reducing USENET spam. The information provided below
demonstrates PSINet is not only taking this issue seriously, but we are
attacking it in an aggressive manner.
Facts About PSINet's Anti-Spam Campaign
1. As of October 20, 1998, PSINet delivers connectivity and value-added
application services to more than 140 other ISPs and telecommunications
providers. PSINet continues to work closely with these business
partners and direct corporate connectivity customers to identify sources
of Usenet spam. Once identified, PSINet does not hesitate to disable
any PSINet or wholesale dialup account used to distribute spam. Our Net
Abuse Team, which is staffed 7 days a week, "kills" hundreds of dialup
accounts each month due to violations of PSINet's anti-spam policy.
2. PSINet cannot "kill" every dialup account used to distribute spam
without the full cooperation of each ISP - including ISP's who are not
PSINet's wholesale customers - in supplying accurate news server logs.
Without assurance that the dates and times of specific messages are
authentic and not deliberately forged by the spammer to cover its
tracks, PSINet cannot disable the account without running the
unacceptable risk of injuring an innocent party's service. Most ISP's
are cooperative, but responses are not assured, and when received, are
not always timely. We are continuing our efforts to foster cooperative
relationships with all ISP's whose news servers permit spam
transmissions.
3. PSINet requires its ISP's and corporate customers to sign a contract
that expressly promises the compliance with PSINet's Net Abuse Policy,
with the ultimate penalty of termination of the relationship, without
the normal cure period for material breach, in the event the ISP itself
violates the Policy.
4. When a PSINet POP is identified as the source of an exceptional
quantity of spam, we take steps to identify the account (as described in
paragraph 2) and second, to request that the ISP identify the account
holder by name, address, phone number, and other specific identifying
information. Occasionally an ISP will not provide this information in
the absence of a subpoena or court order, and we have encountered other
difficulties in pursuing accurate personal identifying information. We
are proactively seeking methodologies to resolve the breakdown in
obtaining this identifying information. We have turned over the
information resulting from our investigation of the Fort Worth POP to
our Legal Department for appropriate action.
5. The PSINet news server most frequently identified by Usenet spam
monitors has been reconfigured so that it is accessible solely by PSINet
corporate customers. We expect that, by this action alone, the total
quantity of Usenet spam characterized by a "PSINet connection" (either
by the NNTP Posting Host or by the news server itself) will be reduced.
6. PSINet has installed, and is currently testing, an anti-spam software
package. All PSINet news servers available to PSINet's corporate and
ISP customers will be subject to the parameters we set using this
program. We expect this action, along with the steps taken in paragraph
5 to have a significant effect in reducing spam.
7. We have been systematically contacting the administrators of "open"
news servers to encourage them to close the servers to any
NNTP-Posting-Host that carries a PSINet dialup POP IP address or require
authentication to the server. We are actively pursuing not only our own
news servers and those of our customers, but other ISP news servers as
well (i.e. carolina.net).
In light of the foregoing, we urge you to suspend any plans to implement
the UDP. At a minimum, there should be a fair opportunity to observe
the results of the foregoing actions before considering a UDP. In
particular, PSINet is concerned that cancelling posts originating from
pubxfer.news.psi.net and interramp.com may prevent PSINet's direct
customers from posting Usenet news, a service which they have contracted
with us to receive. In any event, there should be no reason to cancel
posts from these machines once the anti-spam software has been fully
implemented.
Please continue to direct complaints and concerns to our Net Abuse Team
(ab...@psi.com). We are striving to be responsive to your complaints
and to act on them quickly and effectively.
PSINet Net Abuse Team
ab...@psi.com
========= WAS CANCELLED BY =======:
Message-ID: <aUaQ5Sq.h6EQ...@psi.com>
Control: cancel <3640DE6C...@psi.com>
Subject: cmsg cancel <3640DE6C...@psi.com>
From: PSINet Net Abuse Team <ab...@psi.com>
Date: 6 Nov 1998 14:21:32 GMT
Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
Path: ...!news.idt.net!WCG!arl-news-svc-3.compuserve.com!news-master.compuserve.com!nntp-nih2naac.compuserve.com!psi.com!abuse
Lines: 0