Petition to De-Peer MSN
Lysander Spooner
me with your name, email address, how you would like to identify
yourself (title, interest, etc) and any comments. I will be putting
them all on a webpage, as received, along with the following.
(If you do not wish to co-sign publically, just tell me so, and I'll
include you in a separate email at the time I notify CW of the
petition. I think this is better than individual requests. Our
intent is to persuade, not to mailbomb.)
==========================================================
To: ne...@cw.net
Dear Mr. Powell;
We the undersigned (news admins, despammers, newsgroup moderators and
concerned netizens) respectfully request that you terminate your
news-peer/newsfeed arrangement with Microsoft Corporation (MSN.COM.)
MSN's feed-server (UPNETNEWS04) has been a leading source of Usenet
spam for many months. They have received regular abuse reports,
which have been variously met by clueless replies, lame excuses,
ignore-bots, empty promises and silence, at different times during the
process. But nothing changes. MSN continues to pump almost pure
spam into the newsflow.
Here are the daily statistics from the Spam Hippo since the beginning
of the year:
Date Rank Server Name Total Spam %Spam KB
990101 25 upnetnews04 594 594 100 37052
990102 18 upnetnews04 1008 1008 100 66000
990105 28 upnetnews04 796 796 100 26127
990106 25 upnetnews04 814 814 100 14184
990107 28 upnetnews04 736 736 100 30407
990108 21 upnetnews04 1632 1213 74 35022
990109 22 upnetnews04 1442 1151 80 25690
990110 31 upnetnews04 739 739 100 33503
990111 22 upnetnews04 930 930 100 26363
990112 23 upnetnews04 930 930 100 34455
990113 30 upnetnews04 840 840 100 46132
990114 27 upnetnews04 1088 1088 100 23698
990115 19 upnetnews04 1421 1421 100 45908
990116 21 upnetnews04 1615 1615 100 56885
990117 23 upnetnews04 1212 1212 100 44978
990118 8 upnetnews04 1855 1855 100 46895
990119 14 upnetnews04 1424 1424 100 28694
990120 21 upnetnews04 1243 1243 100 27475
990121 25 upnetnews04 1654 948 57 26955
990122 21 upnetnews04 1268 1268 100 25386
990123 16 upnetnews04 1244 1244 100 35245
990124 16 upnetnews04 1383 1383 100 44963
990125 21 upnetnews04 994 994 100 45685
990126 17 upnetnews04 1478 1478 100 35770
990127 9 upnetnews04 2051 2051 100 76830
990128 13 upnetnews04 1253 1253 100 37160
990129 14 upnetnews04 1711 1711 100 62915
990130 10 upnetnews04 1746 1746 100 68394
990131 7 upnetnews04 1641 1641 100 54745
990201 11 upnetnews04 1838 1838 100 95728
990202 7 upnetnews04 1713 1713 100 66592
990203 5 upnetnews04 2041 2041 100 61263
990204 11 upnetnews04 1992 1992 100 35045
990205 14 upnetnews04 1423 1423 100 74866
990206 9 upnetnews04 1981 1981 100 72056
990207 11 upnetnews04 1787 1787 100 51033
990208 10 upnetnews04 1963 1963 100 60588
990209 11 upnetnews04 1681 1681 100 77778
990210 5 upnetnews04 1938 1938 100 71990
990211 7 upnetnews04 2156 2156 100 85047
990212 21 upnetnews04 1116 1116 100 34799
990213 12 upnetnews04 1173 1173 100 28613
990214 18 upnetnews04 1198 1141 95 41343
990215 16 upnetnews04 1282 1282 100 51122
990216 18 upnetnews04 1176 1176 100 44884
990217 12 upnetnews04 1316 1316 100 29966
990218 13 upnetnews04 1125 1125 100 42205
990219 12 upnetnews04 1121 1104 98 27676
990220 12 upnetnews04 1314 1304 99 36722
990222 14 upnetnews04 1574 1122 71 58041
990223 11 upnetnews04 1594 1594 100 55656
990224 9 upnetnews04 1819 1819 100 58890
990225 12 upnetnews04 1229 1229 100 51486
990227 12 upnetnews04 994 994 100 39131
990228 10 upnetnews04 1166 1166 100 42842
990301 18 upnetnews04 832 832 100 35654
990303 14 upnetnews04 1305 1305 100 40090
990304 14 upnetnews04 1148 1148 100 43712
990305 16 upnetnews04 1405 1405 100 29065
990306 12 upnetnews04 1488 1488 100 73544
990307 18 upnetnews04 1060 1060 100 46666
990308 15 upnetnews04 1814 1513 83 58495
990309 26 upnetnews04 843 843 100 12094
990310 19 upnetnews04 1186 1186 100 12020
990311 15 upnetnews04 1222 1222 100 34066
990312 20 upnetnews04 1185 1185 100 45246
990313 28 upnetnews04 708 708 100 26121
990314 24 upnetnews04 1015 1015 100 29636
990315 19 upnetnews04 1119 1119 100 12991
990318 15 upnetnews04 1441 1441 100 51598
990320 32 upnetnews04 578 578 100 27082
990321 6 upnetnews04 1964 1964 100 87531
990322 29 upnetnews04 902 902 100 27769
990323 56 upnetnews04 434 434 100 12479
990324 21 upnetnews04 952 952 100 40174
990325 31 upnetnews04 867 867 100 31936
990326 25 upnetnews04 1069 1069 100 19015
990327 25 upnetnews04 1019 1019 100 40857
Average Rank: 17.64
Total Articles: 102008
Spam: 99755
% Spam: 97.79
KB Spam: 3396719
Any news provider can be targetted by spammers and find itself near
the top of the list for a few days now and then, but it is absolutely
inexcusable to be at the top of the list continuously for almost four
months, with an average spam output of 98%.
CW is apparently the only feed MSN has. Please terminate it and put
a stop to this ongoing abuse.
Thank You for your attention and your assistance.
SIGNED
---------------
Christopher Biow
>...CW is apparently the only feed MSN has. Please terminate it and put
>a stop to this ongoing abuse.
>
>Thank You for your attention and your assistance.
>
>SIGNED
>---------------
bi...@ezmort.com (Christopher Biow)
co-moderator and robomod admin, misc.kids.moderated
robomod admin, rec.food.cuisine.jewish
Henrietta Thomas
buch...@cybernex.net (Lysander Spooner) wrote:
I assume you're planning to cc this to MSN....
>To: ne...@cw.net
>
>Dear Mr. Powell;
>
>We the undersigned (news admins, despammers, newsgroup moderators and
>concerned netizens) respectfully request that you terminate your
>news-peer/newsfeed arrangement with Microsoft Corporation (MSN.COM.)
>
>MSN's feed-server (UPNETNEWS04) has been a leading source of Usenet
>spam for many months. They have received regular abuse reports,
>which have been variously met by clueless replies, lame excuses,
>ignore-bots, empty promises and silence, at different times during the
>process. But nothing changes. MSN continues to pump almost pure
>spam into the newsflow.
>
>Here are the daily statistics from the Spam Hippo since the beginning
>of the year:
>
>Date Rank Server Name Total Spam %Spam KB
>990101 25 upnetnews04 594 594 100 37052
>990102 18 upnetnews04 1008 1008 100 66000
[snip to save bandwidth]
>Any news provider can be targetted by spammers and find itself near
>the top of the list for a few days now and then, but it is absolutely
>inexcusable to be at the top of the list continuously for almost four
>months, with an average spam output of 98%.
>
>CW is apparently the only feed MSN has. Please terminate it and put
>a stop to this ongoing abuse.
>
>Thank You for your attention and your assistance.
>
>SIGNED
>---------------
Henrietta K. Thomas <usa...@wwa.com>
us.* hierarchy coordinator
Lysander Spooner
wrote:
>On Tue, 30 Mar 1999 19:56:09 GMT, in news.admin.net-abuse.usenet,
>buch...@cybernex.net (Lysander Spooner) wrote:
>
>I assume you're planning to cc this to MSN....
Of course. I was planning on cc'ing them when I notify CW. Do you
think I should send them an advance copy now, while it's accumulating
co-sigs?
Howard Knight
: Of course. I was planning on cc'ing them when I notify CW. Do you
: think I should send them an advance copy now, while it's accumulating
: co-sigs?
I already have.
Please add me to the list:
Howard Knight
how...@connectnet.com
All of this spam is coming from one or two individuals. MSN's
negligence is inexcusable.
Howard
Henrietta Thomas
buch...@cybernex.net (Lysander Spooner) wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 07:09:57 GMT, h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas)
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 30 Mar 1999 19:56:09 GMT, in news.admin.net-abuse.usenet,
>>buch...@cybernex.net (Lysander Spooner) wrote:
>>
>>I assume you're planning to cc this to MSN....
>
>Of course. I was planning on cc'ing them when I notify CW. Do you
>think I should send them an advance copy now, while it's accumulating
>co-sigs?
No, I just wanted to be sure they would get a copy when it is sent.
But I note from the very next post that Howard has already sent
them a copy of your petition. So they can't say they don't know
what's going on, can they?
Now, if they were smart, they'd get the problem fixed before you
are finished collecting signatures. Wouldn't that be nice? :-)
Henrietta
Howard Knight
: Now, if they were smart, they'd get the problem fixed before you
: are finished collecting signatures. Wouldn't that be nice? :-)
Don't count on it. They still need a severe beating with a clue
stick. Here's an excerpt from an email I received this morning from one
of their managers:
"I am getting some new servers next week and with the new version
of NNTP software that will limit cross-posting, it will take roughly
2 weeks after installation before they will be ready for the
public."
Nothing was mentioned about terminating the abuser's account.
Howard
Henrietta Thomas
how...@connectnet.com (Howard Knight) wrote:
>Henrietta Thomas (h...@wwa.com) wrote:
>
>: Now, if they were smart, they'd get the problem fixed before you
>: are finished collecting signatures. Wouldn't that be nice? :-)
>
>Don't count on it. They still need a severe beating with a clue
>stick. Here's an excerpt from an email I received this morning from one
>of their managers:
>
> "I am getting some new servers next week and with the new version
> of NNTP software that will limit cross-posting, it will take roughly
> 2 weeks after installation before they will be ready for the
> public."
I like that.
>Nothing was mentioned about terminating the abuser's account.
That is not so cool. You've already told them who it is, so there
should be no problem.
I will still keep my fingers crossed. It's never too late to reform.
Henrietta
Lysander Spooner
wrote:
>> "I am getting some new servers next week and with the new version
>> of NNTP software that will limit cross-posting, it will take roughly
>> 2 weeks after installation before they will be ready for the
>> public."
>
>I like that.
But the problem has nothing whatsoever to do with crossposting. If
they cut the max crossposts in half, the spammers (both of them) will
just post twice as many copies.
>>Nothing was mentioned about terminating the abuser's account.
>
>That is not so cool. You've already told them who it is, so there
>should be no problem.
They've been getting told for MONTHS!
>I will still keep my fingers crossed. It's never too late to reform.
Ditto. Hopefully the possibility of losing their feed will wake them
up.
-- Rick
Stan Kalisch III
Howard Knight <how...@connectnet.com> wrote:
> Henrietta Thomas (h...@wwa.com) wrote:
>
> : Now, if they were smart, they'd get the problem fixed before you
> : are finished collecting signatures. Wouldn't that be nice? :-)
> Don't count on it. They still need a severe beating with a clue
> stick. Here's an excerpt from an email I received this morning from one
> of their managers:
> "I am getting some new servers next week and with the new version
> of NNTP software that will limit cross-posting, it will take roughly
> 2 weeks after installation before they will be ready for the
> public."
> Nothing was mentioned about terminating the abuser's account.
Or limiting multiposting.
Stan
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Henrietta Thomas
buch...@cybernex.net (Lysander Spooner) wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 22:29:38 GMT, h...@wwa.com (Henrietta Thomas)
>wrote:
>
>>> "I am getting some new servers next week and with the new version
>>> of NNTP software that will limit cross-posting, it will take roughly
>>> 2 weeks after installation before they will be ready for the
>>> public."
>>
>>I like that.
>
>But the problem has nothing whatsoever to do with crossposting. If
>they cut the max crossposts in half, the spammers (both of them) will
>just post twice as many copies.
Yuk, I didn't think of that. They'd post the same article twice, and
you'd have to do more cancels. Not helpful at all. :-(
>>>Nothing was mentioned about terminating the abuser's account.
>>
>>That is not so cool. You've already told them who it is, so there
>>should be no problem.
>
>They've been getting told for MONTHS!
Yes, I know. I've read most of Howard's articles. They made a
few promises to "do something" but never followed through.
>>I will still keep my fingers crossed. It's never too late to reform.
>
>Ditto. Hopefully the possibility of losing their feed will wake them
>up.
There is always hope.
Henrietta
Jeffery J. Leader
>: Now, if they were smart, they'd get the problem fixed before you
>: are finished collecting signatures.
Like with the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis, whole books could be written
under the title of "Under the Assumption That They Were Nice."
>Don't count on it. They still need a severe beating with a clue
>stick. Here's an excerpt from an email I received this morning
What is the status of this, Howard? Are you still looking for
signatures, waiting on them, taking this e-mail as a sign that
communications are open?
[They wrote:]
>> will limit cross-posting,
Doesn't seem to go to the heart of the issue, unless they mean
(filter- or rate-) limit multi-posting instead...
>Nothing was mentioned about terminating the abuser's account.
Which is the issue at hand, I think, unless they are employing the
Psychic News Filter on their outbound feed.
Howard Knight
: What is the status of this, Howard? Are you still looking for
: signatures, waiting on them, taking this e-mail as a sign that
: communications are open?
Communications are open. They appear to have a problem with a
spammer who keeps signing up with them. I'll keep you all posted.
Howard
r...@netgate.net
>Communications are open. They appear to have a problem with a
>spammer who keeps signing up with them.
No, they have a problem with incompetent admins who let the guy
repeatedly sign up.
If msn wants to show good faith, let them give you and Rich an email
address that will trigger a pager belonging to someone who'll nuke his
account as soon as it goes off. Or, even better, install a simple
daemon that will watch for his spam, and nuke the account on the spot.
It's not like they have a whole lot of other traffic in their outbound
feed to chew up the CPU time spent scanning it.
Otherwise, pull their feed until they hire someone who knows how to run
a news server.
Ran
Howard Knight
: In <mlQM2.3$Oi2....@news.connectnet.com>, how...@connectnet.com
: (Howard Knight) writes:
:
: >Communications are open. They appear to have a problem with a
: >spammer who keeps signing up with them.
:
: No, they have a problem with incompetent admins who let the guy
: repeatedly sign up.
Right.
: If msn wants to show good faith, let them give you and Rich an email
: address that will trigger a pager belonging to someone who'll nuke his
: account as soon as it goes off. Or, even better, install a simple
: daemon that will watch for his spam, and nuke the account on the spot.
: It's not like they have a whole lot of other traffic in their outbound
: feed to chew up the CPU time spent scanning it.
I plan on speaking with them on the phone tomorrow (Friday). I will
mention that. My bot is already capable of sending email when it
detects a spamming session. I will offer that to them.
: Otherwise, pull their feed until they hire someone who knows how to run
: a news server.
Right.
Howard
Kelly STriker Price
On Tue, 30 Mar 1999 19:56:09 GMT, Lysander Spooner
<buch...@cybernex.net> probably wrote (unless it was a Kook):
[snip]
>Average Rank: 17.64
>Total Articles: 102008
>Spam: 99755
>% Spam: 97.79
>KB Spam: 3396719
>
More effective than a UDP, this would be.
>
>Any news provider can be targetted by spammers and find itself near
>the top of the list for a few days now and then, but it is absolutely
>inexcusable to be at the top of the list continuously for almost four
>months, with an average spam output of 98%.
>
>CW is apparently the only feed MSN has. Please terminate it and put
>a stop to this ongoing abuse.
>
>Thank You for your attention and your assistance.
>
>SIGNED
>---------------
Kelly Price, aka STriker RedWolf
Furry artist at large
tyg...@erols.com, tyg...@aits.umd.edu
- --
This is the utterly boring .sig file of Kelly Price/STriker RedWolf
There are no mention of the Lumber Cartel(tinlc), Furry, vixens, Linux,
Quake 2, or the Slashdot Effect. BTW - No spam, lest be LARTed.
[ JESUS SAVES!!!! Passes to Moses... he shoots... HE SCORES!!!! ]
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r...@netgate.net
>I plan on speaking with them on the phone tomorrow (Friday). I will
>mention that. My bot is already capable of sending email when it
>detects a spamming session. I will offer that to them.
There's an even simpler idea, that's 100% effective, that I've brought
up in other cases: just mark the entire abpe.* hierarchy (and,
possibly, alt.sex.*, if he's using that, too) "non-postable". Rick
mentioned another ISP that had to shut off posting for its good
customers due to an assault by (?) Saylor. Why should msn do any less?
Especially since, as near as we can tell from the Hippo stats, not one
legitimate paying customer of msn.com would be inconvenienced by this:
the ones who want to *read* porn can still do it exactly as before.
It doesn't take any special bots, daemons, pagers, or employees on
call over the holiday weekend.
Even if they did the entire process by hand, it should only take one
employee a few hours, start to finish. Someone who knows a little Perl
or awk could do it much faster.
Ran
I R A Aggie
+ employee a few hours, start to finish. Someone who knows a little Perl
+ or awk could do it much faster.
perl or awk at microsoft? Surely you're joking, Mr. Fenyman? :)
James
Nico Kadel-Garcia
Don't laugh: a big chunk of the networking group runs Linux at home,
and their major web and ftp servers have historically been UNIX,
'cause NT can't take the load.
--
I R A Aggie
<ra...@rkadel.ne.mediaone.net> wrote:
+ On 2 Apr 1999 22:04:56 GMT, I R A Aggie <fl_a...@thepentagon.com> wrote:
+ >perl or awk at microsoft? Surely you're joking, Mr. Fenyman? :)
+ Don't laugh: a big chunk of the networking group runs Linux at home,
+ and their major web and ftp servers have historically been UNIX,
That I didn't know...
+ 'cause NT can't take the load.
...but this I did...
James
Ran
>perl or awk at microsoft? Surely you're joking, Mr. Fenyman? :)
I assumed they still have a few thousand copies of awk available off old
Xenix disks...
Okay, so maybe they don't have Perl. Heck, I didn't have it, myself,
until recently. But, no awk? No grep? No sed? I mean, that would
be like having no *shell*, for &deity's sake! How could they possibly
expect *any*one to produce quality implementations of large-scale
software products, and deliver them on time, without the most basic of
toolki ...
Um...
Nevermind.
Ran
Russ Allbery
> Okay, so maybe they don't have Perl. Heck, I didn't have it, myself,
> until recently.
Actually, there's some public information about doing web design using
Microsoft servers that Microsoft itself publishes that talks about (and
even recommends to some degree) using Perl.
Microsoft is a *very* large corporation. No entity that large has
monolithic opinions, or even monolithic presentation.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Cameron Kaiser
>>Okay, so maybe they don't have Perl. Heck, I didn't have it, myself,
>>until recently.
>Actually, there's some public information about doing web design using
>Microsoft servers that Microsoft itself publishes that talks about (and
>even recommends to some degree) using Perl.
In fact, I'm sure they would have Perl. The Win32 ports are actually quite
workable. But I'm not porting Demonic HTTPi to it until someone gives me a
decent fork() (and a nice alarm() analogue would be good, too).
Anyway, Microsoft knows they'd be full of horse by-product to claim that
VBScript and ASP would handle all cases.
>Microsoft is a *very* large corporation. No entity that large has
>monolithic opinions, or even monolithic presentation.
But they try. :-)
--
Cameron Kaiser * cdkaiser.cris@com * powered by eight bits * operating on faith
-- supporting the Commodore 64/128: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/cwi/ --
head moderator comp.binaries.cbm * cbm special forces unit $ea31 (tincsf)
personal page http://calvin.ptloma.edu/~spectre/ * "when in doubt, take a pawn"