The paragraph in question being:
If you would like a site be added or removed from BlarsBL, you may hire
Blars at his normal consulting rates (currently $250/hour, 2 hour minimum,
$1000 deposit due in advance for non-established customers) to investigate
your evidence about the site. If it is found that the entry was a mistake,
no charge will be made and the entire deposit will be refunded. Send Blars
email from a non-listed account to verify current rates and arrange payment.
There is precedent here for this being considered outright blackmail. It is
not unusual for someone to call up a major software vendor to report a
'security problem' and demand to be paid a 'consulting fee' to fix it,
otherwise the 'security problem' will appear on Bugtraq or the like and
cause bad publicity for the company.
In this instance we have a threat to continue to advertise a statement about
the users of an IP address block unless a fee is paid. In most
jurisdicitions it does not matter whether the statement being made is true
or not. It is still blackmail if someone threatens to expose a true
statement such as reveal an affair, homosexuality etc.
Somewhat amusing is the following code points describing the reasons for
listing:
.8 Wants spam compainers to jump through hoops
Would charging a $250/hr consulting fee constitute jumping through hoops?
Interesting side point, consider the MEDIA3/MAPS case:
http://www.mail-abuse.org/pressreleases/2001-01-02-media3.pdf
Here the court denies a preliminary injunction for the sole reason that
insufficient harm is demonstrated which in turn is shown by the fact Media3
waited 6 months to file the application. One of the side effects of this
case is that it implies that anyone who has been wrongly or maliciously
listed on a blacklist should apply for an injunction as a FIRST resort
rather than as a LAST resort because delay is likely to weaken their case.
Another interesting point here, the ruling is typed on what appears to be
either a 1970s vintage Remington portable or someone messing with our minds
with software deliberately tricked up to look like one, complete with the
variable impact pressure of different keys etc. I suspect the former, so
deep in the home state of MIT courts who have yet to make it into the 1980s
with word-processing are deciding cases on the use of the Internet...
Phill
-----Original Message-----
From: Kee Hinckley [mailto:nazgul(_at_)somewhere(_dot_)com]
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2003 8:34 PM
To: Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: [Asrg] Blacklist blackmail
We are now getting RBLs who will remove your host from their
blacklist for a fee. (See http://www.blars.org/errors/block.html for
an example.)
And yes, people actually subscribe to these. And yes, they do block
non-spamming ISPs.
--
Kee Hinckley
http://www.puremessaging.com/ Junk-Free Email Filtering
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/ Writings on Technology
and Society
I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so
unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so
eager to regulate
everyone else's.
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg