The Spamhaus Project
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The Spamhaus Project is a completely volunteer effort founded by Steve Linford in 1998 that aims to track e-mail spammers and spam-related activity. It is named for the anti-spam jargon term coined by Linford, spamhaus, a pseudo-German expression for an ISP or other firm which spams or willingly provides service to spammers.
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[edit] Spamhaus DNSBLs
Spamhaus is responsible for the two most widely-used DNS-based Blackhole List (DNSBLs, also known as Real-time Blackhole List or RBL) in the anti-spam arena -- the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) and the Exploits Block List (XBL). Many internet service providers and other Internet sites use these free services to reduce the amount of spam they take on. The SBL and XBL collectively protect almost 500 million e-mail users, according to Spamhaus' web page (April 2006).
The Spamhaus Block List (SBL) targets "verified spam sources (including spammers, spam gangs and spam support services)." Its goal is to list IP addresses belonging to known spammers, spam operations, and spam-support services. [1] The SBL's listings are partially based on the ROKSO index of "spam gangs", for which see below.
The Exploits Block List (XBL) targets "illegal 3rd party exploits, including open proxies, worms/viruses with built-in spam engines, and other types of trojan-horse exploits." That is to say, like several other DNSBLs it is a list of known open proxies and exploited computers being used to send spam and viruses. The XBL includes listings gathered by Spamhaus as well as by two contributing DNSBL operations -- the Composite Blocking List (CBL) and the Not Just Another Bogus List (NJABL) lists.
Spamhaus's DNSBLs are offered as a free public service to mail server operators on the Internet. ISPs and other large sites doing extremely large numbers of queries can also sign-up for an rsync-based feed of these DNSBLs, which Spamhaus calls its Data Feed, at a moderate fee as long as they are not in Spamhaus's top ten worst spam service ISPs list, and they must also pass a background check to make sure they do not knowingly or intentionally provide services to spammers.
[edit] Registry of Known Spam Operations
The Spamhaus Registry of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) is a database of "hard-core spam gangs" -- spammers and spam operations who have been terminated from three or more ISPs due to spamming. The ROKSO list is not a DNSBL; it is, rather, a directory of publicly-sourced information about these persons and their business and at times criminal activities.
As Spamhaus operates in the United Kingdom, it is subject to the UK. Data Protection Act 1998 which restricts its ability to publish private information legally. (The Data Protection Act 1998 repealed the Data Protection Act 1984.) For this reason, ROKSO publishes only information gathered from public sources such as newspapers, court records, incorporation filings, and other public records. Spamhaus also keeps additional information on spammers for disclosure only to law enforcement agencies.
[edit] e360 Lawsuit
In September 2006 an American spammer named David Linhardt, operating as "e360 Insight LLC", sued Spamhaus for blacklisting his website. Spamhaus initially succeeded in moving the case from state to federal court, but then stopped defending itself against the lawsuit, because it is based in the United Kingdom and outside the jurisdiction of United States courts. The American court awarded e360 $11,715,000 in damages, and Spamhaus announced that they would ignore the judgment. e360 attempted to force ICANN to remove the domain records of Spamhaus. This raised issues regarding ICANN's unusual position as an American organization with worldwide responsibility for domain names,[2][3] and ICANN protested that they had neither the ability, nor the authority, to remove the domain records of Spamhaus, which is a UK-based not-for-profit organization. On October 20, 2006, Judge Charles Kocoras ruled that removing Spamhaus's domain name registration was a remedy that was "too broad to be warranted in this case," because it would "cut off all lawful online activities of Spamhaus, not just those that are in contravention" of the default judgment.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Sources
| This article is part of the Spamming series. | |
|---|---|
| E-mail spam | DNSBL | Spamhaus | Stopping e-mail abuse | Spambot Address munging | E-mail authentication | Directory Harvest Attack |
| Spamdexing |
Google bomb | Keyword stuffing | Cloaking | Link farm | Web ring Referer spam | Blog spam | Spam blogs | Sping | Scraper site |
| Telemarketing | Autodialer | Mobile phone spam | VoIP spam |
| Scams | Phishing | Advance fee fraud | Lottery scam | Make money fast | Pump and dump |
| Misc. | Messaging spam | Newsgroup spam | Flyposting History of spamming |
