shockingly Hosting365 are spam friendly bulletproof hosting
yup unless you send spam via their network they will take zero action against spammers

first off i get some idiotic moron IM {via ICQ} spamming me not unusual but as he's in ireland i take interest

[09:07] 440311632: www.camillejewellery.ie enjoy from shopping in our internet shop!

[09:07] *** Auto-response sent to 440311632: auto-reply: working but can take urgent messages
[09:08] alan_ie: piss off you spamming scum
[09:08] 440311632: is it no spam i am soorry
[09:08] alan_ie: expect your icq cancelled soon
[09:08] alan_ie: it is
[09:09] alan_ie: spam == unsolicited advertising sent to strangers
[09:09] 440311632: thank you for your wishes
[09:14] alan_ie: wait a moment your irish
[09:14] alan_ie: then definitly cease and desist with the spamming
[09:14] 440311632: no i am not, yet ;)

[09:15] 440311632: ok sorry for this i didnt know i cant use icq like this
[09:15] alan_ie: as its easy to loose your domain name and get fines levied against your shop if you continue illegally advertising in this method
[09:16] alan_ie: its illegal to spam by any method
[09:16] alan_ie: its nothing to do with icq
[09:16] 440311632: what you mean
[09:17] alan_ie: its just illegal to spam within the eu by any method
[09:18] alan_ie: if you or any others are spamming on behalf of this company they {the advertised company can loose a lot of assets}
[09:18] 440311632: have a nice day!
[09:19] alan_ie: if your promising to stop and get others to stop maybe i will
[09:19] *** Error while sending IM: This user is currently not logged on



so i then called the number on their site,
{heavy eastern european male accent answers} asked the person answering if they were aware their website is being advertised in spam illegally,
was told he had just found out it was illegal and had stopped {i didn't let him know i was the person who advised him of this}
thanked himfor stopping if true, advised it would be bad for their buisness if they re-started.
he mumbled something about paying for google adds i advised that this would be legal, as these are not spam {sent to unwilling victims}.


so then i thought I'd be nice and report the larting and admission of guilt to their hoster, so if future complaints were recieved they would have proof of, admission and prior warnings being given so they could safely take action, but was shocked to find out they simply dont take action against spamvertised sites!

{higlighting added by me}
[09:28] alandoherty: anyone here
[09:28] alandoherty: ?
[09:30] oeb: longword is normally listening stall on a min and he will get onto you
[09:30] alandoherty: kewl
[09:31] oeb: He is not always paying direct attention here, but he will notice it eventually =P
[09:31] alandoherty: understandable
[09:41] longword: o/
[09:41] alandoherty: hi
[09:43] alandoherty: was wondering if i can make a quick report of a customer larting i've just done to one of yer customers so if abuse gets any reports of them continuing their one person spamming after this 'education' has been recieved they can know they were warned already
[09:43] longword: I see
[09:44] longword: Mails to abuse@hosting365.ie are always read, though usually not responded to
[09:44] alandoherty: as i can believe they may have been unaware of the non-allowance of spamming in the EU beforehand but now they are painfully aware
[09:45] alandoherty: as they got a direct response to their IM spam of the website when i saw it was a .ie thus likely a one person/owner generated spam
[09:46] alandoherty: and i phoned the contact from website and hit same person to re-advise them {not obviously claiming to be the same victim}
[09:47] alandoherty: as they were IM spamming their website to anyone 'online' with location set to IE {as i have more than one id on that particular network
[09:49] alandoherty: so you think a mail to abuse is best way to get it just filed in case they continue and claim ignorance later?
[09:49] alandoherty: btw they are http://www.camillejewellery.ie
[09:50] longword: For anything that's sent through our network, yes
[09:50] alandoherty: he is seems more accurate
[09:50] alandoherty: but the spam wasn't from your net
[09:50] alandoherty: its for a website hosted on your net
[09:50] longword: Err. OK, so we're involved how?
[09:51] alandoherty: you host the spamvertised site?
[09:51] longword: Oh, OK.
[09:51] alandoherty: theres no way of tracing source ip on IM spam
[09:51] longword: TBH we don't usually pay much attention to reports that don't directly involve our network.
[09:51] longword: As we have no means of verifying or acting upon it
[09:52] alandoherty: ok isn't that kinda pointless as pro spammers only send from botnets so reporting the nets they send by is utter pointlessness
[09:53] alandoherty: the only way of detering them is to remove the spamvertised sites thus actually affecting their bottom line
[09:53] longword: We can act against any host that's a member of a botnet
[09:54] alandoherty: yeah but as you don't do connectivity you'll never have one?
[09:54] alandoherty: as its only compromised windows desktops that ever are
[09:54] longword: It's not impossible for a server to be compromised
[09:54] longword: Though I don't think we've come across a spamming botnet member
[09:55] alandoherty: yeah but such a small number its unlikely
[09:55] alandoherty: when they get a server they usually make it a command and controller thus never a source
[09:56] alandoherty: but seriously you guys take no action on spamvertised sites?
[09:56] alandoherty: so bullet proof hosting just not advertised as such?
[09:57] alandoherty: {not impressed ;( }
[09:57] oeb: I would imagine that if they did someone could cause alot of trouble by just spamming (for) a customer they wanted rid of.
[09:57] longword: Exactly.
[09:57] longword: But it's too early in the morning for policy discussions like that.
[09:58] * longword wanders off in the general direction of the coffee machine
[09:59] alandoherty: still youve lost one person that reccomends your hosting via this policy
[09:59] oeb: alan, I am having trouble thinking up the logic behind banning people who spam a site that's hosted on a network, but do it from off network?
[09:59] oeb: There is no way of proving they did it, and your service is not being used to spam.
[10:00] oeb: I would think that's more of an issue to be delt with by the ISP than the hosting provider.
[10:00] alandoherty: well if i hire a pro-spammer to advertise my site, its bad if i reap the benifits with no repercussions
[10:00] oeb: What if I hire a pro-spammer to advertise your site?
[10:00] alandoherty: as pro will be sending from 10,000+ locations
[10:00] oeb: Should you be punished?
[10:01] alandoherty: its a possibility i know but dosn't stop other hosters from suspending sites for being spamvertised
[10:02] oeb: If so, it would be potentially viable for me to pay spammers to spam for my compeditors, just to get them TOSed, in fact since we do most of the trading from that part of the business on line and there is only a couple of compeditors, it would be VERY viable.
[10:02] oeb: And cost effective.
[10:03] oeb: Either way it's hersay. I can say they spammed, but without being able to provide headers coming from their host there is no way that it can be proved that the spam came from them.
[10:05] alandoherty: so as long as they spam from a different provider to their website {who actually has their website on the same net as even their own connectivity} you say no action should be taken {other than cut their home/office connection} which knocks them off a whole few minutes
[10:07] alandoherty: and as long as they spam by non smtp {IM webcomment etc. } where no trace is available its also kosher?
[10:07] oeb: Would it stand up in court? If you disconnected my website and I lost money and brought up a law suit against you. If I said in front of the judge that I had not spammed and it was a compeditor trying to discredit me, could I be proved wrong?
[10:07] oeb: Why can't IP addresses be tracked from IM's? I can track them in my logs.
[10:08] alandoherty: not on most nets as the IM server proxies the messages to protect the users
[10:09] oeb: Ohh right, msn and the like.
[10:09] alandoherty: yup in this case icq
[10:09] oeb: Report them to the IM provider, they all have abuse departments.
[10:09] alandoherty: done already, but it take less than a second to re-connect with a new id
[10:10] alandoherty: but this crowd have stopped {i'm sure user was actually unaware of abuse being committed
[10:11] oeb: But I still don't understand how the host can be held responsible for actions carried out off network? There is 0% proof that the hosted company was even aware that someone was spamming their site.
[10:12] oeb: Maybe that should be reworded as how can the host hold the customer responsible.
[10:12] alandoherty: but in this case proving they were responsible easily done as i'll happily trestify to his admission via the phone {number on their website} that he was responsible and had stopped since another user {he wasn't aware it was also me} had told him it was wrong via IM
[10:13] alandoherty: and as a non-competitor why would I have reason to lie
[10:13] oeb: So it's solved, why does he need to be TOSed? This happens all the time when people are new to the web?
[10:14] oeb: The amount of times I have had customers come into me saying "I found these 8000 email addresses around the web and I am going to mail everyone on it advertising my product/service, how do I do it?"
[10:15] alandoherty: no i was wanting to have the larting put on file in case they continue so you would know that
A it was verifiably themselves doing it
B they had already been warned
so that action {IF it continued, could be safely taken}
[10:16] oeb: I doubt very much that it is against terms of service of any of the big ISPs to use off network spam.
[10:16] alandoherty: when approached in this way do you note who they are in case a followup complaint of them doing it anyway is recieved?
[10:16] alandoherty: actually it is for most
[10:17] alandoherty: hell its why the .at registry ended up on spamhaus
[10:17] alandoherty: as they didn't
[10:17] alandoherty: since changed
[10:18] alandoherty: even .hk kells dns at top level for spam/phising
[10:18] alandoherty: kills i mean
[10:18] oeb: If the registrar larts it then compain to the iedr
[10:19] alandoherty: hell thats an excercise in pointlessness they just re-refer to the hosting provider
[10:20] longword: Will you be contacting this guy's bank to demand that they terminate his account?
[10:21] oeb: The CRO will have to cancel his business name too.
[10:22] alandoherty: no need for the sarcasm and as i said i only wanted to give you notice of the spamming in case it continued
[10:23] oeb: I am almost 100% positive that untraceable spam would not stand up in court as a defence should a user bring a case against the provider.
[10:23] oeb: Education is all that can be done in these situations and you have done it.
[10:23] oeb: We all have to do it from time to time.
[10:24] alandoherty: but as your bulletproof its obviously a waste of time, and the disinterest i'm appauled by {as i said the untraceable nature in this case is a non-issue when a verbal admission of guilt has been made already}
[10:25] oeb: And the requirement for larting is a non issue because it has been resolved.
[10:25] oeb: (I am not staff in h365 btw, I am just a customer)
[10:25] oeb: I just like arguing with people
[10:25] *** Mode change "-o oeb" for channel #hosting365 by oeb.
[10:26] oeb: That might be confusing actually =P
[10:26] alandoherty: sorry didn't see the change of person
[10:26] alandoherty: but either way longword said much the same
[10:27] oeb: Yes, he said they can't lart someone without proof.
[10:27] alandoherty: but yes if yer not hosting365 arguing policy is pointless
[10:27] oeb: Some guy in an IRC channel saying 'He said sorry to me' is not proof.
[10:27] alandoherty: but some guy doing it in court is
[10:27] oeb: Some guy saying 'I got a message, but it did not come from your server' is not proof
[10:28] alandoherty: thats what testimony is
[10:28] oeb: Yes, but this is not court, larting people on hersay would be likely to get h365 in court however which is why I brought it up.
[10:28] alandoherty: the guy on irc was trying to provide evidence to provider for their use if needed
[10:29] oeb: Headers and message id's are evidence.
[10:30] alandoherty: look other providers do, whatever the possibilities of abuse {as it has never beenrecorded as happening}
[10:31] alandoherty: in their TOS it simply states hosting and/or domains can be suspended shutdown due to being used or advertised in spam
[10:32] oeb: Who has it against their terms of service : "If your domain is spammed, weather it comes from our services or not"
[10:32] oeb: The used I have seen, the advertised I have not
[10:32] alandoherty: most responsible hosting providers
[10:32] oeb: Like who
[10:32] oeb: ?
[10:32] alandoherty: used or advertised IN spam nowt to do with origin of spam
[10:33] alandoherty: medway hosting for one
[10:35] alandoherty: and the simple fact that most sites spamvertised {in spam i personally see/report} dissapear within 3 days {usually resurfacing elsewhere online}
[10:36] alandoherty: but most i use automated reporting tools just when its irish i usually bother putting extra effort in as its local
[10:36] oeb: Can't say I have ever heard of medway.
[10:36] alandoherty: but pointless debate when your not a policy maker
[10:36] oeb: Are they big?
[10:37] alandoherty: yes US based virtual machines and dedicated hardware hosters
[10:37] oeb: Debate is never pointless. Longword is not a policy maker either, he is an engineer, or admin or something along those lines. He fixes crap anyway.
[10:37] longword: That's my official title. "Bloke what fixes crap".
[10:37] alandoherty: yeah but actually has ear /possibility of talking to policy makers
[10:38] longword: Yup, if we can get a list of medway customers, spend a few dollars in Russia, we're sorted...
[10:38] alandoherty: either way i got real work to do and unless i hear differently hosting365 is off my hosting providers to reccomend list
[10:39] alandoherty: bye