Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 09:14:12 -0500 (EST) From: Susan Harris To: Dean Anderson Cc: nanog-admin@merit.edu Subject: Re: Sorbs.net Dean is nuts, and is widely known for this throughout the Internet. I'd suggest sending this message: ----------------- Dean: ad hominem attacks are prohibited on the NANOG mailing list. Please see our AUP: http://www.nanog.org/aup.html We thank you for your cooperation in helping to maintain the content and quality of the NANOG mailing list. ---------------- One more warning after this, three he's out. On Sun, 27 Mar 2005, Dean Anderson wrote: > > Hi folks. A few points about Sorbs (I've also started a web site > www.iadl.org to track abuse of the internet for defamation purposes. The > web site isn't finished, yet.) > > 1) Someone said Sorbs is just Matthew Sullivan. > > Well, _Sullivan_ said it isn't just him. Yeah, sure, that has > credibilty... > > However, my own experience with Sorbs has revealed that it is also Alan > Brown (formerly of ORBS) and Kai Schlicting. We all remember Alan from the > ORBS shutdown, I hope. Alan was found by three courts in separate cases to > be defaming people (two by using a blacklist). > > Well, Alan claimed our address space was hijacked and that the OSF didn't > exist anymore. This was picked up verbatim by Sorbs. When I contacted > Sullivan to tell him this was false, Schlichting send an "anonymous" > message from abuse@conti.nu to The Open Group. (www.osf.org goes to > www.theopengroup.org). After that, they dropped the part of OSF not > existing anymore. > > [You all know the The Open Group (TOG): They do Motif, X Window System, > DCE, CDE (used on sun, hp, compaq, ibm, etc). They own the Unix trademark, > XPG4 suite, they do standards compliance testing, etc. They do lots of > things.] > > The general counsel for TOG forwarded me the defamatory email from > Schlicting demanding that TOG explain why we provide them services and > why we are allowed to use 130.105/16 and other nonsense. Here's just a > sample, indentation his: > > however ARIN regulations > and their predecessor's (the > Internic: operations funded by > ARPANET) > regulations make it quite clear that > the resources allocated by these > registries are for the public > benefit, and are nothing short of a > government grant for use of a public, > shared resource. Government > grants are not transferable without > explicit and advance permission, > and their beneficial details and use > are open to the public for > inspection, and likely covered by the > FOIA. > > Yeah, right. > > The message was anonymous, from abuse@conti.nu, which I tracked back to > Schlichting. > > After a complaint to their hosting provider, (at the time, XO), Sorbs was > apparently booted from XO for its defamatory statements in violation of > XO's AUP. Another Sullivan site that was threatening mailbombing was also > booted. Interestingly, Sullivan tried to convince XO that Sorbs.net and > dnsbl.sorbs.net were different and that he wasn't responsible for > dnsbl.sorbs.net, and so XO shouldn't boot www.sorbs.net. XO didn't buy it, > I guess. SORBS was then given hosting by ISC.ORG, which doesn't have an > AUP (interesting by itself), and apparently doesn't mind being associated > with court-proven liars and mailbombers. > > Also interestingly, the Sorbs web site contains (or used to contain) a lot > of logos for vendors. At first glance, these seem to be endorsements or > support. But if you read the text, it just says not to complain to these > other companies about Sorbs. Sorbs did claim that Sun donated equipment. I > contacted Sun in Australia, and they had no record of donating anything to > Sorbs. The most I have been able to find out about Sullivan is that he > is/was a student at the University of Queensland in Australia. In his > email to me, he claimed that I should sue him because he has no assets. > > Well, indeed, we can sue him for defamation and expect the similar results > as in the 3 similar ORBS lawsuits. Brown/ORBS tried to say his false > claims were just opinion. As did MAPS in Exactis V. MAPS. > Interestingly, in his messages to me, Sullivan claimed that the (US) First > Amendment protects him. This has been refuted in US courts and is a > frivolous claim even in the US, but certainly it doesn't protect > Australians in Australia. The court, in addressing ORBS's false claims, > noted they were basically a personal attack. > > But, indeed, I have not so far located any substantial assets other than > Sorbs itself, which doesn't seem very substantial. I'm still looking. > Australian law gives us 5 years from the last false claim to file suit. So > we have (at least) until March 2010. If anyone has any more information > about Sullivan or his personal assets, please let me know. I note that > Brown lost his ISP to pay for damages in his ORBS court cases. This was > followed by a strategy posted by Ron Guillmette for preventing assets from > being put at risk by abusive blacklists. Sullivan seems to be following > that strategy. When Sullivan says "sue me I have no assets", he's telling > me that it is of little point to lay out $50K to sue someone who's > economic substance amounts to being barely above homeless and who almost > certainly can't pay the damages when they lose. > > Rich Kulawiec mused: > >On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 05:44:41PM -0500, Paul G wrote: > >> unfortunately, that *still* didn't stop people from using it, which > >> translated into an unresolvable headache for me as a sp. > > > >Then gripe at the people who chose to use it: it was *their* > >decision, and if it was a poor one, then they are the people > >who need to be held accountable for it. > > I haven't found it to be too much of a headache, so far. After almost 2 > years of listing by SORBS, its little more than annoying. I suppose that > could change if someone really starts promoting SORBS and ignoring its > history. When we come across someone using Sorbs (a couple times a month, > though I had three in the last week--though they were all university > student run servers), I just call them up and point them to information > about Sorbs, and our listing. That's usually enough for them to quit > using SORBS. > > A good link is http://www.pathname.com/~corpus/NET.age > > It shows that SORBS isn't blocking anything. To get into double digits, > you have to use the SORBS DUL list, which is copied from elsewhere. Nearly > all of the rest is under half a percent. > > But I usually compare the SORBS ZOMBIE(hijacked) list with more reputable > hijacked lists: > > OVERALL% SPAM% HAM% S/O RANK SCORE NAME:0-1 > OVERALL% SPAM% HAM% S/O RANK SCORE NAME:1-3 > OVERALL% SPAM% HAM% S/O RANK SCORE NAME:3-6 > > 0.089 0.1046 0.0054 0.951 0.42 0.82 RCVD_IN_SORBS_ZOMBIE:0-1 > 0.035 0.0365 0.0312 0.539 0.43 0.82 RCVD_IN_SORBS_ZOMBIE:1-3 > 0.094 0.1095 0.0000 1.000 0.46 0.82 RCVD_IN_SORBS_ZOMBIE:3-6 > > 0.015 0.0179 0.0000 1.000 0.36 1.00 RCVD_IN_WHOIS_HIJACKED:0-1 > 0.007 0.0088 0.0000 1.000 0.43 1.00 RCVD_IN_WHOIS_HIJACKED:1-3 > 0.081 0.0946 0.0000 1.000 0.45 1.00 RCVD_IN_WHOIS_HIJACKED:3-6 > > I note that SORBS blocks _ham_ as hijacked, while more reputable lists > block no ham as hijacked. Apparently it isn't just Av8 they are lying > about. > > And in the very few cases where we've run into SORBS supporters, our > lawyers have noted that such blacklisting is itself defamation, unlawful > participation in a group boycott, tortious interference in a contract and > other things. That takes care of that. But that's been pretty rare. > Nearly all users of SORBS are of the misled variety. And even the > supporters seem to have trouble with it. I noted recently that even ISC > no longer uses SORBS for mail filtering. > > >Look, if I want to publish a blocklist of all domains with the > >string "er" in them and all IP addresses ending in .7, that would be > >a silly thing to do: but after all, it's just a list. > > There are consequences, of course, to doing irresponsible things, and to > misleading your subscribers, and to blocking email that your subscribers > didn't authorized you to block. And even if legal consequences aren't > pursued, there are still consequences to being a liar, and consequences to > associating with liars and disreputable people. The first consequence is > that people will point out one's associations/false statements/etc. These > things indicate the character of a person. Sometimes there are > requirements of good character necessary to, say, hold public offices, > hold certain licenses, etc. For example, this is why former New York > mayor Rudi Guiliani found it necessary to dissolve his business > partnership with Bernie Kerik after Kerik was found associated with the > Mafia. In other cases, its just embarrasing to be found associated with > such people. But there are always consquences of some sort or other. No > bad deed goes unpunished. Its just a matter of time. > > > --Dean > > > -- > Av8 Internet Prepared to pay a premium for better service? > www.av8.net faster, more reliable, better service > 617 344 9000 > > > > > !DSPAM:42473ae142841293627884! > > >