Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:20:57 -0500 (EST) From: Susan Harris To: dean@av8.com Cc: nanog-admin@merit.edu Subject: Re: Sorbs.net (fwd) Dean, I owe you a huge apology for this. I've made many mistakes in the past, but this is by far the worst. I'm glad you and Martin corresponded about this, and again, I'm so sorry for making an idiot of myself. --Susan Harris, for the NANOG list admin team ---------- Forwarded message ---------- 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! > > >