Contacting ISP Over Abuse

[Stecyk]

Hi,

I've been playing cat and mouse with a person/company that has been spamming my blog. After I blocked several of its IPs, all coming from one location, and it simply created new IPs. So today, I just blocked the entire range. :rasberry:

This particular person/company hails from the great city of Saint-Petersburg in Russia.

Has anyone ever bothered contacting the ISP and telling them to get their customer to knock it off? Or does that simply invite even more trouble, perhaps the kind of trouble that simple IP address blocking does not help?

I am curious as to your thoughts.

Regards,
Kevin

[Andilinks]

I often block entire ranges from China and Russia because I'm unlikely to get much legitimate traffic from those countries anyway.

For that reason even if I successfully got the ISP to act it would be a waste of my time.

If your blog has readers in Russia that would be different.

[Jeff]

I just resorted myself to blocking indonesia and nigeria from a couple of my sites (for which I found this useful: http://www.completewhois.com/statistics/data/ips-bycountry/rirstats/ ) On principle I hate to put IP blocks in place, but in practice it was taking too much time to deal with spam from these IP ranges for sites getting no legitimate traffic from them. Of course, with proxies the spammers will probably just work their way around as I continue to block proxy after proxy...

[Stecyk]

Thank you Andi and Jeff.

I don't get much legitimate traffic from Russia, so I am not too worried about blocking this one ISP. On principle I don't like doing that. But the cat and mouse game was wearing thin.

Spam, for the most part, has not been a big issue. Movable Type has a plugin that checks incoming messages against lists by bsb.spamlookup.net and opm.blitzed.org. That seems to catch a large percentage of the spam. Plus, I can create rules for key words and number of links to reduce the spam even further. And my comments are moderated.

But this one Russian site accounts for 80%+ of my hits on some days. You'd think someone would check their logs and see a bunch of 403s. I guess not. Anyway, today I blocked off large chunks of IP addresses. That ought to slow them down--at least for a while.

I won't bother contacting the ISP.

Regards,
Kevin

[Mandi]

Perhaps it's unfair and xenophobic, but I would not put time into trying to work with an overseas ISP, aside from a handful of countries with tough laws. I think it's just an exercise in internet whack-a-mole, and I'd rather just play .htaccess Talk To The Hand, if you know what I mean.

[Andilinks]

I have better things to do this morning than split philosophical hairs, but I started on this anyway, sorry. Yes I know it's just an offhand comment. :confuz:

Perhaps it's unfair and xenophobic...There is no need to feel even the tiniest bit guilty over this practicality. You are using a limited resource--your time, to reach the greatest number with the best information.

Since the populations in question largely don't speak English and in the case of China are already blocked from seeing many western sites the number of people actually being reached is miniscule compared to the number you would reach if you just used that same time to improve the coverage and content for those unhampered by the spam.

That is not xenophobic, just practical. Any unfairness stems from the actions of others, not your actions.

If you labor under the impossible dream that everything you do must be equally fair to all the billions of inhabitants of earth your effectiveness is nullified by a warped idealism. Maybe spending my time writing about this is also a warped idealism. :)

[tknterry]

If I may wax philosophic for a moment now, I think it is neither xenophobic, fair, or a matter of warped idealism. Its simply the unfortunate reality of spam that forces us to make a choice to block an entire country. Its the actions of a few morons that produce and distribute spam that make this necessary.


.....
That is not xenophobic, just practical. Any unfairness stems from the actions of others, not your actions.

If you labor under the impossible dream that everything you do must be equally fair to all the billions of inhabitants of earth your effectiveness is nullified by a warped idealism. Maybe spending my time writing about this is also a warped idealism. :)

[kitchin]

A friend here had to give up using her Indian email account. I think her own ISP in the U.S. was blocking it.

[Stecyk]

Perhaps it's unfair and xenophobic, but I would not put time into trying to work with an overseas ISP, aside from a handful of countries with tough laws. I think it's just an exercise in internet whack-a-mole, and I'd rather just play .htaccess Talk To The Hand, if you know what I mean.Thank you Mandi, :yeah:

I found your response humorous.

Regards,
Kevin

[tknterry]

It was an amusing response :look: . I especially like the term 'whack-a-mole'. Thats new to me. Thanks Mandi. You are building a fan club here, see?
......I think it's just an exercise in internet whack-a-mole, and I'd rather just play .htaccess Talk To The Hand, if you know what I mean.

[Mandi]

Whack a mole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whack_a_mole) is an arcade game ;). The objective of that game reminds me of the futility of going after spammers. Glad my post made you smile :kewl: !