Amiga Plus 1995 #2/Amiga Plus CD - 1995 - No. 2.iso/internet/faq/englisch/blacklist_internet_advertisers

Text File | 1995-04-11 | 42.4 KB | 939 lines

Archive-name: advertisers-blacklist
Posting-Frequency: every 3-4 weeks


                       BLACKLIST OF INTERNET ADVERTISERS

        First things first: the ads.
        Check out the Adbusters at gopher gopher.well.sf.ca.us under Authors,
        Books.../Online Zines.
        [This space for rent.]

     * 1. What is this?
     * 2. Who gets on the list, and for how long?
     * 3. What is the philosophy behind it?
     * 4. Spam, Velveeta, ... what are you talking about?
     * 5. What can I do with the blacklist?
     * 6. What if I wanted to punish YOU?
     * 7. How about other ways of dealing with commercial junk?
     * 8. How to advertise on the internet?
     * 9. What other blacklists are out there?
     * 10. How can I help?
     * 11. The Blacklist in itself.

1. What is this?

   This is the Blacklist of Internet Advertisers. It is intended to curb
   inappropriate advertising on usenet newsgroups and via junk e-mail. It
   works by describing offenders and their offensive behavior, expecting
   that people who read it will punish the offenders in one way or
   another.

   The list is posted regularly to several newsgroups and the most recent
   version is always available on the WWW as
   http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/blacklist.html

   If you read the non-html version and you don't know what to do with
   all the links given or what the WWW is, send mail to
   [e-mail] with the text

  send usenet/news.answers/www/faq/*

   in the body of the message.

2. Who gets on the list, and for how long?

   Anyone who is pointed out to me for sending out unsolicited commercial
   e-mail or posting inappropriate commercials to usenet newsgroups or
   mailing lists. I also monitor alt.current-events.net-abuse.

   With "inappropriate commercials" I basically mean ads posted to
   unrelated newsgroups or mailing lists or to those which traditionally
   don't tolerate commercial messages. The number of complaints I receive
   is also a factor.

   Everyone on the list gets notified so that they can correct possibly
   inaccurate information.As a general rule, people are taken off the
   list after 3 months unless they repeat their behavior.

3. What is the philosophy behind it?

   In a nutshell: the Internet is probably as close to an anarchy as we
   can get. This is good. Therefore, punishing of unwelcome behavior
   should be done by private individuals and hence follow the same grass
   roots philosophy that governs the rest of the net. Read more about it
   in http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/blacklist_philosophy.html

4. Spam, Velveeta, ... what are you talking about?

   Spam and Velveeta are two fine food products which, on the Internet,
   stand for certain unwelcome behaviours.

   Spam has its own page on the WWW:
   http://sp1.berkeley.edu/findthespam.html featuring a spam contest
   and many comments. Spam was also the main ingredient in a hilarious
   Monty Python sketch: ftp://suned.zoo.cs.yale.edu/lib/python/spam.Z is
   the transcript and
   ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Sparcsounds/misc/spam.au.gz is the sound
   recording.
   On the Internet, spam stands for posting multiple copies of the same
   (or slightly altered) article to many newsgroups, without crossposting
   them. This means that the article will be transmitted to and stored
   on every usenet host multiple times: once for every newsgroup
   involved.

   I couldn't come up with a Velveeta home page on the WWW, which is a
   real shame.
   On the Internet, Velveeta means the excessive crossposting of an
   article to many unrelated newsgroups.

   Spam is much worse than Velveeta (try it!). On this list, however, I
   don't make a distinction between the two - if the ad ends up in a
   wrong newsgroup, then it is by definition inappropriate advertising
   and will be recorded.

5. What can I do with the blacklist?

   If you judge that one of the described behaviors deserves some
   punishment, you could for example do one of the following. (Note that
   some of these might be illegal in some jurisdictions. Check the books
   first and don't blame me.)
     * Boycott the advertising business. Tell your friends about the
       boycott and the reasons behind it.
     * Send them or their sysadmins a message informing them that you
       disapprove of their behavior. If a phone number is given, you
       might want to try to call them collect. 1-800 numbers are also
       always warmly welcomed.
     * If the blacklisted business is a so-called "WWW mall" which sells
       advertising space to other businesses, you might want to inform
       these advertisers about the blacklist entry and about possible
       consequences for their profits.
     * Put them in your kill file. Everything to know about kill files is
       in
       http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/killfile-faq/
       faq.html
     * Filter them out of your mailbox. (If you read mail on a unix host,
       you might want to use the program procmail for that, which can be
       gotten via anonymous ftp from ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de as
       /pub/packages/procmail/procmail.tar.gz. This can be installed and
       used even if you are not root. Another possibility is filter,
       which comes with the mail reader elm. A primer about how to use
       these programs is available as
       http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/mail/filterin
       g-faq/faq.html )
     * Use procmail and an AI engine like emacs doctor to engage them in
       a fake mail dialog.
     * If they operate an automatic mail-back robot, you could test their
       intelligence by sending them an e-mail with FROM or REPLY-TO
       header containing their own address. There are many other fun
       things one can do with these robots.
     * Say individuals A and B are on the list. You can send an e-mail
       message to B with fake FROM-header A saying "I'm interested in
       your product/service." In this fashion, the advertisers will end
       up on each others mailing lists.
     * Have a look at the shell script fletch, available as
       http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/fletch.txt and reflect
       about possible uses :-)
     * If you are a system admin, you could stop forwarding mail or news
       originating from them. The latter can easily be done with the
       Usenet Death Penalty, a perl script available as
       http://www.osf.org:8001/~rsalz/udp (and which, as you might have
       guessed, can do much more than that!) Or, if the culprit owns
       their own domain, you can deny them access to your ftp, gopher,
       telnet, irc, nntp and WWW servers.
     * If you operate a cancelbot, you could automatically cancel all
       postings originating from them. See the pointer to the UDP above.
       Note however that the noble Cancelmoose[tm] (see point 7) strongly
       disapproves of this behavior.
     * And for the truly perverse: since the unedited texts of all ads
       are provided, you can use this list as the ultimate Zombie Cyber
       Mall[tm].

6. What if I wanted to punish YOU?

   You can use some of the measures from question 5 against me. The
   buddies who love to hear about the progress of my work are
   [e-mail] and [e-mail].
   If you want to do it right though, you'll have to start a blacklist of
   blacklist maintainers.
   Also, please keep the threats of legal action coming - you don't do it
   in vain: the most amusing ones are published as
   http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/threats.txt while flames
   go to http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/flames.txt
   Moreover, all usenet postings concerning the Blacklist will have the
   word "Blacklist" somewhere in the subject line. Put it in your kill
   file and you won't have to hear about it ever again.

7. How about other ways of dealing with commercial junk?

   Here are other things you can do, short of having put people on the
   blacklist:
     * Send a complaint to them or their sysadmin directly. There's a
       neat script for doing that painlessly from within nn and rn-style
       newsreaders called adcomplain. It is posted on the first of each
       month to alt.sources and can also be gotten from
       http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/adcomplain.txt
     * Cancelmoose[tm] cancels all spam mercilessly. Read the reports
       posted to alt.current-events.net-abuse. More information about
       that group in general and Cancelmoose[tm] in particular is in the
       a.c-e.n-a FAQ, which is available as
       http://www-sc.ucssc.indiana.edu/~scotty/acena.html
     * If the offender is from the US, you can run to Mama and whine
       about things like pyramid schemes or deceptive advertising. Mama
       in this case is the FTC: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer
       Protection Bureau, Division of Advertising Practices, 6th St. and
       Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20580, [phone]
     * Tell business people about the netiquette, i.e. point them to
       everything listed under point 8, below.

8. How to advertise on the internet?

   My advice is: create your own WWW page and announce it once on
   comp.infosystems.www.announce and on the NCSA What's New List at
   http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.html If
   you really want to advertise on usenet, then the biz.* and
   *.marketplace groups are for you (not all at once!). You should
   read every group for at least a week before you post anything
   there. This way, you can find out what the group is all about and
   whether commercials are appreciated there. Note that *.forsale
   groups were created to accomodate users who want to sell some
   personal stuff and not for commercial ads.  Never send out
   unsolicited commercial e-mail to individuals or mailing lists.

   Here is a list of documents describing the netiquette and how it
   relates to advertising:
     * Start with the FAQs in the news.newusers.questions newsgroup.
     * In particular: "Advertising on Usenet: How To Do It, How Not To Do
       It" by Joel Furr. There's a copy at
       http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/furr_faq.txt
     * I also digged up a good article by Daniel P Dern about how to
       advertise on the net (must be good: has the word "Blacklist" in
       it): ftp://is.internic.net/pub/net-happenings/messages/3434
     * An excellent paper explaining the rationale behind the netiquette
       is at http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/netmyths.html and
       has been contributed by Guy Berliner.
     * Netiquette for Usenet Site Administrators is explained by the
       Indiana University Support Center in
       http://ancho.ucs.indiana.edu/FAQ/USAGN/index.html

9. What other blacklists are out there?

   I'm aware of one blacklist operated by Pierre Beyssac
   <[e-mail]> who tries to keep the french usenet
   hierarchy fr clean of commercials. It is posted regularly to the
   groups fr.news.reponses, fr.news.divers and fr.biz.d.

10. How can I help?

     * If you encounter an instance of offensive advertising on the
       internet, send me a copy (including all headers), or, even better,
       post it to alt.current-events.net-abuse. If you post it, you
       should first browse over the last 50 or so Subject lines in
       alt.current-events.net-abuse to see whether someone else has
       reported that same incident already. Then you should use an
       informative Subject line yourself. If you send it directly to me,
       please make sure to check the latest version of this list first so
       that I won't get multiple complaints about incidents already
       covered. The latest version is always available on the WWW as
       http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/blacklist.html
       All contributions will be treated confidentially.
     * Spam originating from AOL is very effectively dealt with by their
       postmaster [e-mail]; usually he cancels it even without
       having received any complaints and reports about it in
       alt.current-events.net-abuse. (Anyone interested in starting a
       Black/White list of Internet access providers?)
     * It's especially important to report all instances of unsolicited
       commercial junk e-mail, since these can take up more bandwidth,
       are more intrusive and less visible than usenet postings.
     * If you see an anonymously posted ad, please respond immediately
       and fake interest. You'll get a response and can then report the
       real person behind the scam. Then send a complaint about
       inappropriate usage including a copy of the ad (with all the
       headers) to [e-mail] who will close the user's account.
     * Feel free to contact me if you find that any information in this
       document is inaccurate.
     * Please start your own blacklist, especially if you disagree with
       some of the rules for getting on and off this list or if you would
       like to focus on a national hierarchy. Tell me about it and I will
       include a pointer to it here.
     * Let me know about any creative suggestions for the answer to
       question 5.
     * The blacklist is growing very fast. I'd appreciate it if
       someone could write an indexing tool which would allow search
       based on name, geographical location or e-mail address of
       offender.  (Preferably with a form-based html interface.)
       Shouldn't be too difficult since the stuff is already
       formatted, but I don't have the time.
     * Distribute this list widely.

                         11. THE BLACKLIST IN ITSELF

   I have formatted it in such a way to make automatic processing easy.
   Every entry can contain some or all of the fields ID, Name, Address,
   Phone, Email, Entered, Changed, Behavior, Remarks in this order. A
   line starting with whitespace is a continuation of the preceding line.
   Several Names, e-mail addresses etc. are separated by commas and
   optional whitespace. Blank lines separate the entries. Every entry has
   a unique ID so that your program can decide whether it has processed
   that entry before when a new list arrives. Furthermore, the original
   offensive article is accessible as
   http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/<ID>.txt where the true ID
   is to be substituted for <ID>.

===Blacklist start===

ID:       CS941211
Name:     L. Canter, M. Siegel
Address:  3333 East Camelback Road, Suite 250, Phoenix, AZ 85260, USA
          Cybersell, P.O.Box 13510, Scottsdale, AZ 85267, USA
          Cybersell, 10245 E. Via Linda, Suite 222, Scottsdale,
          AZ 85258, USA
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail],
          [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/11
Changed:  1995/02/26
Behavior: The famous greencard lawyers. In 1994, they repeatedly sent
          out a message offering their services in helping to enter
          the US greencard lottery to almost all usenet newsgroups.
          (Note in passing: they charged $100 for their service, while
          participating in the greencard lottery is free and consists
          merely of sending a letter with your personal information at
          the right time to the right place.) When the incoming mail
          bombs forced their access provider to terminate their
          account, they threatened to sue him until he finally agreed
          to forward all responses to them. Read all about it with gopher
          gopher.well.sf.ca.us in Authors, Books.../Online Zines.
          They signed an agreement with their access provider, PSI, to
          refrain from sending out junk e-mail or spamming usenet. The
          text is available over the net as
          http://www.psi.com/press/Canter-Siegal-6-23.html
          Nevertheless, they have repeatedly spammed usenet again,
          although the postings were quickly found and cancelled by
          the cancelbot CancelMoose[tm]. PSI has cut their USENET
          access.  They have since written a book, "How to Make a
          Fortune on the Information Superhighway" and founded an
          internet advertising company, Cybersell. The book promotes
          several advertising strategies on the internet including
          gathering addresses from usenet and sending out junk e-mail,
          posting commercials to inappropriate newsgroups, advertising
          on irc and even via talk. They basically contend that all
          these behaviors are legal and therfore ok.  They ridicule
          the terms "internet culture" and "netiquette" and claim that
          the internet, once all real-world laws are applied to it,
          will make a great source of income for attorneys.  Canter
          & Siegel were behind the grand Credit Repair Spam (see
          below). This finally forced their service provider, psi.com,
          to cut them off completely as of 1995/02/12.
          Latest update: At 1995/03/01, cyber.sell.com apparently
          acquired a new feed from sprint (800-669-8303). However,
          they can't be reached with ping yet.
Remarks:  Don't bug the owners of cybersell.com; they were the access
          providers for C&S during their first spam and acquired
          the domain name cybersell immediately - very much in the
          spirit of creative punishment :-)

ID:       NM941211
Name:     Netmart Inc.
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/11
Changed:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Spammed several unrelated newsgroups on 1994/12/10 with a
          truly sad announcement of their WWW Mall.
          Did it again after having been blacklisted; they seem to
          post it once per week.
          On 1995/03/01, they posted another announcement to all
          *.marketplace groups in sight.
Remarks:  Please take the time and inform the businesses advertising
          on their WWW page about this blacklist entry.

ID:       LG941214
Name:     Lionel Goldberg
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/14
Behavior: Sent out an ad to several unrelated mailing lists. The ad
          was about an auction held by
            Choice Trading Company
            Lot #1776
            202 So. Broadway
            Los Angeles, Ca. 90012, USA
            [phone]
          The ad even contained the suggestion to pass it on to
          interested parties.
Remarks:  [e-mail] tells me that the user's account,
          [e-mail], has been disabled.

ID:       CL941223
Name:     C.F. Lamm
Address:  66 Ashley Ave., Charleston, SC 29401, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/23
Behavior: Sent out a posting advertising his book (about how to get
          more women in bed) to a great number of unrelated newsgroups.

ID:       RJ941223
Name:     RJN Enterprises
Address:  2840 Jameson N STE #5, Lincoln, NE 68516, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/23
Behavior: Sent out an ad for their "credit repair kit" (i.e. information
          about how to get a new SSN) to many unrelated newsgroups.

ID:       DO941223
Name:     Herb Rose, The Doctors Office BBS
Phone:    Modem: [phone], [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/23
Behavior: Sent out an ad for his BBS to unrelated newsgroups.
Remarks:  telnet 204.97.64.6 24 to reach the BBS.

ID:       AD941223
Name:     Jess Guim, Advanz Home Office Companion
Address:  319 East 95th Street, Dept. 2, New York, NY 10128-5761, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/23
Changed:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Posted their ads about desktop publishing to several
          rec.food groups.
          Advertises his tool for creating e-mail lists of potential
          customers via unsolicited e-mail. When complaining to him,
          he sends even more information about his program.
Remarks:  He claims to give a 30 days money-back guarantee on his
          products.

ID:       TM941223
Name:     TMI
Phone:    voice: 408-429-5400, fax: [phone]
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
          [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/23
Changed:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Spammed the soc.culture hierarchy with ads for discount
          telephone service. Repeated it even after having been
          blacklisted.
          They recently tried to find out Cancelmoose[tm]'s spam
          criteria by posting a sequence of low-volume spams, which
          were classified as part of one big spam and hence canceled.
Remarks:  They have now their own domain, tmi.org, but continue to use the
          newsserver of scruznet.com.

ID:       JF941223
Name:     JFTYEM
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1994/12/23
Behavior: Repeatedly spammed the whole alt.sex hierarchy with ads for
          his jpegs. After being advised not to do this, he replied
          thusly: http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/JFTYEM_reply.txt.
Remarks:  ati.com seems to be his access provider.

ID:       KL950105
Name:     Kevin Jay Lipsitz ("Krazy Kevin")
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/05
Changed:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Spammed almost the whole usenet repeatedly with anonymous
          ads (Hi, my name is Anne Nelson...") for a long distance
          calling plan. He was warned by the admin of the anon server,
          then lost his account there and did it again with a new account.
          He told me on the phone that a company called
                  Card Call USA, INC.
                  6232 N. 7th ST. #109
                  Phoenix, AZ 85014
                  Phone: [phone]
                  Fax: [phone]
          uses a pyramid-like promotion scheme where every customer
          gets a commission for each new customer they bring and in turn
          for each new customer these new ones bring and so on up to
          level 7.
          Kevin Lipsitz is a customer of Card Call USA and tries to
          bring new customers to get these commissions.
          His using the anon server is evidence enough that he
          knew that he was doing something wrong.
          Incidentally, he sent me the membership application for CC
          USA. Point #6 of the contract, which Kevin most probably
          signed, reads:
          "6. I agree to operate in a lawful, ethical, and moral manner
          and to do nothing that will adversely reflect upon CCUSAI, its
          clients or its other Independent Sales Representatives. I
          understand that any act deemed by CCUSAI to be detrimental to
          CCUSAI, in any manner, is grounds for the termination of my
          status as Independent Sales Representative and all corresponding
          commissions."
          As of 1995/02/20, he uses the new e-mail address at
          escape.com.
          On 1995/02/26, he anon-spammed again, this time advertising
          his magazine club.
Remarks:  I tracked him down by answering to one of his ads using an
          old e-mail address, to which he promptly responded.  Someone
          should check whether this kind of promotion scheme is legal
          or can be classified as a pyramid scheme.
          The second time, I responded again to his anon ad, and he
          apparently recognized me and tried to harrass me over the
          phone. Next was a truly pathetic firs attempt at
          mailbombing. [Kevin, next time pick an ftpmail service
          without per day traffic limits, jeeez]

ID:       KK950105
Name:     Kim Kerns, Applied Information Technologies, Inc.
Address:  POB 2634, Midlothian, VA 23113, USA
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/05
Changed:  1995/01/09
Behavior: Spammed many newsgroups with a long distance calling plan. Varied
          subject lines, posting sites and exact text, apparently to avoid
          cancelbots.
          The company selling the phone service is Applied Information
          Technologies, Inc., POB 2634, Midlothian, Va. 23113. This company
          employs a promotion scheme offering commission to every customer
          for each call people sponsored by them make.
          After being blacklisted and notified about it, he did it again
          repeatedly.
Remarks:  Note the 1-800 number. He doesn't seem to own vnet, so you
          can put pressure on his postmaster.

ID:       MW950110
Name:     Michael Wolff & Company, Inc.
Address:  1633 Broadway, 27th floor, New York, NY 10019, USA
Phone:    Voice: 212-841-1572, Fax: [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/10
Changed:  1995/02/12
Behavior: In order to promote their book describing Usenet, they
          perfected what is now called "custom spam". They sent out
          their ad to 150 newsgroups and adjusted it for each group
          to make it technically on-topic.
          After the Cancelmoose[tm] cancelled the spam, Michael Wolff
          turned to the media, complaining about censorship. He
          recently posted a defense:
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/wolff_reply.txt.
          They sent unsolicited junk e-mail to at least one
          individual; the only complaint that got a reaction was the
          one informing them that the recipient would begin charging
          for junk e-mail.
Remarks:  Needless to say, don't buy his book - especially since there
          is a superior product available free on the Internet: the
          Bible of Usenet, explained at
          ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/usenet-b/www/bible-faq.html.

ID:       JM950121
Name:     Pat Mok
Address:  Box 34217, Westbrook Postal Office, Calgary, Alberta T3C 3W2,
          Canada
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Posted his ad about chinese acne medicine to 110
          newsgroups; reply address was a automatic reply bot at
          cyber.sell.com (the site of the greencard lawyers).
Remarks:  Apparently has been reprimanded be the site admin at canuck.com.

ID:       BB950121
Name:     BBS AMERICA, David Paolo, Log On America, Inc.
Address:  3 Regency Plaza, Providence, RI 02903, ATTN: Internet BBS, USA
Phone:    Voice: 401-453-5100, Fax: [phone], BBS: 401-459-6200
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Sent their ad for internet access to many totally unrelated
          mailing lists and 258 newsgroups. The ad ended with the ironic
          "This article was an automated post.  Any posting in
          unrelated newsgroups is an error, please disregard this
          article if it is off-topic."
Remarks:  loa.com seems to be owned by the spammers and is fed
          directly by uunet.

ID:       HA950121
Name:     Router Solutions,
Address:  5527 Preston Fall City Road, Fall City, Wash. 98024, USA
Phone:    [phone], Fax: [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Spammed 76 newsgroups with their ad regarding network engineering.

ID:       CS950121
Name:     Card Smart, Glen Todovich
Address:  900 N. Geyer, St.Louis, MO 63122, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Sent their ad about credit card information to an animal
          rights mailing list.

ID:       CL950121
Name:     Jack Starworth
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Changed:  1995/01/23
Behavior: Crossposted their long distance ad to about 15 soc.culture
          groups and sent it to a politics related mailing list.

ID:       CP950121
Name:     Cyper Psychology, Inc., Richard Baldwin
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Posted their ad "Secrets to a Happier Life" to about 100
          unrelated newsgroups. They have sent me a letter of apology
          and promise to not do it again. Read the letter at
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/cp_responds.txt

ID:       YG950121
Name:     Yoram Gafni
Address:  5 East 41st #150, New York, NY 10017, USA
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Spammed 106 usenet newsgroups with their ad offering help in
          entering the US greencard lottery. Everyone who sent him mail
           got an even longer e-mail ad back.
Remarks:  Participation in the annual US greencard lottery is free and
          easy. Inquire at your local embassy/consulate or in alt.visa.us.

ID:       LH950121
Name:     Libhitech, Fountain head Inc.
Address:  P.O. Box 136, Lake Hiawatha, NJ 07034, USA
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Changed:  1995/02/28
Behavior: The first large scale junk-email spam I've seen. They
          advertised a book list for technical professionals. I got it
          twice :-)
Remarks:  libhitech.com is fed by mordor.com, and the sysadmin their
          reports that they have agreed to cease and desist.
          Anyone have libtech's name and address?

ID:       MR950121
Name:     Michael Rifenburg, Premier Telecom Mangagement
Address:  4360 East Main Street Suite 301, Ventura, CA 93003, USA
Phone:    Voice: 805-659-1082, Fax: [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Advertised his long distance plan in 52 newsgroups, mostly
          soc.culture.*.

ID:       HK950121
Name:     Graham Daley, Internet Promotions Inc.
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Sent their ad regarding a chinese lottery to unrelated newsgroups.

ID:       IS950121
Name:     Herbert D. King, Cynthia Wiley
Address:  POB 91098, Los Angeles, CA 90009-1098, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Behavior: Posted an ad about incense sticks to many newsgroups and
          later also to mailing lists.
Remarks:  My notification mail to their compuserve mailbox bounced:
          "Mailbox full".

ID:       CY950121
Name:     Cybergear
Address:  2770 St. Albans NW, North Canton, Ohio 44720, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/01/21
Changed:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Posted their ad for t-shirts to at least 30 unrelated
          newsgroups, sometimes changeing the subject to avoid
          canceling and to make the postings technically on-topic.
          Did it again on 95/02/05.

ID:       BO950212
Name:     Stuart Bar-On, Parallel Performance Group
Address:  450 Jordan Rd., Suite E, Sedona, AZ 86336, USA
Phone:    [phone] (voice), 602-774-0896 (fax)
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
          [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]
          [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Changed:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Engage in a large-scale junk e-mail assault.
          Sent out unsolicited e-mail ads to postmasters, who were
          supposed to forward it to their "Marketing Directors". They
          got the addresses from InternNIC's list of registered domain
          names.
          In addition, they gathered e-mail addresses from usenet
          postings and sent unsolicited commercial e-mail to those.
          A new junk e-mail wave occured around 1995/02/28. This time from
          unicomp.com.

ID:       MS950212
Name:     Alliance Corporate Services
Phone:    [phone] (fax)
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Posted their ad about financial services to many unrelated
          newsgroups, including several *.general groups.
Remarks:  Please do not confuse this company, Alliance Corporate
          Services, with a wholly unrelated company that is also on
          the internet but is NOT blacklisted, Alliance Credit
          Corporation.

ID:       BH950212
Name:     Bernard Hodes Advertising, Inc.
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
          [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Repeatedly and persistently advertised on misc.jobs.misc,
          even when told that this is a discussion group and ads
          belong elsewhere.

ID:       CH950212
Name:     Chris Hoyt, The Contrarian Advisor, Hoyt Financial Advisors, Inc.
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Sent their ad about a financial newsletter to several,
          totally unrelated newsgroups.
Remarks:  Note the line "Feel free to send your complaints and
          comments to [e-mail]." in the original posting.

ID:       TO950212
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Repeatedly advertised his software on many unrelated newsgroups.

ID:       DH950212
Name:     David Halsted
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Posted an ad about a dubious financial service to almost all
          soc.culture.* groups. Defended his action in
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/halsted_defense.txt
Remarks:  Note that he used his Stanford .edu account for this.

ID:       CL950212
Name:     Claude Lee
Address:  POB 1374, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63702-1374, USA
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Advertised his matching service in many soc.culture.* groups
          and on uk.announce.

ID:       WS950212
Name:     Will Sherman, Automobile Safety Foundation
Address:  POB 12183, La Jolla, CA 92039, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Sent his ad for car safety books and requests for donations
          to a large number of mailing lists and newsgroups.

ID:       LI950212
Name:     Lynn International School
Address:  41 Jarvis Circle, Needham, MA 02192, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Posted an ad about an MD program in 327 newsgroups.
          Their subsequent apology is at
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/agni_apology.txt

ID:       ME950212
Name:     Rich Williams, Canadian Music Exchange
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Posted an ad about their music service on 161 music newsgroups.

ID:       PB950212
Name:     "Paperboy"
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
          http://isp.usc.edu/wot/index.html
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: They engaged in a low-speed spam of many newsgroups and also
          in regular postings to selected newsgroups to advertise
          their TV program e-mail newsletter which is really a way to
          shovel even more commercial junk in your mailbox. They also
          don't give you information about how to unsubscribe.
          The poster keeps changing sites.
Remarks:  Note the .edu WWW site.

ID:       MR950212
Name:     Michael Rodriguez, Fone Card International
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Spammed the soc.culture.* hierarchy with ads for his phone
          card service. A response of Michael is here:
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/mr_responds.txt
Remarks:  [e-mail]'s comment: "Usenet has no rules".

ID:       CC950212
Name:     John Petiton, Consumer Credit Advocates, David Markowitz
Address:  11 Pennsylvania Plaza, Suite 2101, New York, NY 10001, USA
Phone:    [phone] (voice), 212-629-5261 (voice),
          718-204-8182 (voice), 212-629-4762 (fax)
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: They sent out their ad about credit repair services ("WE
          GUARANTEE THAT YOUR CREDIT CAN BE RESTORED!!!") to almost
          all newsgroups, including moderated ones (forging the
          Approved-Header) and to the bit.* hierarchy, which is
          gatewayed to mailing lists.
          To post the spam, they used a trial account on panix under
          the name David Markowitz, which was immediately terminated
          by panix's postmaster, who also helped in cancelling the
          mess. Fully anticipating that, they had set the From
          header to an address at cyber.sell.com (Canter &
          Siegel's domain).
          The actual spamming was done from cyber.sell.com via telnet
          to panix.com, which was in violation of C&S's contract
          with PSI and subsequently led to their being cut off the net
          for good, after panix had complained to PSI.
          Joel Furr's interview with the guy who hired C&S to do
          all this is here:
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/furr_interview.txt
Remarks:  Some excerpts from New York's disciplinary rules governing
          attorney conduct are at
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/NY_bar_rules.txt
          You can request a complaint form from the New York State bar
          association by calling 212-685-1000. This is just a private
          association of NY attorneys, so you want to call the state
          court system also (at what number?).
          If you call the credit lawyers, please tell them about their
          entry in this list since I couldn't reach them by email [he
          he, since they have been kicked off the net].

ID:       SP950212
Name:     Mary Lynch, Sweet Physiques
Address:  3551 S. Monaco Parkway, Suite #129, Denver, CO 80237-1200, USA
Phone:    [phone] (voice), 303-691-9166 (fax)
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/12
Behavior: Engaged in a large scale and repeated spam (at least 600 groups)
          advertising chocolate. The post originated from AOL (from a
          trial account that was quickly terminated) and was sent via
          an anonymous remailer at rahul.net to several mail-to-news
          gateways.
          2 days later, they opened another trial account on aol and spammed
          again, this time without bothering to use a remailer. Again, the aol
          account was promptly terminated.
          They did it again three days later.
          If you express interest to [e-mail], your mail is
          redirected to Mary Lynch at either [e-mail] or
          [e-mail] and you will get a 6 part jpeg or an even
          larger gif of the chocolate in the mail plus an order form
          with address, fax and telephone number of the company.
Remarks:  MCI refuses to terminate the account. You can complain to
          [e-mail]. MCI has an 1-800 number also.
          The address given above is a rented mailbox.

ID:       PD950228
Name:     Paul Dawkins
Address:  Educational Developments Ltd, 1 Royal navy Avenue, Keyham,
          Plymouth PL2  2AE U.K.
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Posted an ad for a broken newsreader to some 1500
          newsgroup. Later claimed that the very brokenness of the
          program was responsible for the spamming. Has sent
          unsolicited commercial e-mail to people who had complained
          to him.
Remarks:  The first european spammer. Heaven help, capitalism is
          spreading!

ID:       SC950228
Name:     Susan Chaffee, The Sound Healing Center
Address:  331 Norcrest Dr., Suite 111, Rochester, N.Y. 14617-1343, USA
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Spammed 61 newsgroups with their ad about "what Jesus Christ,
          Bhudda, Shiva, and Pythagoras knew" for $3.00.

ID:       CL950228
Name:     Cyberlink Inc. and various agents
Address:  5855 Toanga Canyon Blvd., #520, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, USA
Phone:    [phone] (fax), 216-461-1770 (fax), 216-231-2857 (voice)
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail],
          [e-mail], [e-mail],
          [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Persistent, slow spam of soc.culture.* groups, advertising
          some long distance plan. Apparently, Cyberlink pays
          commissions to agents who brings new customers, and
          several of their agents spam. It's unclear whether Cyberlink
          is aware of that. They need to change their rules.
Remarks:  [e-mail] seems to be an automatic mail-back
          robot.

ID:       PG950228
Name:     Peter Goldberg
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Repeatedly advertised phone services on soc.culture
          groups (no spamming involved, however). When confronted, he
          maintains that there's nothing wrong with his advertising in
          these groups.

ID:       SF950228
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Posted their ad about american tax services to 50 comp groups.
Remarks:  Notification mail bounced: no such user.

ID:       TC950228
Name:     Tricom
Address:  3624 Rawdon Drive, Durham, NC 27713-1410, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Advertised their astrology chart via junk e-mail.

ID:       TR950228
Name:     Tronics
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Advertised their cable TV scam to 193 newsgroups. It was
          made to look like a FAQ-request.

ID:       WC950228
Name:     William Calder, LC Society
Address:  2240 Autumn Dr., Oceanside, CA 92056, USA
Phone:    [phone]
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Sometimes it's hard to remain serious... 89 groups,
          including alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.

ID:       AI950228
Name:     Lee Pryor, Ask Information Systems
Address:  P.O.B. 75504, Los Angeles, CA 90075, USA
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Posted his ad about amazing credit secrets to several
          unrelated newsgroups.

ID:       CB950228
Name:     C. Boyle, Boyle and Associates
Address:  39899 Balentine Dr. Suite 200, Newark, CA 94560, USA
Phone:    [phone] (voice), 510 657 2499 (voice), 510-657-2492 (fax)
Email:    [e-mail], [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Chuck Boyle is listed as the "administrative contact" for
          virtualmall.com, the company who chose to announce its WWW
          mall on about 1070 usenet newsgroups. The spamming was done
          from a disposable account on crl.com, which has been
          terminated since.  The Web mall itself contains the e-mail
          address [e-mail].
Remarks:  An apology is at
          http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/boyle_apology.txt
          Please take the time and inform the businesses advertising
          on their WWW page about this blacklist entry.

ID:       MA950228
Name:     Magazines unlimited
Email:    [e-mail]
Entered:  1995/02/28
Behavior: Posted 68 copies of their magazine service ad to unrelated
          newsgroups.
Remarks:  Has anyone expressed interest to them? I'd love to know
          name and address.

===Blacklist end===


     _________________________________________________________________

   Date: 1995/03/04 19:17:45 PST
   (C) 1994, 1995 by Axel Boldt <[e-mail]>.
   Do with it what you want.
--
 Axel Boldt * [e-mail] * http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/