21 June 2008

This Buda's For You

I'm in Budapest - and enjoying it! Some thoughts on the history, culture, and overall experience coming soon.

posted by The Editor @ 1:59 AM 3 comments links to this post

07 June 2008

Spam Bam

I want to call attention to Placentia, California-based internet company VPLS and their related company KRYPT.

They are the single biggest sources of SPAM e-mail I receive. If you do business with VPLS or KRYPT, you should stop. If you are considering doing business with them, please don’t.

Both VPLS and KRYPT have web pages showing their policies that prohibit SPAM or bulk e-mail – VPLS’s is here, KRYPT’s is here – but based on the flow of junk to my inbox, these policies are irrelevant.

These two companies seem to do business with a range of spamming clients – and one of the biggest is someone named “Joseph Small.” Mr. Small is the owner-of-record for a wide range of spamming web domains, including (but not limited to):

  • assiststop.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

  • metalglivequick.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

  • mapthissite.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

  • aidobstruct.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

  • aboutglivequick.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

  • newsubset.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

  • regfinishnow.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

  • mapthisbase.info – click here for the WHOIS information for this web site

Actually, clicking for the WHOIS info is an exercise in futility, since they all lead back to “Joseph Small” and show his address-of-record as being in Point Roberts, Washington. The listed phone number in these domain records is 250-448-6460, but a reverse search of the number turns up a location in British Columbia – a fair haul from Point Roberts. The listed e-mail address for Mr. Small is info@changedlife.info, but doing a WHOIS search for changedlife.info is basically a dead-end: the records block the name of the registrant and provide a new address, this time for a company based in Westchester, CA.

Moreover, the information that is blocked can’t be accessed even if one tries directly: WhoisGuard, a company that says it hates SPAM, actually enables spammers by sustaining a system in which links of web domains can be managed from a company or individual whose identity is totally protected. In order to report a spammer to WhoisGuard, I have to provide my own e-mail address; but why would I want to do that? And anyway, Mr. Small or whoever he is, does not send his SPAM through the changedlife.info domain, as I noted above – so reporting it would lead nowhere, because that domain appears innocent.

WHICH is why it is so important to report on VPLS and KRYPT. They allow their servers to be used to send these SPAM e-mails and, regardless of who the owner of these various domains actually are, VPLS and KRYPT also have the power to stop the flow of SPAM. If not, they should be forced out of business.

posted by The Editor @ 6:42 PM 2 comments links to this post