Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : You be the judge: McColo Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline

[datacenterdirectory]

Hot off the press:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/11/major_source_of_online_scams_a.html
Interesting...

[UH-Bobby]

I'm surprised they lasted so long.

[datacenterdirectory]

I'm surprised they lasted so long.
I guess we should ask the major question. Did Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing know about this prior to the Washington Post getting involved?
Since the McColo site is down, view the following link for a historical reference:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080202054113/www.mccolo.com/about/

[Mysteerie]

Yea; but how long till they start again at another place. It will continue...

[sash]

Yea; but how long till they start again at another place. It will continue...
No doubt. It's big business.

[bager]

This will continue to happen.

[UH-Bobby]

I guess we should ask the major question. Did Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing know about this prior to the Washington Post getting involved?
Since the McColo site is down, view the following link for a historical reference:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080202054113/www.mccolo.com/about/
I would be shocked and concerned if they truly didn't know it was going on. I would imagine that Spamcop would have been on them, etc.

[datacenterdirectory]

Yea; but how long till they start again at another place. It will continue...
Very true, I wonder if they will be fined for condoning these acts. The hosting company can always take the stance of them not knowing that this type of abuse was occurring on their network. Either way, it looks like the Washington Post will be following up on this story. Glad to see that someone is doing something about it.

[Patrick]

I would imagine that Spamcop would have been on them, etc.
Spamcop were on them, and there's also an interesting (real time) graph that shows a major drop in spam right around the time McColo was shut down by Hurricane Electric.
Week:
http://www.spamcop.net/spamgraph.shtml?spamweek
Month:
http://www.spamcop.net/spamgraph.shtml?spammonth
... speaks for itself, but I give it a few more days before it's back to normal.

[bithost(NET)]

Did Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing know about this prior to the Washington Post getting involved?
Does a bear **** in the woods?
Of course they did. They didn't care. As long as they kept getting paid for the pipe, and weren't getting bad publicity from it, they just kept looking the other way.
Now all of a sudden one of the media's heavy hitters gets involved, and OMG!!! Shock and horror!!! HE and GLBX realize the jig is up, and 'golly gee, we should shut these Bad People down.' *snicker*
HE and GLBX are classic examples of companies which will partake in improper, immoral, unethical and even illegal activities so long as the benefits outweigh the costs. And no, I don't for a minute believe that they'd never, ever previously been told of spam coming from this facility. I've worked abuse desks, I know how aggressively providers report this stuff ......... I've personally reported hundreds of spams to Hurricane Electric over the past 3 years, and they've all been completely ignored (based on the fact I have never seen a site removed from their network/downstream based on a report I sent to them.)
So, good for the Washington Post for getting this facility shut off, but, shame on HE and GLBX for letting it go so long that it took the *Washington Post* sniffing around to make them take action.
Incidentally, my inbox volume is down 38% today, and what was noticeably missing is: SPAM. There were very few spams; all that was left was legit stuff - company email and various newsletters I'm subscribed to.
Even much more telling, on our busiest shared server, today we've received only 35% of the raw mail volume as we received yesterday. 35% of yesterday!! Granted we still have 6.3 hours to go in the day, but we don't normally get a huge email spike in the evening it's a sure bet that gross volume will be way down for the day.
I'm going to watch and graph this, and blog about it... this is incredible.
Bailey

They probally did know about this but did nothing because they had the business but as soon as the story took to the air they acted as if they had no knowledge and terminated all services they gave to the web hosting provider. I have a question though, what about companies that are located outside the US, should they be govern by the same laws US Hosting companies abide by as far as spam because in the US its illegal to spam messages but in other countries spam is find and hosting providers will also allow. Most of the US receives most of those spam messages/scam messages.

[bithost(NET)]

Very true, I wonder if they will be fined for condoning these acts.
I am not sure who you mean by "they," but IMO the backbones (Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing) absolutely should be fined, big-time. All that's needed are copies of previously reported spams which didn't result in any action (which surely there are all kinds of records of, internet-wide).
Glad to see that someone is doing something about it.
Well, but there's the misnomer. All kinds of people have been "doing something about it" for years. Heck, even I have been reporting spammers to Hurricane Electric for years. Hurricane Electric has chosen not to take action on properly-submitted legitimate spam reports.
What it's taken to force HE's hand, is Big Media ... in other words, somebody with enough media swing & exposure finally got pissed off enough, and threatened to bring copious amounts of negative attention in HE's direction.
What is utterly disgusting is that Hurricane Electric responds to negative media attention more quickly than legitimate spam reports sent by service providers through the proper channels.
Bailey

[bithost(NET)]

I have a question though, what about companies that are located outside the US, should they be govern by the same laws US Hosting companies abide by as far as spam because in the US its illegal to spam messages but in other countries spam is find and hosting providers will also allow. Most of the US receives most of those spam messages/scam messages.
It's impossible to impose U.S. laws outside of the U.S.
The U.S. only has jurisdiction inside its own borders.
Other countries do not recognize U.S. laws as applicable inside their borders; other countries have their own laws that they enforce.
Same goes for the U.S. -- the U.S. does not officially recognize the laws of other countries as being applicable inside the U.S.'s borders.
If the U.S. did recognize foreign laws as being applicable in the U.S., we (U.S. citizens) would be governed by both our laws and the laws of various foreign countries ........ not only is there no way for a citizen to possibly be aware of all those laws, but what happens when you break one? When you get caught having sex with your wife during daylight, now you get extradicted to XYZ Country to be prosecuted for it????? As nutty as an example that is, having marital relations during daylight is illegal activity in some countries, and a person must ask how it would be enforced -- because this discussion is about taking action (which is a type of enforcement).
This of course begs the next question, if spam is illegal in the U.S., why don't we just block it at the borders?
That answer is simple: The First Amendment. There is a ton of discussion online, as well as supporting case law ... Google is your friend.
Bailey

[Aussie Bob]

It's a pity too, as McColo.com was a pretty snazzy domain for colo.

The government already has regulations about spam/scams going through mail, e-mail, etc. Also if we stop it at the borders and not allow it to come in, why would that violate our first amendment? The person sending it is probably not a US citizen meaning our constitution does not apply to them and only applies to US Citizenship. I won't get much into freedom of speech and so on but this story seems interesting and I would like to see how it un-folds in the long run. Also does anyone know actually the size of the company, how many hosting accounts, domains hosted, etc?