[anti-abuse-wg] Abuse: Too big to fail

On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 21:03:37 +0000 (UTC)
denis walker <ripedenis at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Andre

Hi Dennis,

> I have just read this whole thread (one day I will get a life). I
> would like to make an observation and a suggestion. First the
> observation. You seem to be making the same point many, many times.
> You believe that Twitter is a spammer and no one will do anything
> about it. I think that sums up this thread. There have been a few
> comments (partially) supporting some of your arguments. There have
> been many comments expressing some doubt.
> 
Yes, for many (even abuse administrators) it is difficult to believe
that the very thing which many of us like, enjoy, support and maybe
even use multiple times each day, is in fact evil.

For others, who do not directly work with spam abuse (I do not know if
Twitter abuses their own users or user accounts, I think not - judging
from the reactions) - Twitter does send unsolicited bulk emails to
accounts that are not Twitter users, have never been Twitter Users and
never asked for any emails.

This distinction - That Twitter is in fact an evil spammer 

Is important. 

When the penny drops people react differently. But it does not change
the fact that many multinationals, not only Twitter, are in fact
spammers. 

And that some of these multinationals are actually pure evil.


> Now the suggestion. Do you have any proposal for moving forward and
> addressing this issue? Some people have suggested that individuals

People need to wake up to the reality of things. Including people on
this list.

There are multiple levels of abuse:

Firstly, there is cyber crime - When multinationals start working with
criminals, - as thye have common goals, this is a line that should not
be crossed - and at least three multinationas are crossing this line.

So, for law enforcement - investigate, build cases and make the
multinationals aware of this - maybe this will be enough to turn some
of these corporate cultures, and tip it in the direction of 'good' -
for example, Google is frequently on the tipping edge between good and
evil - currently imnsho, Google is 'good' - but as little as a year
ago, Google was 'evil' - There are thousands of staff at these
multinationals - the decisions these individuals make - led by the
corporate culture - is what leads to outcomes that we see in our
statistics.

Secondly, the 'users' of some of these multinationals are addicted
(addicts) and are "products" and not "consumers" 

Society, as Ronald has said, needs education, but on multiple levels.
Our children and our people need help, they need the same counselling as
drug addicts or alcoholics. Right now the vast majority do not even
understand that there is a problem, never mind that anyone is in
trouble.

This Internet Abuse, of actually allowing social media to proceed with

no legislation, research and oversight is one of the greatest failures

of our modern civilization and societies worldwide. 

anyway, yeah, my agenda re Twitter abuse is simply to promote
discussion. to motivate people to look at their own data. to motivate
people to truly be honest with themselves and to reflect on their own
truth. We all have our own truth. I strongly believe that because I
know that what I see in my traps and in my fake identities and on my
tor servers, that others will see the same thing, if they bother to
take a closer look.

Andre

> who believe they are being spammed by Twitter (and others) can set up
> their own email filter and take a small step to solve the problem. If
> this is a sensible course of action then it is a question of
> educating ordinary internet users that this action is available and
> explain how to do it. As most end users have never heard of the RIPE
> NCC it is not an education role for them. Most users only know who
> their service provider is. These are probably all RIPE NCC members
> (in this region). So maybe it would help if these service providers
> could publish information on their web sites about tackling this
> issue on an individual basis. If that would help then maybe either
> you, or a group of people from this anti-abuse community, could
> produce some standard information on how to set up these filters in
> the different technology circumstances of end users. Or maybe you
> have some other proposals for action to solve this issue? I have a
> Twitter account. I have never tweeted anything in my life, but I
> follow a few RIPE and APNIC tweets. Apart from some daily
> notifications (which I have requested) I have never been spammed by
> Twitter. Same for Facebook. But Ebay is a different story for me.
> Twice someone has created an account using my email address. Ebay
> does not verify users email addresses. I was hit by hundreds of
> emails a day from these people's (most probably illegal) purchases. I
> complained to Ebay's abuse email address and was ignored. I even
> found an abuse address in the RIPE Database and complained, but still
> ignored. In the end I solved the problem another way.
> 
> cheersdenis
> 
> 
>       From: ox <andre at ox.co.za>
>  To: Volker Greimann <vgreimann at key-systems.net> 
> Cc: anti-abuse-wg at ripe.net
>  Sent: Monday, 19 June 2017, 17:30
>  Subject: Re: [anti-abuse-wg] Abuse: Too big to fail
>    
> On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 17:15:35 +0200
> Volker Greimann <vgreimann at key-systems.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi Volker :)
> 
> > It seems there is a definition issue here. I am sure Twitter does
> > not intentionally spam its users, but many users that receive
> > messages from Twitter think of these as spam.
> >   
> Not to be pedantic, but as Twitter is aware of their abuse and does
> not do anything to stop it - Twitter does intentionally spam and
> enable criminals.
> 
> The emails are sent from Twitter infrastructure, so therefore =
> Twitter.
> 
> As Twitter ignores and refuses abuse reports, this indicates non
> willingness to cease abuse, investigate abuse and stop enabling
> criminals.
> 
> And Twitter abuse is ongoing...
> 
> They are multiple repeat offenders that are 'special' spammers.
> 
>  
> > What is probably true:
> > 
> > - Real spammers may be abusing the infrastructure offered by Twitter
> > to spam and Twitter is unable/unwilling to take action to stop this
> >   
> 
> Twitter are 'real' spammers :)
> 
> and yes, their infrastructure enables many other nefarious creatures.
> 
> > - Twitter account holders have their settings set up that they
> > receive too many notifications that they do not really want.
> > Solving the second is easy: Just change your notification settings.
> >   
> none of the thousands of abuse I see are from any real people...
> so, non relevant, in my case :)
> 
> personally I do have a Twitter account and have nothing personal
> against or for Twitter. I have no agenda or anything other than to
> simply state that there are multinationals that are evil and to point
> out that playing fields are not level...
> 
> 
> > Volker
> > 
> > PS: It may be helpful to say exactly which messages you consider
> > spam instead of opening up with the big guns right away but without 
> > sufficient detail to verify your claims.
> >   
> 
> Emails to trusted spamtraps - are spam
> 
> Emails to stolen data - is criminal activity & also spam
> 
> Emails to non existent people at non existent email addresses - is
> spam/abuse
> 
> Emails continuing after requests to stop - is spam/abuse 
> 
> Forever 'confirmation emails' (as in more than 10) - is spam/abuse
> 
> Andre
> 
> > 
> > Am 19.06.2017 um 17:08 schrieb ox:  
> > > If I do actually look at the abuse lists that list the spammer,
> > > Twitter
> > > - they are sorbs, etc and have a reputation for ethical behavior..
> > >
> > > What is interesting is how you & michele defend the spammer
> > >
> > > One has to wonder whether it is because the fact that Twitter is
> > > an evil spammer hurts you guys personally?
> > >
> > > Or if you are products (have twitter etc) accounts and the truth
> > > hurts?
> > >
> > > If you love the Twitter spammer that much, why do you not try to
> > > get the spammer to change their evil ways? Instead of trying to
> > > make it about a quarter of all the rbl's being useless, etc.
> > >
> > > or just plain stupid and obviously false claims that Twitter never
> > > sends spam.
> > >
> > > Andre
> > >
> > > On Mon, 19 Jun 2017 14:53:07 +0000
> > > Suresh Ramasubramanian <ops.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >    
> > >> On 19/06/17, 8:20 PM, "anti-abuse-wg on behalf of ox"
> > >> <anti-abuse-wg-bounces at ripe.net on behalf of andre at ox.co.za>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>      And, apart from the fact that 25% of all spam lists does in
> > >> fact list Twitter as a spammer
> > >>
> > >> Sturgeon’s law manifests itself all the time. eg: the number of
> > >> weird and wonderful blocklists used by maybe two men and their
> > >> dog, the population of cranks on the Internet…
> > >>
> > >> --srs
> > >>    
> > >    
> >   
> 
> 
> 
>