Groups Clash
Over Hotmail Spam Filters

Tempers flare when spam-blocking efforts forbid legitimate email from passing through Hotmail servers. Is the RBL the to blame or has it been setup by anti-censorship fundamentalists?

by Brian McWilliams [January 20, 2001]

Anti-Spam activists came to the defense of MSN Hotmail this week, after Microsoft's Web-based email service was criticized for the unauthorized blocking of some outgoing—as well as incoming messages—in its fight against spam.

Like many Internet service providers, Hotmail subscribes to the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL), a spam filtering service provided by the non-profit Mail Abuse Prevention Systems (MAPS).

Oppressive system
But Hotmail is accused of being too heavy-handed in its use of the RBL by Peacefire, an anti-censorship site. Peacefire founder Bennett Haselton issued a press release Thursday announcing his discovery that Hotmail users have been unable to send or receive email to or from Peacefire for the past five months—ever since its Web hosting firm, Massachusetts-based Media3 Technologies, had over 1,500 of its IP addresses, including Peacefire's, placed on the MAPS blacklist.

According to MAPS, Media3 earned a place on the RBL in June because it hosts a number of companies that sell software for sending junk email. Media3 sued MAPS in December to get its block of IP addresses removed from the RBL. The lawsuit is still pending.

According to Peacefire's Haselton, the Hotmail incident illustrates that the RBL is doing more harm than good.

"Most people would rather delete nine junk emails than have one legitimate email get lost. Fighting spam is not the be-all end-all of the Internet," said Haselton, who reports that dozens of upset Hotmail users have contacted him after learning about the blockade. Some threatened to switch to a new Web-mail provider.

Voluntary victim
But some anti-spam activists accused Peacefire of intentionally putting itself in the line of fire between Media3 and MAPS. Steve Linford, co-owner of the London-based Web design and hosting firm Ultradesign and operator of the Spamhaus Project, said Haselton was well aware that Media3 is considered the Internet's biggest spam service host, and that by staying with the ISP, Haselton is falsely trying to paint himself as an unwitting victim of the spam wars.

"People have offered Peacefire alternative hosting for free, and Media3 could move Peacefire in under three minutes by changing their DNS. But Bennett won't do that," said Linford, who noted that the Peacefire site was placed into the group of blacklisted Media3 IP addresses after MAPS added the company to the RBL.

Joe Hayes, Media3 co-owner, confirmed Friday that Haselton had not asked to be moved out of the blocked IP range. But Hayes said that's because such a move would disrupt the Peacefire site.

"If he wants to be moved off that machine we'll certainly accommodate him. But I don't think he's purposely staying there because he wants to make this an agenda. If there was spam on our network, he'd be the first to complain because he doesn't believe in spam," said Hayes.

Spammers beware
According to Hayes, Media3 has a tough acceptable use policy and kicks companies off its network all the time for sending spam. But Hayes said his clients who sell bulk emailing software are not violating those terms.

"We don't have a billboard on our site that says, 'If you spam, come here.' Our AUP forbids it. Every hosting company has customers who send out spam. It's how you react to it. If I get complaints, there's justification for removing the accounts," said Hayes.

But John Levine, a member of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email and operator of the Abuse.net site, said Media3 is infamous among anti-spammers for its hosting of spam software sellers.

"I'm disappointed that Peacefire, which has a long history of coming up with responsible technical ways to get around blocking software that they don't agree with, hasn't taken simple technical means to get around this accidental block at MAPS. I see no advantage to Bennett to continue claiming he's a victim by being associated with spamware vendors with whom he has no sympathy," said Levine.

Trial and error
While most ISPs use the RBL to block incoming connections to their mail servers from blacklisted IP addresses, it appears that Hotmail may have gone further and was using a router-based option MAPS calls BGP mode. Under that system, Hotmail users were prevented not only from receiving email from blacklisted sites, but also from sending messages to them. Hotmail officials were not immediately available for comment.

According to Haselton, after he complained Hotmail eventually enabled its subscribers to send mail to @peacefire.org addresses, although the outgoing block on other blacklisted IPs is still in place.

Hayes of Media3 said incidents like the one at Hotmail will cause support for MAPS among ISPs to erode, as they realize the anti-spam service is holding companies hostage.

"If people look at the whole story, they will really begin to understand that MAPS is testing the waters out there to see how much they can get away with, and they don't care who they hurt in the process," said Hayes.

Linford noted that ISPs are entitled to use the RBL however they see fit, but he conceded that he would be reluctant to block his users' outgoing mail. But Linford said Hotmail has an unusual spam problem, which required it to take unusual steps to protect its users.

"It all sounds terrible—if I were an ordinary user reading that MAPS was binning my email, I'd be livid. But on the other hand, nobody wants spam. And the vast majority of Hotmail users would be thankful, because everyone has been screaming at Hotmail to stop the spam."

—End