http://www.smbtech.com/ed

All links preserved:  
https://web.archive.or
g/web/20120210152814/http://www.smbtech.com/ed/

Information About Edmond H. Wollmann's
Abuse of the ISP Complaints Process

Mirror This Site: Tar File

Update 10/23/09: Wollmann failed to provide a valid PO Box 
address for return of the DMCA Counter Notice

Update 10/5/09: Edmond Wollmann has again attempted to remove 
this site using a spurious DMCA Notice.

Update 10/9/09: A Counter Notice has been promptly returned.

Update 5/6/05: Ed seems to take exception with his name 
appearing in Wikipedia’s alt.usenet.kooks page. In a meltdown 
true to form, Ed blew off many, many emails to the WikiEN-l 
mailing list, including the usual lawsuit threats, defamation 
claims, and the inevitable turning tail and running.

Update 5/5/05: In yet another failed attempt to remove this 
site, Edmond Wollmann tried complaining to my internet provider:

“I am a published author and my copyrights under the DMCA are 
being violated.”

This seems to be a different tactic from a few years ago when Ed 
found these very same pages to be “defamation”.  In the event 
that Ed wants to actually go through the legal process of 
submitting a DMCA notice, I’ve prepared this page to hold a copy 
of Ed’s notice and my subsequent replies:

DMCA Notice Page

Update 7/30/99: In an email to the owner of this server, Edmond 
threatened,
"Remove your defamation or I'll walk down there and yank it off"

See the archive of Ed Wollmann's threats to and harrassment of 
this site's owner.

Who is the target audience for this web page?

Although anyone is welcome to read it, this page was written to 
serve as a resource for ISP abuse admins.

Who wrote this web page?

The authors of this page are a group of Usenet readers and 
admins who detest Usenet spamming, EMP, email abuse, and other 
forms of net abuse. If you are investigating a true spammer or 
abuser, we sincerely hope that your investigation serves 
justice. However, you were likely referred to this page because 
actual net abuse may not have been done by your user. Rather, 
the claim of abuse has been made by a person well known for 
flooding abuse admins with spurious complaints.

Who is Edmond Wollmann?

Mr. Wollmann is a well-known abuser of the ISP abuse process. He 
harasses many people whom he encounters in Usenet by sending 
numerous complaints to his targets' ISPs. Frequently he involves 
the ISPs' upstream providers and news peers as well.

Why a web page about Mr. Wollmann was needed


Which newsgroups are most affected by Mr. Wollmann's complaint 
letters?

We know to date that Mr. Wollmann is sending complaints about 
many regular posters in alt.astrology, alt.astrology.metapsych, 
alt.usenet.kooks, and news.admin.net-abuse.usenet. However, Mr. 
Wollmann will often check on an authors posting history, and 
bombard his victims' "home" newsgroup with forwaded and off-
topic posts in an attempt to intimidate a poster to stop posting 
to "Ed's" group(s).

Who has had complaints sent about them by Mr. Wollmann?

We do not know for sure how many people have had this happen to 
them.  For one thing, if an ISP (wisely in our opinion) chooses 
to ignore him, his target is not always aware that Mr. Wollmann 
has been complaining about him or her.  However, there is more 
than enough information to show that Mr. Wollmann is harassing 
quite a few people with the number and volume of complaints that 
he sends.  Documentation is available at this link:

 Your customer is not alone: some of Wollmann's many targets

What do news and abuse admins say about Mr. Wollmann?

Several abuse admins have been willing to "go public" with their 
experiences with Edmond Wollmann.  They rightfully grow tired of 
his spurious complaints and address morphing to thwart their 
mailfilters.

"Mr. Wollmann seems sadly ignorant of the legal doctrine of 
"unclean hands." Essentially what it means is that a court will 
not grant relief to one who complains of being damaged if the 
complainant has himself engaged in abuse related to the cause of 
action." -Jason Barr, PBI Policy Manager
"Mr. Wollmann’s account at AzNET was cancelled due to multiple, 
seemingly endless complaints about his abusive behavior in 
Usenet."- Jack Bailey, Aznet
"...Eddie first came to my attention: a complaint from 
columbia.edu about the complaints they had been receiving from 
Eddie, as many as 300 per day....His *thing* is abusing abuse 
departments. If he doesn't get his way with complaints, he'll 
call up and harass the abuse department. If they manage to avoid 
his calls (or direct him to cease and desist phoning), he sends 
large numbers of duplicate complaints via email." Nick Nicholas, 
Executive Director, Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC, mail-
abuse.org (formerly of pacbell.net)
"You have a worthless charter given that you chose to made your 
group [alt.astrology.metapsych] unmoderated. I think you set it 
up to attempt to kill accounts and that it should be rmgrouped 
as a trap and public nuisiance." -Rebecca Ore, respected n.a.n.a-
u participant.
More documentation is available at this link:
Abuse admins re: Edmond Wollmann


And what has Mr. Wollmann said about admins and ISPs?

Mr. Wollmann on the subject of ISPs and their employees

What has Mr. Wollmann done to lose credibility with many people?

Mr. Wollmann has shown himself in many ways to be a poor Netizen 
and not someone whose opinion can be trusted about the 
appropriateness of another's postings.  In addition, many of the 
actions which Mr. Wollmann accuses others of in his complaints 
are actually things he has done himself in Usenet.  
Documentation is available at the links below:

Mr. Wollmann Spams Usenet
Mr. Wollmann frequently sends complaints about others "spamming" 
even when the posts being complained about do not fall under the 
Skirvin guidelines. This is ironic, because Wollmann is well 
aware of what constitutes spam. He was TOSsed from AOL and lost 
6 accounts there for spamming. Wollmann also has spammed from 
both Earthlink and ATT Worldnet, documented by thoroughly 
detailed spam reports and multiple cancels of his spam.
Mr. Wollmann Censors by Illegitimately issuing Third-Party 
Cancels for Others' Usenet posts
Mr. Wollmann has never owned up to his own censorious 
activities. In July of 1997, he issued a rash of over 50 
illegitimate third-party cancels for Usenet posts with which he 
apparently had some issue with. Many of the posts he attempted 
to cancel made it to DejaNews, so that it can be seen that 
posters were sometimes merely criticising him. Wollman's 
outrageous "Netcopping" behavior is grevious Net Abuse.
He has publicly admitted to his intention to send thousands of 
complaints
Mr. Wollmann has announced in Usenet, many times, his intentions 
to send volumionus complaints.
He makes "off-topic" complaints about others while he frequently 
posts off-topic
Mr. Wollmann likes to complain about other posters being "off-
topic".  He does this in a hypervigilant manner and so disrupts 
normal Usenet conversation.  However, he often makes off-topic 
posts himself -- especially when he discussed complaints he has 
sent.  He often adds unrelated newsgroups to his posts. He also 
often sets follow-ups to his posts to go to alt.dev.null rather 
than to the groups where his messages were posted.
alt.astrology.metapsych: so many "off-topic" complaints that a 
new charter was needed
Mr. Wollmann admitted to adding this group in his cross-posts in 
particular--in order to entrap persons following up his posts so 
that he could send "off-topic" complaints about them. He became 
such a nuisance that a consensus was reached to create a new 
charter for this group which would make it harder for him to 
send these complaints about posters being off-topic there.


Mr. Wollmann himself frequently posts abusively in Usenet
Nobody involved with this site denies Mr. Wollmann's right to 
engage in flame wars and be as insulting or as profane as he 
wants to be. There is a difference, however, between abuse ON 
the Net and abuse OF the Net. Many of Mr. Wollmann's complaints 
are about abusive and defaming posts even as he insults, 
defames, and abuses other posters.  He posts, without 
permission,  private e-mail sent to him.  He has made threats 
regarding posters' places of business, mailbombing threats, 
threats of telephone harassment, threats to force his in-person 
presence upon other posters, and at least one explicit threat to 
commit physical violence.
What is Mr. Wollmann's email account address?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question!  
Edmond Wollmann abuses the Net in several ways, and as a result 
frequently loses Internet accounts.  Not only does he change 
address frequently, but also often sends complaints from more 
than one address at a time -- which can make it seem as though 
many people are complaining about an individual when that is the 
fact not the case.  Documentation is available at this link:

 Some of his current and past accounts & why he has lost many of 
these accounts

Mr. Wollmann, Award-Winning Netizen
Mr. Wollmann actually won a Usenet award, titled "Kook of the 
Month", for his Usenet posts of February, 1998.  Click here to 
view some of the posts he made at that time which earned him 
this distinction.
Wollmann Usenet Post Archive 2/98 to 7/99
Download your own reference archive for Mr. Wollmann's Usenet 
posts for the past 1.5 years (2mb .zip file expands to 7mb text 
file).