[Fwd: ANNOUNCE: MONKEYS.COM: Now retired from spam fighting] (fwd)

Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 04:43:07 +0400
From: Michael Tokarev <[email protected]>
Organization: Telecom Service, JSC
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Fwd: ANNOUNCE: MONKEYS.COM: Now retired from spam fighting]

Who next?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [spamtools] ANNOUNCE: MONKEYS.COM: Now retired from spam fighting
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 16:39:55 -0700
From: Ronald F. Guilmette <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]

It is with deep regret that I must announce that by 12:00 PM
Pacific Daylight Time tonight, September 22nd, 2003, all
anti-spam services and information that are now, or that
have been provided by MONKEYS.COM to the Internet community
will be terminated.  All spam related information will be
removed from the MONKEYS.COM web site and all anti-spam DNS
zone files of MONKEYS.COM will be completely emptied of their
contents.

Please note that the various MONKEYS.COM anti-spam DNS zone
files will continue to exist, for the indefinite future,
for the convenience of the community, but they will contain
no lisings of any IP addressese or address blocks.  I want
to assure everyone, most solemly, that I have no plans whatso-
ever to implement any sorts of ``positive response'' wild-
cards in any of these zones (as happened, unfortunately, in
the Osirusoft case).  The MONKEYS.COM anti-spam zones will
remain accessible, but content free for an absolute minimum
of 6 months, and even after that time, ample prior notice
will be provided, both here and elsewhere, regarding any
changes.

As those of you who have come to know me over the past 8+ years
of spam fighting surely know, I am deeply sorry that I have
to withdraw from this fight, but at this point I clearly
have no choice.  I rode out the first massive DDoS against
my site, which lasted for 10 days, from August 19th through
the 29th, but over the past three days I have been massively
DDoS'd again, and I think that the handwriting is now on the
wall.  I will simply not be allowed to continue fighting spam.
It simply isn't an option anymore.  I don't have either the
bandwidth or the level of interest among either big network
providers or law enforcement authorities that is clearly
necessary in order to fight this kind of concentrated onslaught
from thousands of separate zombie machines at a time.  I would
be the first to say that it is a damn shame that the bad guys
have won yet another round, but their really isn't a damn thing
that I can do about it.  If there are people on the net that can
DDoS the likes of Yahoo and eBay out of existance (as happened
in the year 2000), then little Ron Guilmette and Monkeys.Com hasn't
got a chance.  I can't fight the kinds of attacks that have been
directed at me recently any more than I can fight against the sun
coming up tomorrow.

To those of you who have come such a long way with me in this
fight, and even to all of those who have criticized my methods,
over time, I want to say thank you.  Thank you even for disagreeing
with me when I needed it, and I hope that you will all accept my
apologies for letting you down.  I confess that I underestimated
the enemy rather badly.  I underestimated both the enemy's level
of sophistication, and also the enemy's level of brute malevolence.
I always knew that spammers had no principals and no ethics, but
up until recently, I had no idea that they could or would stoop this
low, or that they would engage in quite this level of criminality.
I guess that naively, I just never thought hard enough about how
much money was actually at stake (in the spamming trade) or what
that might mean in terms or the determination of spammers to win
at all costs.

I don't know what else I can or should say at this point, other
than that it is my fervent hope that people of good will and good
intentions, people who believe in common values like civility,
honesty, decency, and privacy, will someday be able to take back
the net from the criminals who are clearly in the driver's seat at
the moment.  Sadly though, I have to say that I am not hopeful that
this will occur anytime soon.  Losing a few anti-spam sites is not
something that is likely to grab either the attention of, or even
the notice of John Q. Surfer.  Strange as it may sound, the only
real hope that I have for the near term is that some egomaniac
miscreant with a desire for publicity will DDoS the web sites of
both the Democratic and Republican National Comittees out of ex-
istance.  Preventing DDoS attacks an/or finding their perpetrators
in not likely to be a priority for either manufacturers of network-
ing gear or for large backbone companies until such an event, and
until people with the clous necessary to move things off dead-center
are impacted as I have been.


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  I may still post the odd occasional personal oninion to the various
anti-spam lists and newsgroups, but I clearly am no longer in a postion
to make suggestions to anybody about anything when it comes to fighting
spam.  I took my best shot, at trying to leap tall buildings in a single
bound, and all I did was to make some high scuff marks on the wall.  I
thus no longer have any real standing to comment on what anybody else
may be doing in the way of anti-spam efforts, and all I can do is to
wish you well and the best of luck.

P.P.S.  I should perhaps offer a special apology to SpamHaus, to MAPS,
and to the many other such groups that will continue to try to withstand
this onslaught.  I am especially sorry that I have let all of you down,
and that I won't be able to draw any fire away from you folks any more.
I wish you better luck (and more friends and bandwidth) than I had.