MWEB legal department - call for assistance

Hi All,

Hope this all finds you well.  

Over the past few weeks we had a couple of attempts by MWEB to take over our (primary ISP) domain vanilla.co.za (i.e. not one of our customers domains, our own domain). As per their support team this could be considered somewhat "inconvenient". I mean yes there is a very small chance that we may accidentally allow instead of deny but other than that everything should (in theory) continue to work. And they can continue to ask, and we can continue to deny (or ignore). 

It took me about 10 days to work out that the MWEB systems somehow allow a customer to add stuff into their DNS. So when they request to transfer a domain, they have - in accordance with Uniforum policy - include all the settings in their DNS servers. The problem comes in that their authoritative servers also populate their recursive servers, so all emails from any of our customers (using our domain) to any of their customers (using any of their domains) were bouncing since their mail server did not recognise our vanilla email accounts. 

To begin with I contacted my 'friend' from MWEB who is also their legal person and ISPA representative. No response. I then escalate to abuse@mweb who were kind enough to acknowledge - almost within 24 hours - that this is more than just an inconvenience, and that they have a problem with 'OFCdomains' who allow the customers to do this. After a little digging around I see that it appears the sysadmins / abuse team have no control over this problem.  
I must admit that after I explained the problem, the abuse team did call me as well as their sysadmins to apologise and I thanked them, I just wanted to hear some kind of acknowledgement from my colleague and MWEB representative to ISPA that this was not entirely ethical and that it's not an official policy for MWEB to allow this.  

Now:
- (pasted below) I have my 'ex-friend' saying that this is not 'understandable' and hence can't be a legal or ethical issue and as such she implies 'why should she reply to my emails'
- One BIG ISP trying to take over a little ISP primary domain and their 'legal' department does not understand
- same ISP breaks smaller ISP emails to their BIG customer base and the technical team tries to explain to their legal department why this is wrong, but legal department claims that this is a technical issue that has no relevance to them.
- One department within a BIG ISP dictating to the abuse team how their systems will work (no matter how they effect the Internet is not important)

Is this a legal or ethical issue?

Is it a code of conduct issue?

Am I being over-sensitive or silly?

Thanks for your help…. 

Cheers,


Alan




Begin forwarded message:

> From: Wilmari Strachan - MWEB <[email protected]>
> Subject: RE: COZA: TICKET REPLY REQUEST: "vanilla.co.za" on hold for Update
> Date: 26 May 2014 10:05:20 AM SAST
> To: Alan Levin <[email protected]>
> 
> Hi Alan
> 
> Our abuse team has been dealing with this.  There is nothing I can do, I'm just the lawyer here not a technical person, so I don't even understand the problem.
> 
> I will ask one of our managers in the abuse team to contact you.
> 
> Regards
> Wilmari 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Levin [mailto:[email protected]] 
> Sent: 26 May 2014 10:00 AM
> To: Wilmari Strachan - MWEB
> Subject: Fwd: COZA: TICKET REPLY REQUEST: "vanilla.co.za" on hold for Update
> 
> Hi Wilmari,
> 
> Hope that you're good :)  I hope this doesn't bounce like many of my previous. 
> 
> I still haven't heard anything from you about this.  Seems your whole team are very sorry although I am still wanting to talk to you since you are my connection and peer.
> 
> Why are you ignoring me?
> 
> Sincerely
> 
> Alan
> 
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: Alan Levin <[email protected]>
>> Subject: Fwd: COZA: TICKET REPLY REQUEST: "vanilla.co.za" on hold for 
>> Update
>> Date: 21 May 2014 2:58:07 PM SAST
>> To: Wilmari Hannie - MWEB <[email protected]>
>> 
>> Hi Wilmari,
>> 
>> Hope you are well :)
>> 
>> I'm not sure why your team are trying to take over our (primary) domain.  We've been seeing repeated attempts. Can you maybe advise your team to stop?
>> 
>> Thanks and warm regards,
>> 
>> Alan
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>> From: [email protected]
>>> Subject: COZA: TICKET REPLY REQUEST: "vanilla.co.za" on hold for 
>>> Update
>>> Date: 21 May 2014 1:01:58 PM SAST
>>> To: [email protected], [email protected], 
>>> hostmaster-I3NL17n3fBzxQyRe0/[email protected], hostmaster-qKQPWU3fwc/[email protected], 
>>> [email protected]
>>> Reply-To: [email protected]
>>> 
>>> MAGIC C00KIE:203821:d39ba2a6131e0:Accept Deny:vanilla.co.za:
>>>                                /\
>>>                               /||\
>>>                                ||
>>>                      Delete the word 'Accept'
>>>                      or the word 'Deny' ONLY!
>>>                    DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE
>>>                          ON THIS LINE!!!
>>> 
>>> The domain "vanilla.co.za" is in the pending queue for a Update.
>>> This was requested by "[email protected]".  The original request 
>>> was posted at Wed, 21 May 2014 11:01:49 +0000 and queued in pending at Wed May 21 13:01:58 SAST 2014.
>>> 
>>> To allow this to proceed - auto-reply to this e-mail quoting the 
>>> magic cookie line at the top of the message, ...after removing either 
>>> the word "Deny" or "Accept" - according to how you want to vote for 
>>> the Change.
>>> (Auto-Reply means "reply to sender" - which is "[email protected]".)
>>> 
>>> How it works, The application will wait for 24 hours. After this 
>>> time, if there is at least one Accept and no Deny's, the request will proceed.
>>> Anything else will stop the request, eg one Deny - or no Accepts..
>>> 
>>> Copies of this e-mail have been sent to:- [email protected], 
>>> [email protected], hostmaster-I3NL17n3fBzxQyRe0/[email protected], 
>>> hostmaster-qKQPWU3fwc/[email protected], [email protected]
>>> 
>>> 	[email protected] - Support at the COZA Office
>>> 
>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Request looks like......
>>> 
>>> Sender:    [email protected]
>>> Domain:    vanilla.co.za
>>> Action:    U
>>> Company:   Klm Designs
>>> Postal:    PO BOX 1540, , MOUNT EDGECOMBE, , 4300, DU=
>>> Street:    PO BOX 1540, , MOUNT EDGECOMBE, , 4300, DU=
>>> Payment:   0  (I)
>>> Bill/Acct: Multichoice Subscriber Man=
>>> MailTo:    [email protected]
>>> Vat No:    4390165688
>>> 
>>> Administrative Info
>>> Contact:   DNS Admin   (MWEB Business)
>>> Company:   Multichoice Subscriber Management Services (Pty) Ltd - =
>>> Postal:    P.O. Box 84631,Greenside,2034
>>> Phone:     011 340 7200
>>> Fax:       011 340 7483
>>> E-Mail:    [email protected]
>>> 
>>> Technical Info
>>> Contact:   DNS Admin   (MWEB Business)
>>> Company:   Multichoice Subscriber Management Services (Pty) Ltd - =
>>> Postal:    P.O. Box 84631,Greenside,2034
>>> Phone:     011 340 7200
>>> Fax:       011 340 7483
>>> E-Mail:    [email protected]
>>> 
>>> Nameservers Records - etc
>>> 
>>> Primary Server  : cp-ns1.mweb.co.za 
>>> Secondary 1     : cp-ns2.mweb.co.za 
>>> 
>>> ---



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