[Luna Node] Important notice regarding all services
SpamHaus Project Ltd., a company registered in London which maintains a
spammer blacklist, has threatened our service provider, SingleHop LLC,
that SpamHaus will blacklist all IP ranges assigned to SingleHop LLC
unless our (Luna Node) services with SingleHop LLC are terminated. As
such, SingleHop LLC has informed us that, unless this issue is resolved,
they will be closing our account on December 31st, 2013. We have
contacted SpamHaus Project Ltd., however they are now ignoring our
communications and refusing to work with us. We are still in the process
of discussing the issue with SpamHaus, but if this is unsuccessful, we
will be migrating all services to BurstNET's Scranton, PA datacenter.
On December 4th, 2013, a spammer began registering multiple accounts on
our billing system. We received reports of spam activity through SBL
listings and other sources, and terminated each account found to be
conducting spamming activities within a few hours after each report. By
December 15th, 2013, we had found the linkage between the accounts and
blocked the common IP subnet from which the orders originated. A few
days later, we also adjusted our policies and began conducting manual
screenings on all new clients to curb spamming activity on our network.
However, at the same time, due to the multiple blacklistings, SpamHaus
apparently incorrectly came to the conclusion that we were providing the
same spammer with a IP address each time we received a blacklist. As
stated above, they began illegally blackmailing our service provider and
pressuring SingleHop LLC to terminate our services. We immediately
responded with clarification of the policy changes that we were
implementing, including the manual screening of new customers (by
validating residential IP address, physical address, phone number, and
other provided data) and the considering of blocking outgoing
connections to port 25 by default on newly provisioned virtual machines.
Yet, after December 18, 2013 we have received no response from SpamHaus
and they appear to be ignoring our emails; again, we are still
attempting to communicate with them at this time. They have additionally
started listing arbitrary ranges assigned to Luna Node, including our
web server (which does not send any mail).
Due to the possibility that SpamHaus will continue to ignore our
communications, we are sending this notification and also preparing a
backup plan involving migration to new servers with Luna Node in
Scranton. You have the following options:
* Continue with the migration to our servers in Scranton, PA. This will
involve a change of IP address assignment.
* Pro rata refund for active services
The first option will be taken as default. If you would like a refund,
please open a ticket from the client area.
We have researched this antispam group and have found that they have
similarly affected other businesses, and that their actions are in fact
illegal by both EU and US laws. For more information, see the links below:
*
http://www.quackpotwatch.org/opinionpieces/spamhausspewsaffidavit.htm
*
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/dutch-isp-hits-spamhaus-with-police-complaints-42302
*
http://www.a2b-internet.com/spamhaus/
We have thus notified the appropriate agencies, including the United
States Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
by filing a complaint through the Internet Crime Complaint Center (ic3.gov).
If you have any questions, please open a support ticket. We apologize
for the impact to your services; we have spent considerable effort so
far to no avail to deal with SpamHaus' illegal actions, both by
attempting to cooperate with them and informing law enforcement agencies.
Best,
Jason Lee
Luna Node
