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by johnklos 896 days ago
Just because there are things that we can do about symptoms of a problem doesn't change the fact that the problem itself might bother some of us.

For instance, it bothers me that certain networks quite literally do nothing about malicious actors attempting intrusion from those networks. Abuse complaints are ignored. Some people might say, "just run blocklistd", "use a non-standard port", et cetera, but the real issue is that people shouldn't be allowed to attempt intrusion, and when I send an email to a netblock's contacts with 1,000 login attempts, they should remove the accounts linked to that attempted intrusion.

They don't, so I block whole netblocks based on the lack of response and action. Should I also run blocklistd? Sure, and I do, but that's orthogonal to blocking.

So while the person running this site could do things differently and/or better, for certain definitions of better, they're doing what works for them.

Is reporting spam going to make a change in the world? No, but it FEELS better to do it, and it does affect my mailbox. Likewise, is blocking IPs making a change in the world? No, but it probably makes Cheapskate feel more in control of their server.

1 comments

    when I send an email to a netblock's contacts with 1,000
    login attempts, they should remove the accounts linked
    to that attempted intrusion.
What proof can you give them that those login attempts really took place?
Logs.

If you're seriously suggesting that others shouldn't care because I could be making them up, then I suppose there's always vigilantism. After all, it can't be illegal if other people can't prove they didn't make up their own logs.

Are logs not real, like some people think birds and the Moon landings aren't real?