Re: Recommend a hosting company?

On Sat, 13 May 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.linux, in article
<126ajp2rrtvvr0b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jimchip wrote:

On 2006-05-13, Moe Trin <ibuprofin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

but before you sign ANY contract,find out exactly what addresses you'll
be assigned, and check them on the various block lists. Paying a lower
rate because you'll be a human shield for spammers isn't thought to be
the best idea ever.

I think you mean when the OP signs a contract but I agree with your advice.

I find it quite amazing that people are connected to the Internet through
their own ISP and are receiving varying amounts of spam/pen-tests/abuse
from the world, and yet when they decide to contract with a hosting company
seem to forget all of the garbage that is being directed at their personal
accounts - the stuff doesn't appear out of thin air. There are "spammer
friendly" hosting companies out there (quite a large number who don't care
where the money comes from) and once "you" (the customer) signs a contract
with them, it's not easy to back out of, even when you discover that you
are in the middle of a spam sewer, and no one wants to accept packets from
that company. "Due diligence"??? Wazzat?

Public block lists are easy to check. The problem some hosting companies
have is that they've made individual admins unhappy, and these admins have
created their own blocking rules. I know of several major providers that
when IPv4 finally disappears from the Internet in the year 2985 will still
be listed in tens of thousands of private firewall rules.

I'll add: news.admin.net-abuse.email which is where the SPEWS listed ones
are also directed :)

Sounds good to me too. I always recommend google-grouping through
n.a.n-a.sightings, because if you see your prospective hosting company
even _mentioned_ there, you want to investigate much more carefully, AND
talk to that sales-droid. Also, several of the news.admin.net-abuse.*
groups have very helpful FAQs.

The SPEWS FAQ has some humor in it in addition to being informative.

Still, when unhappy campers are referred to it (and others) after they
discover their IP-space is blocked 17 ways to Sunday, they tend not to
appreciate the humor. Better they read the FAQs before they sign the
contract.

Old guy
.