Disclosure on the Spamhaus communication

Monday 17 October 2011

• Spamhaus lies on their blog

On the propaganda page on the Spamhaus website, the number of lies and false remarks are numerous. Even on their propaganda page they give the impression to be thick buddies with the police, while they stay / play ignorant what the actual reason was for our filing at the police.

It already starts with the tabloid like header “Exposed Dutch ISP Attempts False Police Report”.

The media spin that Spamhaus is trying here, is to steer away from actual reason for our police report by trying to discredit the other parties.

This is not about whom we provide transit for, this is about a shady UK ltd with virtual offices in the UK and Switzerland, that is trying to force their views upon us. Spamhaus isn’t a goverment entity or has in any way a government ordered mandate to put pressure on a Dutch ISP or its customers.

If A2B Internet would be providing transit for illegal internet activities (which we aren’t), there are local laws and regulations to deal with. And we are sure the local Dutch police don’t require a couple vigilantes to play judge and executioner on their behalf.

Stating that everyone, that doesn’t sees things your way, are cyber criminals is just getting old real quickly and is just not productive. That was also one (of many) of the reasons why the Spamhaus CIO Richard C. was (by unanimous vote) kicked out of the RIPE Anti-Abuse Work Group by the community members as a co-chair. The stated opinion of that same CIO on the Spamhaus propaganda site, probably contributed to that overall sentiment of the ISP community.

So does anyone actually know why we filed the case at the police?

1. Because disproportionate pressure was forced upon us to stop routing for a network without legal cause or reason.
2. Today Spamhaus is forcing their view on what they think is right, upon us and who is next tomorrow?  We already received multiple statements of other ISP’s that had similar experiences.
3. Spamhaus isn’t the self proclaimed internet police. (Transit) ISP’s are more than capable of dealing with their customers according to the local (regulated) laws. And if you think that something is not correct or illegal, go to court or lobby for a change in the law. Playing your own judge and executioner is not why we have laws in the Netherlands or in the EU.

Everything else, is irrelevant.

For everyone that want to have a look at the IP / Spam and malware reputation of A2B Internet and see for themselves why we say that we have a very strict abuse policy and run a very clean network. Check out the following pages.

Also for those that really want to get into this, see here for the complete mail archive with Spamhaus since June 21st 2011.