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Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I'll begin. Here is a spam I just received. It is bad, because it is spam.
It is bad because it has mangled headers to attempt to deflect complaints away from the true perpetrators. It is also quite funny. Here it is, dissected for the newer anti-spammers to watch and learn from. First line:
This is my mail server getting the spam from a mail server known as bullets.cybercon.com Please note that the ISP listed here may well have been innocently hijacked by the spammer, we really don't know yet. This is all fake... |
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What does this all mean? It means that the first part of the line is bogus, but the second part is correct. We know that because most mail server software will report accurate information about where it got the mail from in most cases (it has to be misconfigured or older brain-dead software to be completely silent about where it got the mail from). It has been my observation that you can trust the IP address found within the square brackets, i.e. [199.217.156.7] So, we have a reasonable expectation that the spammer used a dialup account on Compuserve to send this spam. We still do not know if the ISP it was sent through is innocent or guilty, though. We will complain to Compuserve at abuse@compuserve.com, for starters. >Received: from usr15-dialup53.mx1.Willowsprings.mci.net [166.55.38.181] Thus, the very top
message was from my mailer, receiving the mail. >Everybody loves Mr. Chicken! Ah, here's where it gets amusing! Now, if we follow Rush Limbaugh's advice and "follow the money," it would appear that the perpetrator of this spam has a mailbox at answerme.com
and his handle is MrChicken
What do we know about answerme.com? Well, it happens that Cyberpromo is the owner of this particular domain. That kind of ends that trail for us, because Cyberpromo is a spamhaus, and their upstream provider, AGIS, is well aware of it and supports it. AGIS is a "backbone" on the Internet, so there is no one above them to complain to. Still, since Cyberpromo
CLAIMS to be against illegal relaying, we can send a copy of the complaint to
relayabuse@cyberpromo.com
and also to abuse@agis.net
This won't do anything, but what the heck. |
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So, that ends the spam. Now, what about the original ISP who sent the spam to me? Innocent party or spamhaus? Well, let's take a look at their web page: http://www.cybercon.com/aup.html  Cybercon Acceptable User Policy It is contrary to Cybercon policy for any user to effect or participate in any of the following activities through a Cybercon service: [snip] 3. To send unsolicited mass emailings to more than twenty-five (25) email users, if such unsolicited emailings provoke complaints from the recipients; 4. To engage in any of the foregoing activities using the service of another provider, but channeling such activities through a Cybercon account or remailer, or using a Cybercon account as a maildrop for responses; Now, it would appear from looking at their homepage (http://www.cybercon.com/) and also by "reading between the lines" of their AUP, that Cybercon is a spamhaus, however thinly disguised. That does not mean that they authorized this spam, or that they were not hijacked. But the suspicion is definitely there. In any case, they get a copy of the complaint as well. If they were hijacked, they may wish to investigate further and perhaps initiate legal action. If they were not, they may remain silent on the matter. In any case, they also have an upstream provider, which can be determined by doing a traceroute
on bullets.cybercon.com So, we know
they get their service from mci.net What else do
we know about the elusive Cybercon? So, it appears that Starnet
owns their Class "C" license. Now, let's jump into
see 102--DejaNews
(the land of "all my sins remembered") and see what we can find out: Upon reading the messages
in question, it appears that they once complained that they had been mischaracterized as "cybercoM.com" [nothing of consequence found]
So, it appears that MrChicken has posted an identical message a few days ago in UseNet. Just one, so not spam, although since it just happened, the others may not have been picked up by dejanews yet. www.dejanews.com Still, we see
that sprynet.net
was used, not cybercon.com.
It begins to look as though cybercon.com
is not guilty, but either was hijacked or has a bad actor on their hands. So, we still complain to
Cybercon, but scratch abuse@mci.net
(their upstream provider) from the list. From: bmattocks@comp-sol.com >Received: from bullets.cybercon.com (bullets.cybercon.com [199.217.156.7]) OK, folks, that's it for tonight.
Bill Mattocks, CIIU
Notes:
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