Spam? Not Spam? Tracking a hijacked Spamhaus IP

The idea of reducing spam is great, but the method of using blocklists has some unfortunate side effects, specifically, it concentrates far too much influence (power) in the hands of a few individuals. Sadly, there are occasions when said individuals abuse the power they have acquired. [1, 2, 3]

The recent massive DDoS against spamhaus and this new BGP based routing attack make it painfully clear that spamhaus has upset someone, but the question of who they upset, and whether or not they are justified in fighting back are still unknown. If you were a legitimate, non-spamming business and some vigilante shut down your capacity to send email, you'd be rightfully angry.

If spamhaus considered you "acceptable collateral damage" in their war against spam, you'd be absolutely livid.

These kinds of situations happen with blocklists.

[1] http://paulgraham.com/sblbad.html

[2] http://paulgraham.com/spamhausblacklist.html

[3] http://paulgraham.com/spamhaussbl.html