Roskomnadzor about Spamhaus

    The other day we received a letter from ROSKOMNADZOR informing us that it was illegal to comply with the requirements of Spamhouse (SPAMHAUS) in Russia. As a rule, they require you to disable websites, remove domain delegation, block the IP address or disable the network of IP addresses, that is, in every way violate the conditions for the provision of communication services in the Russian Federation. These requirements are usually met by the provider under the threat of adding all its IP addresses to blacklists.

    SPAMHAUS is an offshore organization that, in fact, does not comply with Russian, European, or North American legislation, and has already managed to annoy more than a dozen operators and hosting providers. Those. if one of your customers suddenly turns out to be a spammer, then your entire business is at risk.


    Background.

    Not so long ago, one of our providers blocked the subnet. The blocking occurred according to the standard scheme: the upstream received a letter from Spamhouse, they say he did not like the subnet, and the upstream turned it off. Knowing how difficult it is to get the subnet from the Spamhouse lists, we decided to go a little different way, even longer, but still socially useful. This time legal.

    What is a spam house.

    A spam house is a supposedly non-profit organization that was originally created for good purposes: to fight spam by maintaining black lists where spam is sent from.
    Now the 21st century is in the yard and the need to use BL has essentially disappeared.
    Spam is now determined by the methods of content filtering, gray lists, mass control and headers, DKIM, SPF, etc., and black lists are used less and less. But as we see, the situation since 2003 has been changing in a not entirely obvious way.

    Since the technology of blacklists used to be quite widespread, the influence of the spam house is currently great due to the fact that their BLs are used by default by many control panels and non-native sysadmins. Which in turn creates an opportunity for abuse now ... which is what Spamhouse uses.

    A striking example of such abuse in Russia are the conflicts of Spamhouse and nic.ru, Agave , masterhost, naunet and a host of other providers. There was also a case when theyalmost the whole of Latvia was glistened with the words “well this is a small country”.

    The general essence of the problem is the following: if a spammer, hacker or phisher suddenly appears among your clients, then all the IP addresses of your network will be blacklisted very soon, and because some clients don’t like it, they will start moving away from you quickly. And getting your subnets out of CX blacklists is extremely difficult and almost impossible. Thus, innocent clients also suffer from spam house actions.

    What we plan to do:

    Having read the law on communications and the rules for the provision of services, which was later confirmed to us by Roskomnadzor, no letters from Spamhouse can be the reason for the termination of services.

    The reason for the termination of the provision of services, i.e. termination of the contract, there can only be a termination of the license, and blocking in the Russian Federation can only be carried out in accordance with the registry of domain names and sites containing prohibited information (the same registry of “black lists”, 139-FZ).

    I quote from the response letter from Roskomnadzor:

    A telecom operator providing services to provide access to the Internet information and telecommunication network is obliged to restrict and resume access to information distributed through the Internet information and telecommunication network in the manner established by Federal Law No. 149-FZ of July 27, 2006 "on information, information technologies and information protection"

    Thus, with the exception of making a site in the Register on the basis of the Law on information, judgment or features of the contract with the subscriber (n ELSE) telematic services for other reasons to limit access to the site (network) (including at the request of the company «Spamhaus»), your service provider is not available.
    If the telecom operator illegally restricts access to the site (network) to the subscriber (user) of telematic communication services, the operator’s actions will contain signs of violation of the contract with the subscriber.

    In accordance with paragraphs. “In” part 2 of article 10 Federal Law of December 26, 2008 No. 294-ФЗ “On the Protection of the Rights of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs in the Implementation of State Control (Supervision) and Municipal Control” an appeal of a citizen whose rights have been violated (including the facts of a violation by a telecom operator of a contract for the provision of telematic communication services) is the basis for an unscheduled inspection.
    If the telecom operator illegally restricts access to the site (network) to another telecom operator within the framework of the contract of connection and interaction of telecommunication networks, the actions of the operator will contain signs of violation of the contract of connection.
    In accordance with paragraphs. 2 h. 5 tbsp. 27 of the Federal Law of 07.07.2003 No. 126-ФЗ “On Communications”, the receipt by the state supervision body of appeals and applications of citizens, including individual entrepreneurs, legal entities, information from state authorities, local authorities, from the media about facts of violations of the integrity, stability of operation and security of the unified telecommunication network of the Russian Federation, may be the basis for an unscheduled audit.
    In the event that facts of unlawful restrictions on access to sites (networks) are established during a scheduled or unscheduled inspection conducted by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications or its territorial bodies, these operator actions may be qualified as a violation legislation on communications, namely, Federal Law dated 07.07.2003 No. 126-ФЗ “On Communications”, the Rules for the provision of telematic communications services, approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 10.09. 2007 No. 575 (in case of violations under the contract for the provision of communication services), the Rules for the connection of telecommunication networks and their interaction, approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 28.03.
    In case of detection of the above violations, as a result of the inspection, orders can be issued to eliminate the identified violations and warnings about suspension of the license.
    In addition, the implementation of entrepreneurial activity in violation of the conditions provided for by a special permit (license) constitutes an administrative offense under Part 3 of Art. 14.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.
    Protection of rights violated as a result of improper performance of the contract can also be carried out in court. In accordance with Part 1 of Art. 11 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (part one) dated November 30, 1994 No. 51-ФЗ, the protection of violated or contested civil rights is carried out in accordance with the jurisdiction of cases established by the procedural legislation, a court of arbitration or an arbitration court.


    Thus, we are now preparing documents in order for Roskomnadzor to carry out checks in relation to higher-level operators who systematically commit such illegal shutdowns. Maybe sooner or later we’ll get to court.

    And I really want this campaign in the future to make operators in Russia think and no one else to give in to the Spamhouse blackmail.

    If you have suffered from the actions of this organization or believe that your rights have been violated, then I publish the text of the complaint, the ILV response and just useful information:

    1) the complaint template in ROSKOMNADAZOR

    2) the official response of ROSKOMNADZOR

    3) the forum of Russian hosting providers - discussion of legal issues and spam house

    4 )FAQ, as well as a lot of different information on this topic

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