Follow the Bouncing ISP!

1. ProWeb: ProWeb's upstream threatened to cut off ProWeb if they continued hosting Robin Hood Software, so ProWeb told the EE guys to take a hike. But: Proweb kept hosting the DNS servers for Robin Hood Software. Richard Drage, the main man at ProWeb, appears to be a personal friend of the folks at Robin Hood Software. Why did Richard Drage support spammers? Why don't you ask him yourself?
2. UUNET: They then migrated over to one of UUNET's web farms, either a co-locate or a T1 terminating at a co-locate. It took a while, but UUNET finally bounced them. n
3. ProWeb: ProWeb, by this time, had switched service providers to UUNET. So apparently Robin Hood Software decided it was safe to go back to ProWeb. But after their IP range was getting repeatedly listed in the SPEWS spam database as a source of spam, UUNET (ProWeb's upstream) apparently cut them off.
4. NewNet: This appears to be their current provider as of this date (December 3, 2002). Whoops, NewNet has now bounced them! Man, that takes a *LOT* of doing, to get NewNet to bounce you. Probably NewNet ran out of IP addresses to reassign them to as the EE guys try to avoid SPEWS blackholing by repeatedly moving to different IP addresses. Of course, after the second or third time that the EE guys do that, the SPEWS list will simply blackhole the whole netblock. That's what happened to ProWeb to get the EE guys out of there, and undoubtedly what happened at NewNet too.
5. UUNET *AGAIN* -- some sales guy made a *big* whoopsie back in April 2003 and let them back on the UUNET network. So UUNET is back in the business of spam hosting again. Sigh. "We're MCI-Worldcom, we own half the Internet backbone, so we don't care, we don't have to." So if you want to complain about these spammin' fools, complain to UUNET. I will give you some contact EMAIL addresses shortly.

Here's the current scoop on their IP connectivity:

eric@wksta1 eric]$ whois -h whois.ripe.net 195.129.38.69
% This is the RIPE Whois server.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% Rights restricted by copyright.
% See http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/copyright.html

inetnum:      195.129.38.64 - 195.129.38.95
netname:      ROBINHOODSOFTWARE-EU
descr:        Robin Hood Software Ltd
country:      GB
admin-c:      AC7211-RIPE
tech-c:       AC7211-RIPE
status:       ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by:       UUNET-IP-MNT
notify:       euro-install-archive@uu.net
changed:      ewan.mackie@wcom.com 20030425
source:       RIPE

route:        195.129.0.0/16
descr:        UUNET-NET
origin:       AS702
remarks:      UUnet filter inbound on prefixes longer than /24
notify:       intl-net-eng@uu.net
mnt-by:       UUNET-MNT
changed:      stevew@uu.net 19981110
source:       RIPE

person:       Andrew Churchill
address:      Robin Hood Software Ltd.
address:      Gothic House, Barker Gate
address:      NG1 1JU
address:      Nottingham
address:      United Kingdom
phone:        +44 7020970030
e-mail:       domains@evidence-eliminator.com
nic-hdl:      AC7211-RIPE
mnt-by:       UUNET-IP-MNT
notify:       euro-install@uu.net
changed:      ewan.mackie@wcom.com 20030410
source:       RIPE

How long will they be able to stay at that address? We'll find out -- but it's certainly not going to be long, especially with the shenanigans that the EE guys have been up to with trying to cut off *MY* Internet connectivity. You can help by contacting UUNET (make sure to include the term 'Evidence Eliminator' in the subject line) and asking them why they continue to support one of the biggest sources of spam (other than penis enlargement spam!) on the Internet. I'll try to get you some more contact EMAIL addresses Real Soon Now :-).

Note -- *FINALLY* ProWeb has cut some of their connections to Robin Hood Software. The EE guys are paying gandi.net (a French registrar) to host their DNS. Guess they got tired of the delays and issues involved in changing their NS records at the registrar...