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Xtra Says Don't Email Us 18 October 2001 Edition
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Like most Internet users, my firewall gets a hammering from script-kiddies, dweebs, dorks and evil sods.

Many of these probes come from overseas, often bounced off poorly configured servers in distant lands such as Korea, Japan, Taiwan or some Eastern European location.

However, about six or seven times a week, I get some local idiot using an Xtra dial-up account who is searching for a vulnerable user who unknowingly has the SubSeven trojan or some other back door program sitting quietly on their PC.

Now I'm not at all concerned -- my defenses are up and I keep a very close eye on my firewall and security logs.

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However, as we all know, there are many thousands of local Net users who would probably suggest you dial 111 if you mentioned the word "firewall" and who are running "out of the box" copies of Windows 95, complete with Netbios bound to their dial-up adapters.

Until recently, I felt that it was a "good neighbor" thing to report the activities of the Xtra-based script-kiddies and their evil probing activities to Xtra's security team.

When someone probed my cyber-regions from an xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.dialup.xtra.co.nz IP I would simply fire off an email to security@xtra.co.nz. I'd include the time/date, the type of probe and the IP number of the offender.

I would inevitably (sometimes a few weeks later) receive a courteous reply informing me that the user had been "warned." Funny thing is I never once got an email telling me "we've kicked the evil little sod off our network and banned him from ever getting another Xtra account" -- such is the need for Telecom to spin a profit I guess :-(

Readers Say
(updated hourly)
  • Understanding Business... - Mike
  • The internet is not just the www... - Ian
  • Telecom can't communicate... - David
  • Reporting hackers... - Chris
  • Xtra abuse... - Simon
  • Have Your Say

    During the Code Red infection period, I also reported a number of obviously infected machines in order that the owners could be notified and fix their systems. It's all part of being a good netizen.

    However, I'm not going to be submitting any more reports to Xtra, and neither are a lot of readers who have written to me bitching about the change of policy over there at Xtra's security department.

    It seems that emailed security or spam abuse reports are no longer good enough for the Telco giant.

    Attempts to send reports to abuse@xtra.co.nz or security@xtra.co.nz now produce an automated response that says, in part:

    Xtra has automated the procedures for reporting allegations of abuse and security breaches involving our network or customers. From 14 August 2001, we no longer accept complaints via email. Please complete the appropriate web forms at http://xtra.co.nz/help/0,,4128-647432,00.html.

    Get off!

    Hey guys, I'm trying to do your vulnerable users a favour and report a dork on your network. Don't go out of your way to make my life difficult by forcing me to fill out some lame form!

    I'm sure the justification will be that the team were receiving too many emails that contained incomplete data and this was making the resolution of such incidents too time consuming or even impossible.

    There may be some validity to such a claim -- but what about those of us who do know what we're doing and exactly what information is required? Why force us through the same hoops as the neophytes?

    It takes me just a few seconds to fire off all the details required in an email but it takes much longer to fill out some dumb form.

    And just who designed the form for reporting network abuse?

    I suspect that many of those who might wish to complain about some dork using an Xtra dial-up or DSL account will be using some other ISP for their Net access. So why are the fields "Your Xtra Username/Login ID" and "Password" flagged as Mandatory? Hell, half the time they won't even apply!

    Or is this Xtra's way of saying "we're only interested in receiving complaints from our own customers"?

    Here are some suggestions for Xtra:

    1. Accept emailed reports -- direct people to the form ONLY if they've failed to supply some critical information.
    2. Fix that dumb form so that the type of novice who needs to use it isn't going to be confused by not having an Xtra ID and password to put in the "mandatory" fields.
    3. If your customers spam or attempt to hack into other people's computers then cancel their accounts -- don't just pat them on the head and say "you are warned."
    Note that in point three (above) I was going to say "enforce your terms of service" -- but I see that Xtra's terms and policies don't seem to actually forbid users from trying to hack into others computers. Or if it does, I can't find it.

    Mind you -- there are pages and pages of stuff there about payment, billing money, etc, etc. It seems that hacking or spamming pale into insignificance against the evil crime of being late with that cheque :-)

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