“You can’t fix stupid”

I love that line from comedian Ron White, but thankfully its not true in all cases.

Take the Demand Media situation, for example. The HostExploit people named it the worst ISP in the world because of the number of botnet control centers they host and the sheer volume of junk that spews from its network. They reportedly host an estimated 7,400 infected websites.

This same company is the domain registrar for eNom, reported by KnujOn² to be the predominant source of pharmaceutical spam which funds a lucrative drug trade organization. Yet despite all the negative reports and complaints, Demand Media has just made its initial public offering and are reportedly hoping to gain at least $125 million in profit.

Seriously? They’re apparently turning a blind eye to all the junk they send that rips off unsuspecting users and don’t seem in a hurry to fix that, but they think that collectively people will hand over a further $125 million or more to fund their operation? Now that’s stupid.

To quote Brian Krebs³, there are two ways to deal with organizations like these: shun or stun. Stuns are ideally executed after careful mapping of the target botnets infrastructure and resurrection networks. But unplanned opportunities to stun a botnet or botnets may present themselves when a web host is shunned by the Internet community.

We can all take part in shunning Demand Media (and other ISPs that behave in a similar fashion): don’t buy their stocks, don’t purchase their services and start blocking all communications from them. Maybe they’ll listen only when their own customers start complaining that their emails are being rejected. Give this company only 2 options: clean up their act or get out of the ISP business.

That’s how you fix stupid!

References:

1. http://www.knujon.com/news.html
2. Shunning and Stunning Malicious Networks