Paul Vixie brought The Microsoft Network to its knees this summer, when he put the service on his Realtime Blackhole List. The blacklist of ISPs that have not closed their doors to spammers is supported by network managers across cyberspace. They program their servers to bounce email sent from any listed domain back to the sender, with a pointer to the explanatory Blackhole Web site (maps.vix.com/rbl/). After one week on the list and thousands of cranky customers, MSN relented and promised to get tough on spammers.
A coauthor of one of the Net's underlying software codes, Vixie earned his tech stripes long before he condemned MSN (and Netcom and GeoCities). "The folks who operate networks know I don't act frivolously," he says. "I'm not a spam cop. It's more like flagpole-sitting or a hunger strike."
| ELECTRIC WORD
| Spam Slammer
