So lately, my inbox has been flooded with an unusually large amount of spam This spam is advertising Web sites with URLs such as klhrvbhqw dot com, hyaiocgsk dot com, dcghffxba dot com, and ipwbquigi dot com — you know, nonsensical domains made up of random letters, usually a sure bet that it’s a throwaway spam domain the spammer plans to use once for a single spam run and discard.
All of these domains are hosted at the same ISP, an outfit I’ve never heard of before called Suavemente.
Now, two things about Suavemente scream “bulletproof spam host” to me. The first is they didn’t bother to register the .com; their only URL is suavemente.net. The second is that they’re headquartered in the US, but their front page proudly screams High-speed offshore. In the world of ISPs, “offshore” normally means “we allow our users to violate American law, safe in the knowledge that their servers can not be subpoenaed or subject to American jurisdiction.”
So at first blush, Suavemente stinks of “owned by spammers, run by spammers for spammers.” However, I can’t find them on the usual compilations of known rogue ISPs; they are listed in the ISP hall of shame, but that’s about it.
And they respond to abuse complaints. They don’t respond by shutting down their spammers, but they do respond nonetheless.
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From: “Suavemente Abuse Support”
To: tacitr@aol.com
Subject: [SUAVE-100-43518] RE: PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR SPAMMER!!!
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:16:19 -0700
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
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X-AOL-SCOLL-AUTHENTICATION: listenair ; SPF_helo : n
X-AOL-SCOLL-AUTHENTICATION: listenair ; SPF_822_from : +
Our customer was obviously not violating any regulation – they obviously got your email address from www.yourgiftpro [dot] com, i am not sure how much knowledge you have about regulations or permission based email, or if you actually read about legal email practices, i suggest you to re-read about it, grep about third parties, or opt out or call yourgiftpro.com legal department, 801.316.0555 if you prefer by fax, 1-818-817-2100
Thank you.
Ariel Taranto
619-565-1439
Thanks for using the help desk, if you have any further difficulties or are required to respond to your request, please login to the help desk
Now, several things about this strike me as weird. First, as anyone who’s been reading this blog for any length of time knows, I’m about as likely to “opt in” to an advertising list at a place like yourgiftpro dot com as I am to shove a hot poker through my eyes.
Second, most spam-supporting ISPs just route abuse emails to /dev/null.
Third, it appears that our Mr. Ariel Taranto is awfully close to the spammers; his email would suggests that he believes, or he pretends, that he knows where the spammers got my email.
Fourth, the nonsensical domains being used by the spammers are, at least according to the Whois record, associated with a spam outfit calling itself pulsedemand dot com, a place entirely distinct from, and not even in the same state as, yourgiftpro dot com.
So. Is Suavemente a dirty, rogue ISP supporting spammers, or a clueless, kind of confused ISP inadvertently being played by spammers? Has anyone hard of Suavemente? What’s the dirt on them in the anti-spam community?
Interesting info in NANAE
The owner of Suavemente appears to be active in news.admin.net-abuse.email – check out this thread (TinyURLed because the Google Groups URL is huge): http://tinyurl.com/6dammd
Perhaps you should give the listed cell phone or e-mail address a try. It seems unclear from that thread exactly where their hat lies – I’d say it’s probably somewhere in the grey area, but at least that provides a contact to attempt to get in touch with.
Let us know how it works out!
Interesting info in NANAE
The owner of Suavemente appears to be active in news.admin.net-abuse.email – check out this thread (TinyURLed because the Google Groups URL is huge): http://tinyurl.com/6dammd
Perhaps you should give the listed cell phone or e-mail address a try. It seems unclear from that thread exactly where their hat lies – I’d say it’s probably somewhere in the grey area, but at least that provides a contact to attempt to get in touch with.
Let us know how it works out!
ok so I’m not a computer geek to any amount of the levels you are. but if someone can accurately pinpoint and list that amount of tracking back then I would have googled them BEFORE sending a response.
too bad “Arial Taranto” didn’t google you first.
This looks to me like an “idiot” answer.
make passive threats,(look into the laws) throw out a couple of non distinct instances (like where they got your name from) and tell the person there nuts in not so many words, (opt out of call a legal department).
reply back, with the info in this post and some of your “history” of finding spammers and see what they say. then contact the legal department mentioned and see what they say about this response.
Thats what I would do as a small time computer geek who knows enough about how to keep her machine running and thats about it.
That’s what I was gonna say. That reply smells like a “shut you up” Mad Lib that might work on the less educated.
ok so I’m not a computer geek to any amount of the levels you are. but if someone can accurately pinpoint and list that amount of tracking back then I would have googled them BEFORE sending a response.
too bad “Arial Taranto” didn’t google you first.
This looks to me like an “idiot” answer.
make passive threats,(look into the laws) throw out a couple of non distinct instances (like where they got your name from) and tell the person there nuts in not so many words, (opt out of call a legal department).
reply back, with the info in this post and some of your “history” of finding spammers and see what they say. then contact the legal department mentioned and see what they say about this response.
Thats what I would do as a small time computer geek who knows enough about how to keep her machine running and thats about it.
That’s what I was gonna say. That reply smells like a “shut you up” Mad Lib that might work on the less educated.
Try googling the phone number. Interesting results.
Try googling the phone number. Interesting results.
stupid stupidity
i have had minimal dealings with them on a business level. i work for a company where i am forced to deal with their stupid (i wish i could say that i’m just being mean here) employees on a fairly infrequent basis. i have found that they have little to no technical knowledge – i would not be surprised if the email that you were sent an email reply which was copied-and-pasted from a customer service website.
i don’t personally recommend replying to Mr. Taranto as it would probably provoke him into doing something even more ill-conceived (or cause the company to self-implode as it would have to formulate an original reply), but i definitely say that if it happens again it may be worth looking into the laws that he felt so compelled to quote to you. it’s funny to me that he couldn’t cite specific sources…
stupid stupidity
i have had minimal dealings with them on a business level. i work for a company where i am forced to deal with their stupid (i wish i could say that i’m just being mean here) employees on a fairly infrequent basis. i have found that they have little to no technical knowledge – i would not be surprised if the email that you were sent an email reply which was copied-and-pasted from a customer service website.
i don’t personally recommend replying to Mr. Taranto as it would probably provoke him into doing something even more ill-conceived (or cause the company to self-implode as it would have to formulate an original reply), but i definitely say that if it happens again it may be worth looking into the laws that he felt so compelled to quote to you. it’s funny to me that he couldn’t cite specific sources…
My take…
I’m replying to this since I have been researching Sauvemente as well. I work for a colocation company, and sauvemente requested a quote for a half rack with 10Mbits and EIGHT /24 ranges. They also appeared to be incompetent when it came to the simple task of signing our contract. That was the last straw for us. They are 100% spam operation in my mind, just really good at covering it up.
Re: My take…
which company do you work for? I need to ask you some questions …
Re: My take…
Totally… I agree 100% with someone who would cover up their own identity and refuse to reveal where they work – sounds legit. Suavamente is a great ISP i use them for my VOIP.
My take…
I’m replying to this since I have been researching Sauvemente as well. I work for a colocation company, and sauvemente requested a quote for a half rack with 10Mbits and EIGHT /24 ranges. They also appeared to be incompetent when it came to the simple task of signing our contract. That was the last straw for us. They are 100% spam operation in my mind, just really good at covering it up.
you worry about spam but you have a sex toys ad right next to your blog. nice what kinda message is that. and spam well the tv has commercials i never said could enter my house, my mail box has work from home schemes, and when I drive I see billboards that show a skinny girl eating a hamburger, oh yea in my car on my radio, the commercials seem to bombbard me, so what do I do about that spam? smart guy. oh they didn’t pass a law about that cause they tax it. but they couldn’t figure out a way to tax the spammers so lets make it illegal. By the way I think your sex toy ads violates my kids rights as children and maybe I consider that porn. Who do I call. Get my point.
Thank you have a nice life.
The key to spam is that the majority of spammers break the law. They work with virus writers, or write viruses themselves, in order to commandeer virus-infected computers to send spam. They impose the cost of their advertisements on the recipients, rather than paying their own costs like television advertisers, billboard advertisers, and direct mailers do. They advertise products, like fake prescription drugs and phony “penis pills,” which at best they know don’t work and at worst are actually harmful.
So yes, spammers are a whole different animal than legitimate advertisers. They’re criminals, plain and simple.
you worry about spam but you have a sex toys ad right next to your blog. nice what kinda message is that. and spam well the tv has commercials i never said could enter my house, my mail box has work from home schemes, and when I drive I see billboards that show a skinny girl eating a hamburger, oh yea in my car on my radio, the commercials seem to bombbard me, so what do I do about that spam? smart guy. oh they didn’t pass a law about that cause they tax it. but they couldn’t figure out a way to tax the spammers so lets make it illegal. By the way I think your sex toy ads violates my kids rights as children and maybe I consider that porn. Who do I call. Get my point.
Thank you have a nice life.
The key to spam is that the majority of spammers break the law. They work with virus writers, or write viruses themselves, in order to commandeer virus-infected computers to send spam. They impose the cost of their advertisements on the recipients, rather than paying their own costs like television advertisers, billboard advertisers, and direct mailers do. They advertise products, like fake prescription drugs and phony “penis pills,” which at best they know don’t work and at worst are actually harmful.
So yes, spammers are a whole different animal than legitimate advertisers. They’re criminals, plain and simple.
Re: My take…
which company do you work for? I need to ask you some questions …
Suavemente
Hello,
My name is Chris Jester of Suavemente, Inc.
I noted your blog and would like to comment on this.
First of all, I appreciate your candor about this issue.
We do not host known spammers or anyone who does illegal activities.
We are not a spammer ourselves nor do we ever care to be.
Our company is a datacenter and colocation facility which
hosts many many businesses under one roof. This can be
a daunting task to manage “abuse” from our customers as
some abuse problems are not so obvious to us. When a compaint
comes in about a customer whom rarely every gets any complaints
we tend to side with the customer however we work with the person
complaining to assure that our customer removes them or discovers
why they received the email in the first place.
As the owner of Suavemente I value any and all feedback about
our services and I am happy that you had an experience with
our abuse department that is favorable as we do try hard to respond
to each and every person.
Thank you.
Chris Jester
619-370-9496 Direct Phone
Re: Suavemente
We have found out that Chris Jester is working directly with the spammers
We have had contact with a company calling themselves Innersat.com
Located
Office Locations:
Corporate Offices
One Wilshire Building, 28th Floor
624 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Now it seems that Ariel sent them to us for collocation and when we decided to investigate them first they accusing us of being thefts and hope we die.
They requested a full rack and a /17 and when we denied they decided to bring a /17 from another carrier to us.
At first we did not know who these people were and we always do a background check before accepting any new clients.
Now this Chris Jester says he has nothing to do with the spammers but yet the monies sent to our paypal account came from Business Name:
Suavemente, INC. (The sender of this payment is Verified)
Email:
suave-support@suavemente.net
Also when you call Ariel Taranto at 619-565-1439 it answers as Suavemente, INC.
These guys are all nothing but spammer’s and this is a call out to all Real Data Centers to be on the lookout for companies like this.
We have also forwarded the /17 they attempted to have us route over to Spam-Corp and other company’s of interest to stop spammers
We are glad we shut em down before they could even get started
Suavemente
Hello,
My name is Chris Jester of Suavemente, Inc.
I noted your blog and would like to comment on this.
First of all, I appreciate your candor about this issue.
We do not host known spammers or anyone who does illegal activities.
We are not a spammer ourselves nor do we ever care to be.
Our company is a datacenter and colocation facility which
hosts many many businesses under one roof. This can be
a daunting task to manage “abuse” from our customers as
some abuse problems are not so obvious to us. When a compaint
comes in about a customer whom rarely every gets any complaints
we tend to side with the customer however we work with the person
complaining to assure that our customer removes them or discovers
why they received the email in the first place.
As the owner of Suavemente I value any and all feedback about
our services and I am happy that you had an experience with
our abuse department that is favorable as we do try hard to respond
to each and every person.
Thank you.
Chris Jester
619-370-9496 Direct Phone
Re: must find silver lining somewhere!
Yep! Not quite up to 100%, but pretty damn close. 🙂
Re: must find silver lining somewhere!
Yep! Not quite up to 100%, but pretty damn close. 🙂
Re: Suavemente
We have found out that Chris Jester is working directly with the spammers
We have had contact with a company calling themselves Innersat.com
Located
Office Locations:
Corporate Offices
One Wilshire Building, 28th Floor
624 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Now it seems that Ariel sent them to us for collocation and when we decided to investigate them first they accusing us of being thefts and hope we die.
They requested a full rack and a /17 and when we denied they decided to bring a /17 from another carrier to us.
At first we did not know who these people were and we always do a background check before accepting any new clients.
Now this Chris Jester says he has nothing to do with the spammers but yet the monies sent to our paypal account came from Business Name:
Suavemente, INC. (The sender of this payment is Verified)
Email:
suave-support@suavemente.net
Also when you call Ariel Taranto at 619-565-1439 it answers as Suavemente, INC.
These guys are all nothing but spammer’s and this is a call out to all Real Data Centers to be on the lookout for companies like this.
We have also forwarded the /17 they attempted to have us route over to Spam-Corp and other company’s of interest to stop spammers
We are glad we shut em down before they could even get started
Heh. One of the rules of the Internet is that if it’s anywhere on the Web, someone somewhere will steal it. And sometimes the results are pretty amusing; you should see some of the things that have been done with my Map of Human Sexuality!
Heh. One of the rules of the Internet is that if it’s anywhere on the Web, someone somewhere will steal it. And sometimes the results are pretty amusing; you should see some of the things that have been done with my Map of Human Sexuality!
Thats not ours
We terminated a customer for spamming.
He was owed monies.
He asked us to send his refund to this other host where he moved to…
We did, and we are guilty? I think not.
Call me 619-370-9496
Id like to get some detail about this from you.
Sincerely,
Chris Jester
Thats not ours
We terminated a customer for spamming.
He was owed monies.
He asked us to send his refund to this other host where he moved to…
We did, and we are guilty? I think not.
Call me 619-370-9496
Id like to get some detail about this from you.
Sincerely,
Chris Jester
Re: My take…
Totally… I agree 100% with someone who would cover up their own identity and refuse to reveal where they work – sounds legit. Suavamente is a great ISP i use them for my VOIP.