Hello everybody!
Sorry for the long absence. What a time to comeback to the boards though.
First off, HQ has been in our TGP's blacklist for well over a year. There are several others that have been as well. When you go from 1700 submissions a day to 100-300 and the cheaters fall by the same percentage, that is a definite indicator that you have done the right thing.
It is not true that there is nothing a host can do about this. Not true at all. I am not going to call bullshit on that one, I am going to yodel bullshit on that one.
I hope that Tornado and the guy from advanced hosting will consider implementing some of these ideas:
A simple script that runs on every box you host. It's function would be to sample apache log files looking for 302 redirect errors. When a domain generates excessive 302's there is only ONE reason for it. Have the script disable their account.
A good programmer could write that in an hour in your choice of languages.
Think about it. When a domain goes from 0 302 errors to 20,000 302 errors in one day, it should be really easy to tell what they are doing.
So how do you make sure they don't disable the script on their box? Simple, have the script ping one of your servers on a special port. Any box not reporting will be disable at the switch. Problem solved.
I believe you should be able to easily be able to ban .rape -rape and dozens of other words at your DNS. That would help.
A program triggered by a cron job can be set on every box that will search for bad words/files once per day. If you do it right, and make it so that it cannot be disabled without your knowledge, you will have no problem with finding people abusing your network.
If you have a customer ask for new IPs and want to give up their old ones, then they are cheating. There is no other reason. Get rid of them.
Monitor your mail stats. If a domain gets 1000 bounced messages returned in a day, then they are spamming. It really is that simple. Have a script turn them off. No problem at all.
Among the bad files it should search for would be the executable files for force404, as that is what most of the cheaters are using.
By the way, somebody should go register force404, since they let it lapse and it is available.
There are other ideas as well, but they don't come free. Let us see what you do with these.
I would very much like to see you pull your host out of the hole it is in. It would improve the internet for everyone. If you don't realize it, a great amount of the browser hijacking and auto-installer crap on the net comes from YOUR service.
Your pricing is good, and you could attract plenty of new business if your company didn't have such a bad reputation.
If you have any questions, let me know.
To everyone else, Hello again!
Mr. H.