On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:44 AM, Tony Wicks <tonyw at tonywicks.com> wrote: >> > I would like to add something, as a South African citizen. South Africa, is > NOT part of Africa for that matter, it's a republic on it's own. It's almost > like saying "Let's ban America, cause someone in Mexico spammed me". South > Africa, which is on the 196/8 range does a LOT of business overseas in many > countries, and I do want to warn that you could loose a lot of good business > due to this practice. > > Most of the fraud you experience could come from Nigeria, or one of the > other central & western Africa countries. To ban a whole continent because > of problems some countries cause could be problematic. > > For that matter is China a different country from Russia, from Switzerland, > even though they share the same land mass > > > -- > > I need to put my 2c in here. I'm from New Zealand, we are a first world > democratic country (the first in the worlds to give the vote to ALL adults I > may mention). I have had the misfortune many of times of being unable to > transact business because people from the US in their ignorance think, that > New Zealand, isn't that part of Australia, which is right next to Asia, > can't do business with those Asians, they will rip me off. Now sometimes > people from the US have asked me why people in the other parts of the world > get a bit annoyed at the "the only country that is free and true if the good > old US of A" attitude, and well here you go as an example. Lets ban all of > Africa because someone from Nigeria is a scammer. Africa is a pretty big > place, and you know what, I've met many South Africans that are real nice > (even employed a few). I've always been someone who defends America when > people run it down, but it is a two way street, don't treat a whole country > as criminals because you don't know the difference between one side of a > continent from another, its kind of insulting you know. And some day you > might well need the rest of us, you never know. > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > This is clearly a delicate subject. As someone pointed out, if the nature of your business does not lend itself to business transactions from other countries, then it should not negatively impact a potential legitimate customer from that range of IP from doing business with you because it would never happen. A friend of mine has an automotive repair shop (who's business would only come from area residents) and sells tires. He once received a call from someone from outside the country looking to purchase 4 tires (some of the higher end ones) and have them shipped. It was a stolen credit card and he pretty much knew that so never processed the order. An employee might not have been as alert or as diligent and might have processed it. This could have just as easily been via email. Point is in his case if his business does not lend itself to having customers or suppliers originating from a particular geographical area, then blocking anything from that geographical area would not impact him or a legitimate customer. No harm, no foul. It would protect his business from potential scam activity from outside his area (if it comes from within, then hopefully it wasn't someone going through a proxy so therefore hopefully someone within the reach of the long arm of the law). Someone pointed out that 100% of the traffic they receive from Africa are scams. That does not mean that 100% of all the traffic originating from Africa are scams. There is a difference. In the first instance it's 100% of the traffic that THEY receive whereas in the second case it's 100% of ALL traffic (including the millions of messages floating out there that the person who made that statement DOES NOT receive). However it lends great support to the argument. His business no doubt does not lend itself to having customers from that part of the world. Therefore he would never see legitimate traffic coming from there as legitimate individuals from there would have no reason to seek to do business from there. So the only traffic he sees (hence 100% of the traffic he sees) originating from there are scams because only the scammers from Africa would have reason to seek to contact him under the pretext of a business transaction. A business in Africa with no business ties to North America (hence would see no emails from customers or suppliers coming from North America) could possibly make the same statement, that 100% of the emails they receive from North America are scams. Because the honest North American has no valid reason to seek a business transaction with them much like the honest African has no reason to seek a business transaction with many companies in North America. So in that case it would be equally appropriate for that African company to block emails from North Amercian IPs. A company could have a contact page on their site for someone who wishes to contact them thus allowing anyone the ability to contact them in this fashion (one which a scammer is not likely to use because it's a manual, tedious process vs email shotgun approach). If your company does potentially do business with any part of the world, then this is obviously not a good solution. In addition to all this you will want to train your employees to recognize a potential scam either via email or phone. These days with VoIP it is no longer cost prohibitive for someone to run phone scams from half way across the world. My 2 cents as well. Jacques B.