Re: Amazon AWS cloudfront WAF block

[William Herrin via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

On Wed, May 28, 2025 at 7:07 PM Andrew Kirch via NANOG
<nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> Please have your lawyers review the Spamhaus lawsuit, and other state and
> federal lawsuits filed by spammers against DNSBL operators (like me!)
> before you file a SLAPP suit.  We always win.  We win so much it's getting
> boring.

Hi Andrew,

Maybe I misunderstood Eric, but I thought his "threat," if you want to
call it that, was to sue WAF implementers like AWS for tortious
interference rather than list publishers like IP Quality Score. The
legal proposition is that an AWS customer has little or no control
over what AWS does with the IP blocking information. If they want to
do business with me and I want to do business with them but AWS steps
in the middle, that's potentially tortious interference. And let's
face it: AWS is a large enough organization you're not just playing
whack-a-mole.

Worth noting that Spamhaus et. al. escaped their lawsuits because they
publish information. They don't block anybody. The consumers of their
information (like AWS) do the blocking.

Also worth noting that Eric's plan wasn't to sue pers se, it was to
send demand letters. There's an implicit assumption that if he could
just talk to a responsible person, they'd agree with him and fix the
problem. Demand letters to the attorney of record are kind of a last
ditch mechanism to cut through an organization's hierarchy and talk to
the engineer who can actually solve your problem. Because whoever you
are and however well insulated you are from the tech support front
door, the company lawyers have access to you.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



--
William Herrin
bill () herrin us
https://bill.herrin.us/
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