From: Paul Borghese (pborghese@groupstudy.com)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2008 - 09:51:32 ART
I would prefer to work on this behind the scenes ... but accusations are
flying.
OK, here it goes ...
There is a high probability Narbik or someone in his organization has been
using fake e-mail accounts to post SPAM messages advertising his product.
This has been happening for some time. I was hopeful it would stop and
really wanted to talk to him privately about it first, but it has been
getting out of hand.
I will give you an example from the Cisco list as it will be easier to
follow using the web interface. But do a little searching on the CCIE lab
list and you will find other examples.
The most recent example is from just a few hour ago. Last night, someone
posted the following message with the URL to Narbik's site under the name
Marcar Davidian. This message was in response to someone asking about which
workbook is the best to study for select topics:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=130992&t=130949
The poster is using the same classful subnet Narbik used to send me a
private e-mail earlier tonight, which in and of itself is not proof. They
may simply live near each other. But this is not the first time Marcar
Davidson has posted. I have been watching this account for months. Here is
the same guy in January answering a message about which workbook vendor is
the best:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=129233&t=129101
And in August responding to a fantastic review about Narbik's products:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=124639&t=124632
Now this last one is very interesting.
"Marcar Davidian" is responding to someone who is praising Narbik's products
asking where he teaches again? If you look at the top of the message, part
of the IP address has been recorded. The complete address (which is saved
on the server) is the following:
66-214-252-227.dhcp.gldl.ca.charter.com
Which resolves to:
66.214.252.227
If you go to Arin.net you will see the following:
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=!%20NET-66-214-252-224-1
Guess who owns the IP address Marcar Davidian is using? A Mr. Narbik
Kocharians of Glendale, CA.
Ok, given this information, what SHOULD be the response of this list?
How do I stop people from spamming the list about their products if they are
willing to make fake accounts to do so?
I think blocking the offending messages and talking with the person behind
the scenes is the best method for maintaining the integrity of the list.
Remember this is not a single incident, but a long pattern of abuse.
I would like to make a request (which I am sure will be ignored). Please
let's drop the subject until I am able to talk to Narbik in a private
conversation. Usually what happens is the person promises to behave and is
allowed to post again without fanfair and everyone is happy.
Thanks,
Paul
Pass the CCIE in six weeks, Guaranteed!
http://www.certscience.com/CCIE
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