December 12, 2006

Smart Network Solutions, a company notoriously spamming this site spammed the OpenPBX.org wiki page.

They have been doing this to other users of this website for months and months, but this time, they messed with the wrong people. OpenPBX.org volunteers fought back! This is a chronological account of how OpenPBX.org volunteers and other users of this site fought back.

The following email has been sent to Quintum Technologies on December 12, 2006 ...

TO: Quintum Technologies
FROM: Volunteer at OpenPBX.org
SUBJECT: Unsolicited and unfair advertising

FAO: Quintum Corporation, Legal Department

Dear Sirs,

I am a volunteer at the non-profit open source project called OpenPBX.org.

Our project maintains an information page at the information site (wiki) at www.voip-info.org.

Today, our page has been defaced by a company called Smart Network Solutions, at www.smart-net-solutions.com and smartisvoip.com.

This company claims to be a Quintum reseller or distributor and it is notorious for defacing other companies' and other projects' information pages on Voip-Info.org with advertising.

The advertising is presented in such a way that in my view it constitutes "passing off" as Quintum. For example, the company created a page with the title "QUINTUM" and it uses a login name "QUINTUM". The common practise on Voip-Info.org would be to have information about Quintum Technologies on a page titled "Quintum" and not advertising by any resellers. For example, there is a page titled "Cisco" with information about Cisco Networks. It is also considered "bad tone" to create pages with titles in all uppercase.

In conclusion, I believe that this company is thereby misrepresenting its relationship with Quintum Technologies.

At the very least, for regular visitors and users of Voip-Info.org, the name Quintum is now associated with unsolicited and unfair advertising. There can be no doubt that Quintum Technologies' good name has suffered as a result of these actions by Smart Network Solutions.

I believe it would not only be in the interest of users of Voip-Info.org but also in the interest of Quintum Technologies if you could take measures to prevent Smart Network Solutions from continuing this practise. The community of users of Voip-Info.org would very much appreciate your assistance in this matter.

thank you very much in advance
Volunteer at the OpenPBX.org project

PS: this email has been posted as an open letter at http://www.voip-info.org

END OF MESSAGE

The following automatic reply has been received shortly thereafter ...

From: <email-protected>@quintum.com
Subject: Thank you
Date: December 12, 2006
To: <email-protected>

Dear <name-protected>,

Thank you for submitting your comments/questions via our contact form.

Please let me know if there is anything more we can provide you with to assist you.

I can be reached at <email-protected>@quintum.com or by phone at <phone-number-protected>, extension <protected>.

Sincerely,

<name-protected>
Quintum Technologies, Inc.

END OF MESSAGE

Background info

Access Provider: http://www.cable.net.co (200.118.94.205)
Hosting Provider: http://www.terremark.com (66.165.180.229)
Domain Registar: http://www.droa.com/

Abuse Report to Smart Net's ISP and hosting provider

Sent to: abuse@cable.net.co & abuse@terremark.com

Dear Sirs,

Please be advised that one of your customers is aggressively abusing an open wiki environment of http://www.voip-info.org. Despite warnings and requests to stop they continue to promote their company on various pages throughout the wiki site.

'Evidence' of this abuse can be found on:
Complaint: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Open+Letter+to+Quintum+Technologies+re+Smart+Network+Solutions+Spam
Track record: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/page_history.php?page_id=2504&preview=635#SmartNetworkSolutionsakaSmartisvoip
http://www.voip-info.org/shoutbox/index.php?to_user_id=1

The user uses the following ip-address to post: 200.118.94.205
The following website is promoted: Smartisvoip.com (ip-address: 66.165.180.229)

Please take appropriate action in accordance to your abuse policy.

Kind regards,
<name-protected>

END OF MESSAGE

Phone call with Quintum

I have now contacted the person at Quintum Technologies whose name and phone number was provided in the auto-reply. They were very interested in the case and asked me to send evidence, which I will do. They also seem to share my impression that Smart Net have been misrepresenting themselves. They are naturally concerned about the fact that the actions of Smart Net have given Quintum a bad name amongst users of this website. Consequently, they will take action upon receipt of the evidence I am going to provide.

Email from Quintum requesting evidence

From: <name-protected>@quintum.com
To: <name-protected>

Hi <name-protected>,

I have not recieved your PDFs yet, so I thought I"d write to you and you can reply....it may have gotten caught up in my multiple spam filters.

thanks!

<name-protected>

Manager of Marketing Communications

Quintum Technologies, Inc.

71 James Way

Eatontown, New Jersey 07724

<phone-number-protected> ex. <protected>

<fax-number-protected> Fax

<name-protected>@quintum.com

Quintum VoIP Access Solutions are �The Perfect Fit!�

END OF MESSAGE

Email providing evidence to Quintum

From: <name-protected>
To: <name-protected>@quintum.com

Dear <name-protected>,

Sorry, I was just about to send them as I received this mail.

<PDF-1> <PDF-2> <PDF-3>

These are three examples which I have saved.

There were multiple pages under titles such as "QUINTUM EUROPE", "QUINTUM TECHNOLOGIES", "QUINTUM CALA" etc etc. Smart Net have now started to delete the content on those pages as they have seen us communicating with other users on the site about the actions we are taking. However, you can still see earlier versions on the voip-info.org site if you click on the little "History" button on the top of the page. Nothing really ever gets deleted there, everything is kept in that history.

The third PDF is the defacing of the OpenPBX.org page (via comment section where it cannot be deleted) which triggered my pursuit because I am a volunteer at the OpenPBX.org project. However, I remember to have seen Smart Net doing this for as long as I can remember, so this has been going on for months, if not for years. Only this time they messed with the wrong people.

thank you very much for your assistance in this matter
kind regards
<name-protected>

END OF MESSAGE

December 26,2006

Any updates from Quintum on this? — it appears as though they are back spamming...

They are now spamming the URL http://www.comprainteligente.net/