[Mimedefang] Black Listed

Kevin A. McGrail kmcgrail at pccc.com
Tue Apr 6 10:07:30 EDT 2004


<RANT>
Mark,

You are not alone and Blars Blarson is one of the reasons I despise the
concept of using single Blacklists.  I *do* recommend using them but ONLY
score with SpamAssassin using additive formulas and even then sometimes only
with minor scores.  The false positives are simply too high.

However, Blars is a bit of the more extreme people I've met.  My experience
with him was most negative.

For example, at one point all of Exodus/Cable & Wireless was blocked by his
list (believe it still is).  After further pinging him about this because
both of these ISPs have strict AUPs that are enforced, I come to find out
that because Cable & Wireless had bought Exodus they hadn't updated their
ARIN contact.  So, because the complaints he sent to abuse at exodus.net
returned he counted that as unresponsive to abuse notices.  Not to mention
that how many complaints are the ISPs seeing and what does he expect?  A
hand-written letter?

Needless to say, this affected a lot of our customers which includes
SpamAssassin.  And this escalated into February at which point he informed
me that I am supporting SPAM and should simply switch ISP.  Unfortunately,
beyond the crazy act of even considering change ISPs from a top-tier
provider like C&W, I was further bound by a bankruptcy court not to disrupt
my contract with C&W/Exodus (now Saavis).

Anyway, since then, I simply follow David's rule and ignore all Blacklist
entries.  I simply don't have the time and since we handle companies that
only support solicited lists AND people like the content for, our standard
response is that the use of single Blacklists for blocking is a sign of an
ignorant Administrator that we do not have the time to educate.


You can check your IPs at openrbl.org.  You'll find SpamAssassin's main
website and the US mirrors are in Blackholes and/or Blars.  You'll also find
Roaring Penguin and MIMEDefang in SORBS.

Blackholes currently contains Verizon, Verio, XO, SwBell, Sprint,
RoadRunner, Qwest, RackSpace, MCI, Level3, Cable & Wireless, Covad, Comcast,
AT&T, & BellSouth.  With mergers, etc. this list therefore includes US West,
WorldCom, Exodus, Saavis, SBC, Ameritech, Allegiance and probably more since
that's off the top of my head.

I think these examples demonstrates how poorly aimed some/most of the
Blacklists are.


Lastly, I will announce our new RBL: RBLsUcK.  It will simply list all of
the IPv4 IPs since all of the Spammers are included in this range and this
will eliminate 100% of SPAM.

We will also have a smaller list for those who think the false positives
were to high with our IPv4 list which we will call TOP10XXISPS where XX is
your country code.  By listing the IPs of the 10 ten ISPs in your country,
you can easily eliminate 90% or more of the SPAM on a country by country
basis.

And to be removed from RBLsUcK, simply call your ISP and have them purchase
millions of dollars in router upgrades to switch to IPv6 *or* move to
another country.  See it's simple!

Regards,
KAM
</RANT>

> > This is the weird thing, I am not a dial up.  I have a business service
> > with multiple IP's!!   I don't know the black list but I will find out
> > in the morning.  I'll bet that my IP's are not on your lists.  I have
> > checked with MAPS and a few others, and I don't show up.   What is a T1
> > subscriber supposed to do?  I have more to do then chase down why my
> > employees can't email one customer.
>
> Just for giggles, I ran your IP and you hit on BLARSBL at
> http://www.blars.org/block.html



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