Osirusoft blacklists the world

[Derek Martin]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 09:33:19AM -0400, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 07:33:33PM -0400, Derek Martin wrote:
> > If you still think RBLs are a good idea, here's one example of why
> > they're not...
> > 
> >   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/27/0214238&mode=thread&tid=111&tid=126
> > 
> 
> RBLs are good as part of an overall method of blocking spam, but should
> not be the only way of detecting spam.

I don't agree with this statement on semantics: used as you describe,
RBLs don't block spam at all; they filter it.  It must still be
delivered to the user, whether or not they ever actually see it.  In
my opinion, solutions which require this are inadequate, even if the
entire world seems to disagree with me on this point.

However, many sites DO reject mail solely on the basis of it being
listed in some RBL; most of the more common MTAs have features to
allow this behavior.  My dad's ISP was one, who happened to use
Osirusoft as their RBL.  I couldn't send him mail for the entire day
this happened, as it took his ISP that long to realize the problem
they had created for their users.  That is, it was NOT queued for
later delivery, so as I could be reasonably assured it would
eventually get there.  It was rejected outright.

In the grand scheme of things, this particular incident wasn't a huge
problem.  Even though I'm leaving the country semi-permanently in less
than a week, I could have found alternative methods for him to get the
information I was trying to send him in time for it to be useful.  It
was extremely frustrating, but not a major cause of concern.

But what it does is highlight what kinds of problems can arise.  It
took this particular ISP the better part of a day to determine there
was a problem, and in this case it was a problem that globally
affected the entirety of their user base.  What about cases which
affect only a few users?  What about when you can't send important
mail to your boss, when you have no other means of contacting him
during some critical time period, because his ISP has you listed in
some obscure RBL that they're using?  Since you have no other way to
contact your boss, you have no way to inform him of the problem.
It might just cost you your job, or your company a big contract.
To many who work in typical office environments, this scenario might
seem far-fetched.  However I personally have had bosses reachable only
via e-mail while on business trips or similar on numerous occasions...
Though fortunately, no ill came of it.  If you use your imagination, I
don't think it's that hard to imagine other kinds of scenarios where
being blocked from sending e-mail to particular people would be
problematical...

It may take much longer than a day for anyone to notice these smaller
problems, and even worse, the ISP may not care about them when they
are discovered, because only one or a few of their users are impacted.
They can simply tell those users, "Tough noogies.  Don't like it?  Go
somewhere else."  But at the current rate of adoption of a wide
variety of anti-spam measures (RBL-based blocking, blocking ports at
the user's router, etc.) by ISPs in general, soon there may be no
place else to go...

The unfortunate fact is that some widely used anti-spam measures are
causing real problems, many of which are in some ways worse than the
spam itself, IMNSHO.

I maintain that the only effective way to combat spam is for people in
general to take a less cavalier attitude about giving out e-mail
addresses, and treat it with the same sensitivity they would their home
address.  If you don't make it hard for spammers to get your address,
you will be spammed.  Period.  All the fancy filters in the world
won't stop that mail from being delivered to your system.  I, for one,
don't want to have to download all that crap.

-- 
Derek D. Martin
http://www.pizzashack.org/
GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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