On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Eric S. Johansson wrote:

> blacklists are fundamentally wrong.  They break end to end connectivity
> of the net and nab a fair number of innocent users (i.e. telecommuters,
> small-scale mail systems etc.) in addition to catching the occasional
> spammer.

Do I think DNS block lists are a perfect solution? No, I dont. But FWIW,
my experience is that we see a very low rate of false positives. We parse
out the Gnatbox log (Heh. with a Python script :) and do reverse DNS
lookups on the rejected IP and put it into a daily mail that I review. 
As a (very) small example:

 bl.spamcop.net - out4smtp8.ddc.dartmail.net - 216.73.90.48(15)
 bl.spamcop.net - out12smtp3.ddc.dartmail.net - 216.73.90.123(14)
 bl.spamcop.net - ing1.easylistdpoffrs.com - 64.70.44.11(2)
 bl.spamcop.net - mtsbp529.email-deliveries.net - 209.236.59.6(2)
 bl.spamcop.net - out4smtp5.ddc.dartmail.net - 216.73.90.45(14)
 bl.spamcop.net - out-spire-01.greatdealsdepot.net - 66.240.153.4(2)
 bl.spamcop.net - lsanca1-ar3-153-094.biz.dsl.gtei.net - 4.33.153.94(3)
 bl.spamcop.net - om40.yourmailsoure.com - 216.109.73.35(1)

Im pretty comfortable that most of that is darn likely to be crap.

> I advocate instead a movement towards sender pays e-mail.  In other words, 
> and e-mail originator would be required to burn CPU cycles in a proof of 
> work puzzle or actual cash attached to the mail message.  On receipt of said 
> payment, the originator would be white listed so they wouldn't have to 
> provide postage for future communications.

I think its fair to say that one of the underlying reasons for spam is the
delivery costs are trivial for the sender as opposed to the recipient.  
Changing that is probably a good thing.  Unfortunately, that is not a
change that is going to happen in the short term. I have oodles of 
porn/mortgage/viagra/RC car spam that is wasting my users time, right now. 
The DNSBLs give me a way to reduce that, today, with (for us) minimal 
downsides.

YMMV, etc.


Joe Matuscak
Rohrer Corporation
717 Seville Road
Wadsworth, Ohio 44281
(330)335-1541
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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