My experience is summed as this: BlackLists have a very high false-positive rate. Too high to be used for outright blocking.
Additionally, they have little centralization and a lack consistent procedures and parameters for removal. I use them for SA scoring but would never recommend blocking. I like using them with the SA rules that require 3 or 4 BLs arithmetically to get a positive score. Our server of ours ends up in random blacklists every few months because of some moronic blacklist administrators and I know DFS has had the same issues. It was always nice in the past having people refuse to take www.spamassassin.org out of a blacklist, sigh. Regards, KAM ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josh Kelley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 10:46 AM Subject: [Mimedefang] [OT] SBL > I realize this is a bit OT, but I've seen SBL recommended here before, > and I'm not sure where else to ask... > > I'm trying to reconfigure our mail server to start blocking spam instead > of tagging it with SpamAssassin and trusting our users to set up their > own filters based on SpamAssassin. Blocking messages based on the SBL > seemed like a good first step. In the week or so since I've started > using the SBL, it's caught about half of the incoming mail to our > campus, but it's also caused 4-5 false positives (a spammer's company > that happens to put out a good newsletter, legitimate mailing lists > hosted by spammers, a legitimate company that uses a spam-friendly ISP > as their hosting provider). This surprised me, since I was under the > impression that the SBL was probably the most trusted and most > conservative of the blacklists. > > Should I give up on blocking via the SBL? Or should I just accept that > if I'm going to block mail, I'm going to block a few legitimate ones by > mistake? I know that others on this list use the SBL - have you had any > similar problems? > > Thanks. > > Josh Kelley > _______________________________________________ > Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.canit.ca > MIMEDefang mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang > _______________________________________________ Visit http://www.mimedefang.org and http://www.canit.ca MIMEDefang mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.roaringpenguin.com/mailman/listinfo/mimedefang
