Bob,
Very will put. The problem comes with stated policies and the like. Here is an excerpt:
"If you are listed, you will not be removed from these lists. If your mail is being rejected, contact your ISP. If you don't understand what this site is or why you are listed, please contact your ISP before sending mail to the administrator of this site.
Legal threats will be made public. In fact, no email sent to this domain is confidential without prior arrangement and may be published as I see fit.
Please delete any "legaleeze" or copyright footers from your mail before sending it. You may not send any material to blackholes.us for which there is a copyright claim.
Depending on how much time I have to spare, I may not reply to you."
And
"Blackholes.us does not list spammers, spam supporters or vulnerable hosts at the present time. These lists are meant to contain all known networks assigned or allocated to the respective provider or organizations within the respective country. Lists are created for research purposes, primarily, and are made public for any use others see fit."
He does make good on his claim that he will make e-mails sent to him public. There are several on the site.
My point is, he has no real policies other than - "If you're listed, too bad, call your ISP." And if you read between the lines: "Change ISPs." I am assuming he does this on his own and there is no "organization" behind it. Services like MAPS and SpamCop at least go through a procedure BEFORE listing someone and have stated procedures to be removed. I personally don't agree with throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. If it wasn;t for the fact that we have a couple clients that do business in China, I would be using china.blackholes.us. :-)
I'm not saying he is doing anything wrong and to a certain degree applaud his efforts. I just wanted the original poster to be aware.
Bob Apthorpe wrote:
Hi,
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 09:23:18 -0400 Greg Kopp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected mail, then fine.
The .blackholes.us zones list large swaths of network space which is what you'd expect of a zone that listed all of, say, China.
But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.
At least know what you're getting into. One might be able to whitelist specific contacts and blackhole the rest, depending on who one intends to correspond with.
The maintainer has been known to arbitrarily list every single IP address belonging to some major ISPs because of past abuses.
I don't believe it's arbitrary and it may have nothing to do with abuse. If the intent is to list all known network space of Comcast or Cogentco for example, it makes perfect sense. Now, why he chooses to create a zonefile for Comcast vs XS4ALL or Chello may be due to abuse; I don't know. What's more important is that the listings are accurate.
This is not an entirely bad practice. However, personaly experience has shown me that small businesses and even some larger businesses are not going to switch ISPs because they can't send YOU mail or because thier IP address is listed in blackholes.us because 100 years ago a few of those IPs were open relays.
If you're trying to change people's behavior, using a DNSBL is probably not the way to do it. However, if enough people reject traffic such that a particular organization (country, ISP, etc.) finds itself isolated into a virtual intranet, there's a possibility they'll change, if the value of connecting to those that block them exceeds the cost of change. From a network operator's viewpoint, one has to determine if the benefit of accepting traffic from Cogentco, Chinanet, or Comcast (for example) is worth the cost (in terms of abuse and security incidents, etc.) That is, one should block to preserve the limited resources you're responsible for providing with no expecatation that anyone's behavior will change as a result.
The maintainer has also been rumored to block major ISPs simply because he doesn't like them.
What mail he accepts or rejects is his business. Our only concern should be the accuracy of the zone files he publishes.
In order to use DNSBLs effectively, you need to clearly understand the blacklist operator's listing policy as well as your own policy, and have a reasonable belief that the blacklist operator will follow their stated policy.
I haven't heard of blackholes.us deviating from their stated policies; then again, I don't use their blacklists. If I did, I'd probably use them within SA rather than to block at the MTA or firewall level.
Caveat utilitor,
-- Bob
