Hi, On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 16:32:52 -0700 Jeff Chan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 29, 2004, 3:19:50 PM, Jonathan Nichols wrote: > > Especially since they've gone *way* beyond blocking mail servers - they > > will drop an entire /24 into their list because an IP in that block was > > hosting *images* that were used in a spam. Not even intentionally. (Not > > one single piece of mail came out of this block) That's just > > ridiculous, IMHO. There's "collateral damage" and then there's just > > plain silliness. > > Agreed. That's absurd. I don't find SPEWS gradually expansive listings to be absurd; rather, I find taking money from people to actively disrupt and destroy the very network that provides your livelihood to be absurd. Take a look at http://spews.org/ask.cgi?S3056 and go poking around with dig and whois for a few minutes to convince yourself that at least 209.237.227.178 and 209.237.227.179 are soiled netspace (hint:whois entries link streamingmediaconcepts.com and "International Global Media"; check nana* for the long history of the latter). It should obvious to even a casual observer that providing DNS service to known spammers is a bad thing and it's something that a responsible provider would probably want to address with a customer. I know nothing about UnitedLayer.com but I find it interesting that there's no mention of an AUP on their website. I can only guess at what their policy on network abuse might contain. Give UnitedLayer the benefit of the doubt, assume they've done the right thing. At least assume that they aren't in league with the spammers. At the end of the day, UnitedLayer is still cashing checks from streamingmediaconcepts.com and streamingmediaconcepts.com is still supporting network abuse by running DNS for spammers. How do you change that behavior? You can ask nicely and wait patiently but I'm afraid that in most cases cash-in-hand trumps social responsibility. Now if a network finds it difficult to connect to other networks because it's blacklisted for harboring abusive clients, the cost of harboring said abusive clients increases, possibly to the point where it is more cost effective to get rid of them than to keep them. Suggest a better carrot or stick, but please don't blame SPEWS for trying to get UnitedLayer's attention. And as general note, people shouldn't use blacklists when they don't understand or agree with their listing policies. This applies to all blacklists, not just SPEWS (or the SCBL for that matter.) > So what happens if an abuser includes an image from the Spews > web site in a spam? Would SPEWS include increasingly larger > blocks of their own network until the abuser stops? ;-) If they > were consistent in their application of principles they would.... There's a world of difference between actively and intentionally providing connectivity and DNS services to spammers and having your website referred to in a spam without your knowledge or consent. Q: Why aren't the Yahoo stock listing pages listed in the SURBL (anymore?) How does one tell the spammer domains from innocents? Be careful when bringing up consistent application of principles... ;-) Short answer - if you don't like what's listed in SPEWS, don't block based on the their list. If you don't like their tactics, invent something more effective. -- Bob PS: I really do appreciate all the work that Jeff & Co. have put into SURBL and SA and I'd rather see people spend their time devising more effective and innovative ways of stopping spam rather than complaining about organizations with identical missions but different tactics. Remember who the real enemy is.
