Discuss December 2004

discuss@lists.surbl.org

43 participants
80 discussions

SURBL and listing abuse address
by Nick Askew 21 Dec '04

21 Dec '04

Hi, I have MDaemon installed and lately it has been working wonders to reject spam. However I've noticed that all it does is bounces the mail back to the person who supposedly sent it. Now we all know that it is almost always some innocent address or a fake address and so best case the bounce is pointless and worst case some innocent person is being bombarded with mails. I'm relatively new to all this so please forgive me if this has been suggested before or indeed if it is simply possible with other mail servers. It occurs to me that we could list the various abuse addresses of the ISP hosting the black listed site and this could be returned when a match is found. If the server software then bounced the mail not to the sender but to the abuse address we would seriously start to affect these ISP's. It seems to me this is not like the lycos solution because we are only sending a mail when we receive a mail that mentions a spam url. The result is that the more spam they send the more mails they receive from us, the less spam they send the less mail they will receive and no innocent addresses are affected. There is a drawback to SURBL and that is that someone could end up black listed wrongly. This mechanism would add insult to injury but lets face it if I wanted to get at xyz.com I'd send out a bunch of spam as if it came from jdoe(a)xyz.com advertising xyz.com and wait for the them to appear on the black list and then send out more spam and now watch their ISP get really upset with them as the bounced messages end up with them. Nick

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] SURBL and listing abuse address
by Chris Santerre 21 Dec '04

21 Dec '04

>-----Original Message----- >From: Nick Askew [mailto:Nick@Askew.nl] >Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 3:42 PM >To: 'SURBL Discussion list' >Subject: RE: [SURBL-Discuss] SURBL and listing abuse address > > >> > I'm relatively new to all this so please forgive me if this >> has been >> > suggested before or indeed if it is simply possible with >other mail >> > servers. It occurs to me that we could list the various abuse >> > addresses of the ISP hosting the black listed site and this >> could be >> > returned when a match is found. If the server software >then bounced >> > the mail not to the sender but to the abuse address we >> would seriously >> > start to affect these ISP's. >> >> Most of these domains either dont have abuse addresses, nor >> care about any abuse email that rolls their way (the're just >> dummy domains who only exist for a month to spam, then die).. >> What you are suggesting is going to result in my server >> queueing the message (rather than just returning a 5xx half >> way through the SMTP conversation) and sending it to a >> (probably bogus) abuse address, which will bounce.. >> >Yes I suppose if you simply perform a whois on the IP address of the >site you will end up with some spammer that does not care if >you post to >abuse or postmster. However I would think that most spam domains are >purchased off other ISP's so after a while perhaps it would be possible >to change the listed address to that of the ISP's ISP and so on until >someone takes notice. > >I'm sure that actually fetching the content of the site would work to >deter people from sending out their URL as spam but it would lead to a >new problem. Every machine in the world using SURBL (and let's face it >that should be everyone, it works so well) could be used for a DoS >attack just by sending an email (OK the domain would need to be in >SURBL). Discussing ideas is always good :) A quicker method instead of looking at the spamvertised site, is to look at the whois info for the spam domain. Something being worked on now. All SURBL entries are manually added by a human. Well, some guys ride the border of 'human'. We'll just say biped. :-) --Chris

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] SURBL and listing abuse address
by Matthew Wilson 21 Dec '04

21 Dec '04

Nick, This isn't a topic for the SURBL discussion list. Please submit your complaint to the MDaemon forums at http://lists.altn.com/WebX?14@189.fwM8arWQnvI.0@.ee88f61 -----Original Message----- From: discuss-bounces(a)lists.surbl.org [mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org] On Behalf Of Nick Askew Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 1:46 PM To: discuss(a)lists.surbl.org Subject: [SURBL-Discuss] SURBL and listing abuse address Hi, I have MDaemon installed and lately it has been working wonders to reject spam. However I've noticed that all it does is bounces the mail back to the person who supposedly sent it. Now we all know that it is almost always some innocent address or a fake address and so best case the bounce is pointless and worst case some innocent person is being bombarded with mails. I'm relatively new to all this so please forgive me if this has been suggested before or indeed if it is simply possible with other mail servers. It occurs to me that we could list the various abuse addresses of the ISP hosting the black listed site and this could be returned when a match is found. If the server software then bounced the mail not to the sender but to the abuse address we would seriously start to affect these ISP's. It seems to me this is not like the lycos solution because we are only sending a mail when we receive a mail that mentions a spam url. The result is that the more spam they send the more mails they receive from us, the less spam they send the less mail they will receive and no innocent addresses are affected. There is a drawback to SURBL and that is that someone could end up black listed wrongly. This mechanism would add insult to injury but lets face it if I wanted to get at xyz.com I'd send out a bunch of spam as if it came from jdoe(a)xyz.com advertising xyz.com and wait for the them to appear on the black list and then send out more spam and now watch their ISP get really upset with them as the bounced messages end up with them. Nick _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss(a)lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

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Re: [SURBL-Discuss] SURBL and listing abuse address
by Rob McEwen (PowerView Systems) 20 Dec '04

20 Dec '04

Nick, "Joe Jobs" happen all the time. Usually via a virus which plays "musical chairs" with the address book and sometimes via a spammer maliciously attacking someone. Also, MANY or MOST of these viruses DO contain affiliate URLs and large portion of these ARE SURBL-listed. Therefore, your plan will hurt innocent parties very, very often (not just in cases where someone was wrongly listed in SURBL). But, your intentions are sound and maybe a workable idea will result from this discussion. Rob McEwen

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MIT Spam conference
by William Stearns 18 Dec '04

18 Dec '04

Good day, all, I'll be attending the MIT spam conference this year, Jan 21st, 9-5. Details at http://www.spamconference.org/ . The registration is free, but they suggest an early registration before the conference fills up. I'd love a chance to meet other people working on spamassassin and surbl. Is anyone else planning on attending? Cheers, - Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "God grant me the senility to accept the things I cannot change, The frustration to try to change things I cannot affect, and the wisdom to tell the difference." (Courtesy of Mike Ricketts <rickettm(a)ox.compsoc.net>) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- William Stearns (wstearns(a)pobox.com). Mason, Buildkernel, freedups, p0f, rsync-backup, ssh-keyinstall, dns-check, more at: http://www.stearns.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [SURBL-Discuss] RE: MIT Spam conference
by Matt Yackley 17 Dec '04

17 Dec '04

Chris Santerre said: > > All registered. Unless we get some meltdown here, or my car feezes on the > way like last year, I'll be there! However, being a ninja, you won't see me! > :) J/K, my goal is to get my eyeball as close to the webcast camera. Just > so when I come home I can DL the movie and say "There is my eyeball!!!!" > > Do we get to bring air horns? > > Chris Santerre I'm planning on attending as well. -matt

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] Thunderbird and SURBL?
by Tim A 17 Dec '04

17 Dec '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jeff Chan <jeffc(a)surbl.org> > Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:35:20 -0800 > Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Thunderbird and SURBL? > To: Chris Santerre <csanterre(a)merchantsoverseas.com> > Cc: "tim-surbl(a)kosmo.com" <tim-surbl(a)kosmo.com>, SURBL Discussion list > <discuss(a)lists.surbl.org> > ...snip... > >>We have high regards for the SURBL folks and it is in the mix > >>of many methods we use to combat spam at SimpleFilter. We have a > >>POP3 and SMTP service that uses the same backend anti-spam > >>engine and can be used from Thunderbird as it works with any POP3 > >>email client. The SMTP service has some additional features I > >>won't go into here. > >> > > > Hi Tim! > > > Are you saying you will check during download and not download the messege > > if it thinks it is spam? Cause that would give you an A+ in my book! > > And a D+ in my book. It's more efficient to do these checks in > the mail server. If every POP3 user started checking all of > their mail against SURBLs (or other RBLs) our name servers would > start melting. Can we get an A+ re-instated!!! :) Everything is done on the server. We provide a service for POP3 not a client program of any sorts. > Tim, If you're going to do this, please make sure your program > is internally caching the lookups pretty heavily. For example, > make sure it's not checking the same domain more than once per > message (if it appears multiple times in the same message for > example). We are and have been caching lookups. > > > And secondly, please make sure you have a local whitelist! We have seen > > other companies using SURBL that don't whitelist the top doamins, like > > yahoo.com, w3.org, google.com,........ Those kinds of domains should be > > skipped from being looked up. > > Yes, please whitelist (don't check) say the top 100-200 of our > most often hit whitelist entries: > > http://www.surbl.org/dns-queries.whitelist.counts.txt > > That will save many unnecessary DNS queries. Will look into this.

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] Thunderbird and SURBL?
by Tim A 17 Dec '04

17 Dec '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jeff Chan <jeffc(a)surbl.org> > Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:45:49 -0800 > Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Thunderbird and SURBL? > To: SURBL Discuss <discuss(a)lists.surbl.org> > > > On Thursday, December 16, 2004, 4:35:20 PM, Jeff Chan wrote: > > It's more efficient to do these checks in > > the mail server. If every POP3 user started checking all of > > their mail against SURBLs (or other RBLs) our name servers would > > start melting. > > > Tim, If you're going to do this, please make sure your program > > is internally caching the lookups pretty heavily. For example, > > make sure it's not checking the same domain more than once per > > message (if it appears multiple times in the same message for > > example). > > OK Minor correction, I see that SimpleFilter is a POP3 proxy > service and not a client program. In other words, it is a > centralized server through which POP traffic passes. Please > still do: ...snip... Sorry, didn't see this when replied to the previous msg. Thanks for the correction. Tim

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RE: MIT Spam conference
by Chris Santerre 17 Dec '04

17 Dec '04

>-----Original Message----- >From: William Stearns [mailto:wstearns@pobox.com] >Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 3:53 PM >To: ML-spamassassin-talk; ml-surbl-discuss >Cc: William Stearns >Subject: MIT Spam conference > > >Good day, all, > I'll be attending the MIT spam conference this year, Jan 21st, >9-5. Details at http://www.spamconference.org/ . The registration is >free, but they suggest an early registration before the >conference fills >up. > I'd love a chance to meet other people working on >spamassassin and >surbl. Is anyone else planning on attending? > Cheers, > - Bill All registered. Unless we get some meltdown here, or my car feezes on the way like last year, I'll be there! However, being a ninja, you won't see me! :) J/K, my goal is to get my eyeball as close to the webcast camera. Just so when I come home I can DL the movie and say "There is my eyeball!!!!" Do we get to bring air horns? Chris Santerre System Admin and SARE/SURBL Ninja http://www.rulesemporium.com http://www.surbl.org 'It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.' Charles Darwin

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] not spam URL - http://www.templatezone.com/
by Chris Santerre 17 Dec '04

17 Dec '04

*sploooge!* >> >>Against my draconian seasond crank beliefs ,I would vote to >Whitelist them. >> >>--Chris > >While it's against my draconian seasoned crank beliefs, too, we're >getting legitimate mail from one of our suppliers that uses one of >their templates, which has the URL embedded. > >-->Russ With undetectible stealth movement, I drew my katana and slashed templatezone from the SURBL list. ANd with my Shurikan of justice, have thrown them into the whitelist. In a puff of smoke.... I am gone. You saw nothing! :)

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Discuss December 2004