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RE: Google search as spam URI
by Dallas L. Engelken 04 Jan '06

04 Jan '06

adding a redirector_pattern will catch this. redirector_pattern /^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?google\.com\/search\?q=site:([A-Za-z0-9\-\.]+)$/I dbg: uri: parsed uri found, http://www.google.com/search?q=site:bluevallet.com dbg: uri: cleaned parsed uri, http://bluevallet.com dbg: uri: cleaned parsed uri, http://www.google.com/search?q=site:bluevallet.com dbg: uri: cleaned parsed uri, bluevallet.com dbg: uri: parsed domain, google.com dbg: uri: parsed domain, bluevallet.com dbg: uridnsbl: domain google.com in skip list dbg: uridnsbl: domains to query: bluevallet.com dbg: uri: running uri tests; score so far=-0.001 dbg: rules: ran uri rule __LOCAL_PP_NONPPURL ======> got hit: "http://bluevallet.com" dbg: uridnsbl: select found 1 socks ready dbg: uridnsbl: domain "bluevallet.com" listed (URIBL_BLACK): 127.0.0.2 dbg: uridnsbl: query for bluevallet.com took 1 seconds to look up (multi.uribl.com.:bluevallet.com) dbg: uridnsbl: queries completed: 1 started: 0 dbg: uridnsbl: queries active: DNSBL=1 NS=1 at Wed Jan 4 08:26:42 2006 dbg: uridnsbl: select found 1 socks ready dbg: uridnsbl: domain "bluevallet.com" listed (URIBL_SC_SURBL): 127.0.0.2 dbg: uridnsbl: query for bluevallet.com took 1 seconds to look up (multi.surbl.org.:bluevallet.com) dbg: uridnsbl: queries completed: 1 started: 0 dbg: uridnsbl: queries active: NS=1 at Wed Jan 4 08:26:42 2006 dbg: uridnsbl: waiting 2 seconds for URIDNSBL lookups to complete dbg: uridnsbl: select found 1 socks ready dbg: uridnsbl: queries completed: 1 started: 2 dbg: uridnsbl: queries active: at Wed Jan 4 08:26:42 2006 dbg: uridnsbl: select found 1 socks ready dbg: uridnsbl: queries completed: 1 started: 1 dbg: uridnsbl: queries active: A=1 at Wed Jan 4 08:26:42 2006 dbg: uridnsbl: select found 1 socks ready dbg: uridnsbl: queries completed: 1 started: 1 dbg: uridnsbl: queries active: DNSBL=1 at Wed Jan 4 08:26:42 2006 dbg: uridnsbl: select found 1 socks ready dbg: uridnsbl: domain "bluevallet.com" listed (URIBL_SBL): "http://www.spamhaus.org/SBL/sbl.lasso?query=SBL36468" dbg: uridnsbl: domain "bluevallet.com" listed (URIBL_SBL): "http://www.spamhaus.org/SBL/sbl.lasso?query=SBL36335" dbg: uridnsbl: query for bluevallet.com took 1 seconds to look up (sbl.spamhaus.org.:17.160.20.58) dbg: uridnsbl: queries completed: 1 started: 0 dbg: uridnsbl: queries active: DNSBL=1 at Wed Jan 4 08:26:42 2006 dbg: uridnsbl: select found 1 socks ready dbg: uridnsbl: domain "bluevallet.com" listed (URIBL_SBL): "http://www.spamhaus.org/SBL/sbl.lasso?query=SBL36470" dbg: uridnsbl: query for bluevallet.com took 1 seconds to look up (sbl.spamhaus.org.:7.134.11.221) dbg: uridnsbl: queries completed: 1 started: 0 dbg: uridnsbl: queries active: at Wed Jan 4 08:26:42 2006 dbg: uridnsbl: done waiting for URIDNSBL lookups to complete dbg: uri: running uri tests; score so far=9.972 dbg: uri: running uri tests; score so far=7.11254545454546 Thanks, Dallas > -----Original Message----- > From: Jeff Chan [mailto:jeffc@surbl.org] > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 3:56 AM > To: SpamAssassin Users; SURBL Discuss > Subject: Google search as spam URI > > This drug spam message body seems problematic, since the URI is > google, being used to search for the spammer's. Naturally the > actual spammer domain bluevallet.com is blacklisted. This > showed up Tue, 03 Jan 2006 14:45:48 +0100 > > __ > > > Proecia > Xana > Pail > VALIM from $1.21 > IAGRA from $3.33 > IALIS from $3.75 > eridia > Abien > Soa > Levtra > =20 > http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dsite:bluevallet.com > <http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dsite:bluevallet.com>=20 > <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 > Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META > http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; = > charset=3Dus-ascii"> <META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" > name=3DGENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY > bgColor=3D#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Pro<IMG = > src=3D"cid:000101c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">eci a</FONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Xana<IMG = > src=3D"cid:000201c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine"></F ONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Pa<IMG = > src=3D"cid:000201c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">il< /FONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>VALI<IMG = > src=3D"cid:000301c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">M > <STRONG>from = $1.21</STRONG></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT > face=3DArial size=3D3><IMG = > src=3D"cid:000401c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">IAG RA <STRONG>from = $3.33</STRONG></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=> 3DArial size=3D3><IMG = > src=3D"cid:000501c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">IAL IS <STRONG>from = $3.75</STRONG></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=> 3DArial size=3D3><IMG = > src=3D"cid:000601c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">eri dia</FONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>A<IMG = > src=3D"cid:000701c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">bie n</FONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>So<IMG = > src=3D"cid:000701c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">a</ FONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Lev<IMG = > src=3D"cid:000801c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">tra </FONT></DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3></FONT> </DIV> > <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3><A = > href=3D"http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dsite:bluevallet.com"> <FONT = face=3DArial = size=3D3>http://www.google.com/search?q=> 3Dsite:bluevallet.com</FONT></A><= > /FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML> > R0lGODdhDQAMAOMAAP///wUTCMDEwWJrZCQwJt/h4KGmooKJg0NORQAAAAAAAA > AAAAAAAAAAAAAA > AAAAACwAAAAADQAMAAAEMRBIMUggo8htiNFFp0kFMW4Hsg3HtoWb6c5SQNP27c > q6xN6GF4/TQnlA > KZoAEbgUJREAOw== > R0lGODdhDgAZAOMAAP///wUCDkNBSqGgpN/f4CQhLIKAhmJgaMC/wgAAAAAAAA > AAAAAAAAAAAAAA > AAAAACwAAAAADgAZAAAESxDISau9OOvNu/9gKHLCcA3CFAhERRSBOhiVYcRSXF > QFgQOxg0kyOABV > AERKIkAcc5Jecvd8GowHWhX36kK/gIPACP4hAs4yhfyNAAA7 > R0lGODdhDQAXAMIAAP///wANER8rLt/g4V9nar/Cw5+kpQAAACwAAAAADQAXAA ADMgi63P4wykmr > vRiGt1dvHxB6zKiEplhyq4Oyi+AM8kIUjUEwtDEAA4PgxyMIAgICUZEAADs= > R0lGODdhDAAVAOMAAP///wgOEMHCwyYsLYOGh2RoaeDg4aKkpUVKSwAAAAAAAA > AAAAAAAAAAAAAA > AAAAACwAAAAADAAVAAAENhDISau9OOvNu5/CcA2CRFbhRBRVQUyGSAUGVRzTga > C7hJSVQS12IbyM > F6IQg9BlDgNcRkaJAAA7 > R0lGODdhBQANAIAAAP///w0KDywAAAAABQANAAACDIQfp2uJ6hqcr0pTAAA7 > R0lGODdhDgANAMIAAP///xIJC6aioy8nKcPBwk1GSOHg4IiEhSwAAAAADgANAA > ADJwi63P4wShXE > CIPYUFcoBnB8oRB4hBdSHnO2LBwD70zLt1zn8+4rCQA7 > R0lGODdhCgAVAOMAAP///xMPD6alpTAtLcTDw2tpaeHh4YmHh05LSwAAAAAAAA > AAAAAAAAAAAAAA > AAAAACwAAAAACgAVAAAELRDISau9OOvNu/9AIAzBQFCBCBDmpEpC4RqTMbhVMN > e39AIxV4tF8x1I > iCIgAgA7 > R0lGODdhCQAVAMIAAP///wQKA2JlYaCjoN/g3yMoIgAAAAAAACwAAAAACQAVAA > ADJQi63P4wykmr > XWKsIRQpBPCFCgdkjaA6REAyaseYqAeK96mVcgIAOw== > > __ > > SpamAssassin 3.0.1 did not catch this one, though the sender > IP was on the SpamCop BL (that was all it caught). > > Jeff C. > -- > Don't harm innocent bystanders. > >

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RE: Google search as spam URI
by Matthew.van.Eerde＠hbinc.com 04 Jan '06

04 Jan '06

Dallas L. Engelken wrote: >> From: Dallas L. Engelken [mailto:dallase@nmgi.com] >> >> /^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?google\.com\/search\?q=site:([A-Za-z0-9 >> \-\.]+)$/I >> > > Notice the 'I' at the end should be 'i'. > Damn outlook, Agreed. > I know what I want to say! Have you configured Outlook to use Word as the email editor? If so that might explain the AutoCorrect you are experiencing. -- Matthew.van.Eerde (at) hbinc.com 805.964.4554 x902 Hispanic Business Inc./HireDiversity.com Software Engineer

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RE: Google search as spam URI
by Dallas L. Engelken 04 Jan '06

04 Jan '06

> -----Original Message----- > From: Martin Hepworth [mailto:martinh@solid-state-logic.com] > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 10:36 AM > To: Dallas L. Engelken; 'Jeff Chan'; 'SpamAssassin Users'; > 'SURBL Discuss' > Subject: RE: Google search as spam URI > > Dallas > > Small change required for my to lint cleanly... > > redirector_pattern > /^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?google\.com\/search\?q=site:([A-Za-z0-9 > \-\.]+)$/i > > (lower case letter I at the end, not uppercase/capitol I) > Arghhhh.. Did you miss this? >> Notice the 'I' at the end should be 'i'. Damn outlook, I know what I want to say! >> D Or am I the one that's missing something?? D

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RE: Google search as spam URI
by Dallas L. Engelken 04 Jan '06

04 Jan '06

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jeff Chan [mailto:jeffc@surbl.org] > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 3:56 AM > To: SpamAssassin Users; SURBL Discuss > Subject: Google search as spam URI > > This drug spam message body seems problematic, since the URI is > google, being used to search for the spammer's. Naturally the > actual spammer domain bluevallet.com is blacklisted. This > showed up Tue, 03 Jan 2006 14:45:48 +0100 > > __ Also FWIW, we auto-listed bluevallet.com on black.uribl.com at bluevallet.com Listed: 2006-01-03 06:38:02 CDT (-0500 UTC) What I'm wondering is "how", since this shouldn't be showing up in the dns query stream if people were not using the google redirector pattern.... D

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RE: Google search as spam URI
by Chris Santerre 04 Jan '06

04 Jan '06

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dallas L. Engelken [mailto:dallase@nmgi.com] > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 9:30 AM > To: Jeff Chan; SpamAssassin Users; SURBL Discuss > Subject: RE: Google search as spam URI > > > adding a redirector_pattern will catch this. > > redirector_pattern > /^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?google\.com\/search\?q=site:([A-Za-z0-9 > \-\.]+)$/I > > > Thanks, > Dallas Should this be a standard redirect added to SA or should SARE add the a rule to 70_Specific.cf? Also I don't know how it got added to URIBL, as the only NANAS hits show them using this redir. --Chris

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RE: Google search as spam URI
by Dallas L. Engelken 04 Jan '06

04 Jan '06

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dallas L. Engelken [mailto:dallase@nmgi.com] > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 8:30 AM > To: Jeff Chan; SpamAssassin Users; SURBL Discuss > Subject: RE: Google search as spam URI > > adding a redirector_pattern will catch this. > > redirector_pattern > /^https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?google\.com\/search\?q=site:([A-Za-z0-9 > \-\.]+)$/I > Notice the 'I' at the end should be 'i'. Damn outlook, I know what I want to say! D

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Google search as spam URI
by Jeff Chan 04 Jan '06

04 Jan '06

This drug spam message body seems problematic, since the URI is google, being used to search for the spammer's. Naturally the actual spammer domain bluevallet.com is blacklisted. This showed up Tue, 03 Jan 2006 14:45:48 +0100 __ Proecia Xana Pail VALIM from $1.21 IAGRA from $3.33 IALIS from $3.75 eridia Abien Soa Levtra =20 http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dsite:bluevallet.com <http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dsite:bluevallet.com>=20 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; = charset=3Dus-ascii"> <META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" name=3DGENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Pro<IMG = src=3D"cid:000101c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">ecia</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Xana<IMG = src=3D"cid:000201c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine"></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Pa<IMG = src=3D"cid:000201c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">il</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>VALI<IMG = src=3D"cid:000301c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">M <STRONG>from = $1.21</STRONG></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3><IMG = src=3D"cid:000401c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">IAGRA <STRONG>from = $3.33</STRONG></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3><IMG = src=3D"cid:000501c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">IALIS <STRONG>from = $3.75</STRONG></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3><IMG = src=3D"cid:000601c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">eridia</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>A<IMG = src=3D"cid:000701c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">bien</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>So<IMG = src=3D"cid:000701c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">a</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3>Lev<IMG = src=3D"cid:000801c6106b$c54633bd$66c5a8c0@printingmachine">tra</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D3><A = href=3D"http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dsite:bluevallet.com"><FONT = face=3DArial = size=3D3>http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dsite:bluevallet.com</FONT></A><= /FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML> R0lGODdhDQAMAOMAAP///wUTCMDEwWJrZCQwJt/h4KGmooKJg0NORQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAACwAAAAADQAMAAAEMRBIMUggo8htiNFFp0kFMW4Hsg3HtoWb6c5SQNP27cq6xN6GF4/TQnlA KZoAEbgUJREAOw== R0lGODdhDgAZAOMAAP///wUCDkNBSqGgpN/f4CQhLIKAhmJgaMC/wgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAACwAAAAADgAZAAAESxDISau9OOvNu/9gKHLCcA3CFAhERRSBOhiVYcRSXFQFgQOxg0kyOABV AERKIkAcc5Jecvd8GowHWhX36kK/gIPACP4hAs4yhfyNAAA7 R0lGODdhDQAXAMIAAP///wANER8rLt/g4V9nar/Cw5+kpQAAACwAAAAADQAXAAADMgi63P4wykmr vRiGt1dvHxB6zKiEplhyq4Oyi+AM8kIUjUEwtDEAA4PgxyMIAgICUZEAADs= R0lGODdhDAAVAOMAAP///wgOEMHCwyYsLYOGh2RoaeDg4aKkpUVKSwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAACwAAAAADAAVAAAENhDISau9OOvNu5/CcA2CRFbhRBRVQUyGSAUGVRzTgaC7hJSVQS12IbyM F6IQg9BlDgNcRkaJAAA7 R0lGODdhBQANAIAAAP///w0KDywAAAAABQANAAACDIQfp2uJ6hqcr0pTAAA7 R0lGODdhDgANAMIAAP///xIJC6aioy8nKcPBwk1GSOHg4IiEhSwAAAAADgANAAADJwi63P4wShXE CIPYUFcoBnB8oRB4hBdSHnO2LBwD70zLt1zn8+4rCQA7 R0lGODdhCgAVAOMAAP///xMPD6alpTAtLcTDw2tpaeHh4YmHh05LSwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAACwAAAAACgAVAAAELRDISau9OOvNu/9AIAzBQFCBCBDmpEpC4RqTMbhVMNe39AIxV4tF8x1I iCIgAgA7 R0lGODdhCQAVAMIAAP///wQKA2JlYaCjoN/g3yMoIgAAAAAAACwAAAAACQAVAAADJQi63P4wykmr XWKsIRQpBPCFCgdkjaA6REAyaseYqAeK96mVcgIAOw== __ SpamAssassin 3.0.1 did not catch this one, though the sender IP was on the SpamCop BL (that was all it caught). Jeff C. -- Don't harm innocent bystanders.

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] The (bad) situation with Yahoo / Geocities.
by Guy Rosen 25 Dec '05

25 Dec '05

We've been compiling and reporting lists of GeoCities sites and from here too it seems GeoCities isn't handling them well. We compile lists based on spam reports from our user community, and at one point we even found around 3,500 (!) live GeoCities spam sites. Eric, do you know that GeoCities were monitoring your list specifically, or might they have just shut down a lot of sites that day, regardless of your list? Guy Rosen Lead Analyst, Operations Team Blue Security http://www.bluesecurity.com/ Tel: +972-9-9577736 x228 AIM: guyrrosen (double R) -----Original Message----- From: discuss-bounces(a)lists.surbl.org [mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org] On Behalf Of Eric Montr?al Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 23:32 To: SURBL Discussion list Subject: [SURBL-Discuss] The (bad) situation with Yahoo / Geocities. Hi, It seems like people who were not too optimistic when the number of active spamming sites on Geocities dropped from more than 300 to 14 on Friday were unfortunately right. Yahoo / Geocities did not make anything to prevent spammers from (ab)using their service and only used the list once to remove their (old and unused) spam related sites, but did nothing to prevent spammers from building new spammy sites all over again. Today, Geocities still makes the bulk of spammy sites on the list (total 368) and in the last 2 days, they only closed down 6 of them, that's below 2% ! One thing we learned last friday is that Yahoo / Geocities are not only fully aware of the situation, but they are monitoring this list. Here is the current active list: http://nospam.mailpeers.net/alive_spammy.txt I thought maybe it's difficult to detect those sites, maybe spammers are very crafty and make it hard to separate their redirection pages from other non spammy pages, so I started analyzing the pages content and here is what I found: - More than 95% of Geocities spammy sites are redirections (the balance being 'click here' manual redirections). - there is a surprisingly low number of variation in those redirection scripts - The more spammy tries to obfuscate his scripts, the more the signs are evident and easy to detect. - only 11 rules have detected *all* redirection scripts to this date. - Non redirection sites are simply detected by the URIs they contain (blacklist now, I hope to add SURBL support soon). - hometown.aol.com *DOES NOT USE ANTIVIRUS !* on their user data. As a result, they end up being a malware hosting heaven ! (even if they remove some of them when they get complaints) http://nospam.mailpeers.net/alive_spammy_malware.txt - hometown.aol.com non malware sites are *all* using the same randomized redirection script - tripod.com seems to be handling the problem perfectly (unless my sampling is severely biased, send me more) and in the rare cases where a spammer tries to use them, the spammy site is usually shutdown before I list it. Fight the spammies, and they'll move away. Why are the others not doing the same ? You'll find the complete analysis results for all alive spammy sites on this page (updated regularly): http://nospam.mailpeers.net/alive_spammy2.txt I also added http://nospam.mailpeers.net/fresh_alive_spammy.txt that lists the most recent entries (first one is the most recent). These sites are actively used in current spam runs (The ones you *really* want down !) In cases where spammy does not encrypt his redirector, extracting the real target URL behind the redirector is a piece of cake. They end up here, along with blacklisted ones, in http://nospam.mailpeers.net/spammy_targets.txt (with country code) Some of them (but not all) are already listed in SURBL. BTW, is there a script (bash, perl, whatever) that simply decodes URIs and query SURBL ? I won't distribute the rules, since their effectiveness would be immediately impaired, but if the Yahoo guy or the AOL guy want them, I'd be glad to share... however, at least for Yahoo/Geocities, I have no illusions. The very low number of variation makes me wonder. Is it because all spammers use the same spamware to generate their redirection pages, or are only a selected few of them 'allowed' to (ab)use Geocities for their redirection needs ? ------------ So, what's next ? hometown.aol.com is actually shutting down some sites, but it's too few, too late. They need to be more proactive. the worst problem with their service being the presence of malware. A list member sent me a reporting address for hometown.aol.com abuses, I'll see if it works, and if so, it will become automatic. Yahoo/Geocities is a different beast. After months of well known abuse and minimal action, I think they deserve being treated as a spam ressource provider. Just like other spam ressource providers, they can get away with it just as long as their regular customers are not aware of their activities. Their parent company being Yahoo, it's completely useless to complain to their upstream ;-) but they have to protect Yahoo's corporate image. If yahoo sees a serious risk that their name will be associated with spam support / illegal activities, a *real* change will occur. I think I've done my homework collecting enough proof of Yahoo/Geocities's refusal to stop the spam support activities taking place on their network and that it could be used as a starting point in gathering enough evidence (+insiders info?) to issue a well researched press release. Obviously, since (as you might have noticed !) English is not my main language and I'm not familiar with the press, this is a call for volunteers for the additional data collection and redaction work. Regards, Eric ------------ PS-1: If you operate Spamassassin 3.xx, you can share all the Geocities / AOL / tripod URIs in the messages going through your server in near real time. All it takes is a 4 lines patch in URIDNSBL.pm and a simple cron job. PS-2:I'd like to have independent third party daily backups of the whole nospam.mailpeers.net subdomain. It's small, and a simple wget -r -w3 would do. If you want to do it, email me so that I'm aware of it. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss(a)lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

4 3

The (bad) situation with Yahoo / Geocities.
by Eric Montréal 23 Dec '05

23 Dec '05

Hi, It seems like people who were not too optimistic when the number of active spamming sites on Geocities dropped from more than 300 to 14 on Friday were unfortunately right. Yahoo / Geocities did not make anything to prevent spammers from (ab)using their service and only used the list once to remove their (old and unused) spam related sites, but did nothing to prevent spammers from building new spammy sites all over again. Today, Geocities still makes the bulk of spammy sites on the list (total 368) and in the last 2 days, they only closed down 6 of them, that's below 2% ! One thing we learned last friday is that Yahoo / Geocities are not only fully aware of the situation, but they are monitoring this list. Here is the current active list: http://nospam.mailpeers.net/alive_spammy.txt I thought maybe it's difficult to detect those sites, maybe spammers are very crafty and make it hard to separate their redirection pages from other non spammy pages, so I started analyzing the pages content and here is what I found: - More than 95% of Geocities spammy sites are redirections (the balance being 'click here' manual redirections). - there is a surprisingly low number of variation in those redirection scripts - The more spammy tries to obfuscate his scripts, the more the signs are evident and easy to detect. - only 11 rules have detected *all* redirection scripts to this date. - Non redirection sites are simply detected by the URIs they contain (blacklist now, I hope to add SURBL support soon). - hometown.aol.com *DOES NOT USE ANTIVIRUS !* on their user data. As a result, they end up being a malware hosting heaven ! (even if they remove some of them when they get complaints) http://nospam.mailpeers.net/alive_spammy_malware.txt - hometown.aol.com non malware sites are *all* using the same randomized redirection script - tripod.com seems to be handling the problem perfectly (unless my sampling is severely biased, send me more) and in the rare cases where a spammer tries to use them, the spammy site is usually shutdown before I list it. Fight the spammies, and they'll move away. Why are the others not doing the same ? You'll find the complete analysis results for all alive spammy sites on this page (updated regularly): http://nospam.mailpeers.net/alive_spammy2.txt I also added http://nospam.mailpeers.net/fresh_alive_spammy.txt that lists the most recent entries (first one is the most recent). These sites are actively used in current spam runs (The ones you *really* want down !) In cases where spammy does not encrypt his redirector, extracting the real target URL behind the redirector is a piece of cake. They end up here, along with blacklisted ones, in http://nospam.mailpeers.net/spammy_targets.txt (with country code) Some of them (but not all) are already listed in SURBL. BTW, is there a script (bash, perl, whatever) that simply decodes URIs and query SURBL ? I won't distribute the rules, since their effectiveness would be immediately impaired, but if the Yahoo guy or the AOL guy want them, I'd be glad to share... however, at least for Yahoo/Geocities, I have no illusions. The very low number of variation makes me wonder. Is it because all spammers use the same spamware to generate their redirection pages, or are only a selected few of them 'allowed' to (ab)use Geocities for their redirection needs ? ------------ So, what's next ? hometown.aol.com is actually shutting down some sites, but it's too few, too late. They need to be more proactive. the worst problem with their service being the presence of malware. A list member sent me a reporting address for hometown.aol.com abuses, I'll see if it works, and if so, it will become automatic. Yahoo/Geocities is a different beast. After months of well known abuse and minimal action, I think they deserve being treated as a spam ressource provider. Just like other spam ressource providers, they can get away with it just as long as their regular customers are not aware of their activities. Their parent company being Yahoo, it's completely useless to complain to their upstream ;-) but they have to protect Yahoo's corporate image. If yahoo sees a serious risk that their name will be associated with spam support / illegal activities, a *real* change will occur. I think I've done my homework collecting enough proof of Yahoo/Geocities's refusal to stop the spam support activities taking place on their network and that it could be used as a starting point in gathering enough evidence (+insiders info?) to issue a well researched press release. Obviously, since (as you might have noticed !) English is not my main language and I'm not familiar with the press, this is a call for volunteers for the additional data collection and redaction work. Regards, Eric ------------ PS-1: If you operate Spamassassin 3.xx, you can share all the Geocities / AOL / tripod URIs in the messages going through your server in near real time. All it takes is a 4 lines patch in URIDNSBL.pm and a simple cron job. PS-2:I'd like to have independent third party daily backups of the whole nospam.mailpeers.net subdomain. It's small, and a simple wget -r -w3 would do. If you want to do it, email me so that I'm aware of it.

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Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Re: One way to handle the Geocities spam
by Joe Zitnik 19 Dec '05

19 Dec '05

I like it. While it hasn't completely nuked the geocities spam we were seeing, it has put a significant dent in it. >>> warren_ro(a)compuserve.com 12/13/2005 12:33 am >>> Hi All, Any feedback on how effective this is ? Regards Warren ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Montréal" <erv(a)mailpeers.net> To: "Jeff Chan" <jeffc(a)surbl.org>; "SURBL Discussion list" <discuss(a)lists.surbl.org> Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 11:57 AM Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Re: One way to handle the Geocities spam > > Jeff Chan wrote: > >>On Friday, December 2, 2005, 3:31:41 PM, Eric Montréal wrote: >> >>>I've >>>made my own >>>auto-generated spamassassin rules for both Geocities and Tripod spam. >>> >>>This list is similar in it's principles to the good old BigEvilList ... >>> >>>You can download and test it from there: http://nospam.mailpeers.net/ >>> >>>Feedback appreciated (good or bad, in or outside of the list) ... >>> >> >>This would work, but it could be somewhat difficult to maintain >> > The list generation / maintenance is somewhat automated and will be even > more if > there is enough interest for it. > > What I would need now is a broader set of URLs, since I only have a > partial view of > what's going on at a global level. > >>and distribute. >> > Not sure what you mean by distribution, but if successful, it might need > mirrors. > >> Note that that doesn't mean I think it's a bad >>idea. Anything that reasonably stops spam is a positive IMO. >> >> > Should work as the BigEvil list worked ... until it became too big and you > found a way > to solve the problem ... > > In the meantime those rules are easy to add and don't require any change > in Spamassassin. > >>Jeff C. >>-- >>Don't harm innocent bystanders. >> > I'll do my best ;-) > > Eric > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss(a)lists.surbl.org > http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss(a)lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

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