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RE: Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too
by Chris Santerre 09 Oct '04

09 Oct '04

First, great work Jeff. > >While 102k domains isn't nearly as large as the 2.3M in dmoz, >it's certainly more than the 12k or so whitelist records we >currently have. How does the intersected list look as a >potential whitelist? > > http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/wikipedia-dmoz.srt > I think this is just plain nuts to whitelist all of these! Why? If we don't try to whitelist the most popular sites, then what the heck it the point? We could whitelist millions of legit domains forever. The popular ones are the most important. Here is one from the above list. Why would listing this help us? http://oigawa-railway.co.jp/ (looks like a real popular site huh!) >Please also take a look at these blocklist hits (potential FPs) >and share what you think: > > http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/wikipedia-dmoz-blocklist.summed.txt I picked of few of these that may give us problems, and none of them met our current criteria to list. (sissy-world.com, good grief that had to be a man at one time!) With the ability to now see whitelisted domains in the crossref page, I don't see a problem with whitelisting all these on the list. Because if they do start spamming again, we can see they are whitelisted and remove them. so: -1 for adding all those intersected to WL +1 for whitelisting the blacklist hits. --Chris

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servepath is pissing me off
by Chris Santerre 09 Oct '04

09 Oct '04

they host these idiots and a bunch more! theviralspiral.com I think servepath.com sould be listed. They host obvious spam houses. And they don't host many domains, so to say they didn't know this was a spammer is a complete joke. Chris Santerre System Admin and SARE 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] RE: Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too
by Chris Santerre 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

>-----Original Message----- >From: Bill Landry [mailto:billl@pointshare.com] >Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 3:06 PM >To: SURBL Discussion list >Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] RE: Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia >domains too > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Chris Santerre" <csanterre(a)merchantsoverseas.com> > >> >> I think this is just plain nuts to whitelist all of >these! Why? If we >> >> don't try to whitelist the most popular sites, then what >the heck it >> >> the point? We could whitelist millions of legit domains >forever. The >> >> popular ones are the most important. >> > >> >The points: >> > >> > - whitelisting legitimate domains limits the >effectiveness of joe job >> > attacks that result in FPs in various SURBL blacklists >> > - whitelisting could be used as negative points for MAIL FROM if >> > combined with SPF (and more domains is better) >> >> Yeah, but not everyone is using SPF yet. But if they were, sure! >> > >> >In addition: >> > >> > - I would only whitelist those domains (a) subject to editorial >> > removal (b) so long as their domain registration is old >enough and >> > (c) so long as they pass other criteria such as no SBL >listing for >> > NS->A. >> >> Yeah date seems to be key in more and more cases. Granted a >spammer could >> buy one of these older ones, but hasn't happened often enough. >> >> > - I would maintain the automated whitelist separately >from the human >> > edited whitelist and handle it differently. For >example, perhaps >> > automated whitelist entries can only remove a single >blacklist hit >> > (like SpamCop), but to remove two independent blacklist hits, it >> > requires a human decision. >> > >> >> Did you look at the example from the list I gave? It doesn't >even have a >web >> page! Just says testing. I'm all for whitelisting, but popular/useful >> domains only. >> >> >> so: >> >> -1 for adding all those intersected to WL >> >> +1 for whitelisting the blacklist hits. >> > >> >I think there are other options available due to the miracle of >> >programming. ;-) >> >> Well like they say around here, "You can't argue with success." >> >> But taking away spam points based on an autowhitelist still makes me >> nervous. But you might have a few tricks up your sleeve D.Q. >that I don't >> know about yet ;) > >If the whitelist is setup as a SURWL, for example, using it or >not would be >an option to each individual mail administrator. And the >negative weight >applied to reduce the score would be totally dependant on the >discretion of >the SURWL user. > True, and having the option is good. Having the work overhead to do that on top of doing the blacklists is not. And the logic stands if it ain't blacklisted, it must be good ;) --Chris

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too
by Chris Santerre 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

>-----Original Message----- >From: Bill Landry [mailto:billl@pointshare.com] >Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 3:26 PM >To: SURBL Discussion list >Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains >too > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Ryan Thompson" <ryan(a)sasknow.com> > >> >> I wouldn't appreciate it being whitelisted as then if >there's abuse, >> >> and it does get blacklisted, there's no pressure on the >domain holder >> >> to clean up. >> > >> > I'm hoping UC list will help with that. Anyone who wishes to use it >> > can add a minor score to spam for UC hits. This would put at least >> > some sort of preasure for these grey hats to do something. >> >> Ezzactly. Even if it's worth 0.1 points in SA (or >something), the stigma >> of having one's domain listed in some sort of bad "list" >might be enough >> to promote action, provided the accuracy of UC is quite >good. (I.e., we >> definitely still don't want to list everything :-) "Quite >good" in that >> case probably means < 1% FP, but I think we can do even >better than that >> with a few clever tricks. >> >> Personally, I'm hoping UC will be worth more than 0.1 even with a >> somewhat higher FP rate, since there will be little or no >overlap with >> other SURBL tests, but that'll depend on some mass-checks. :-) > >I have been tracking my hits from UC, and although the hit >rate if fairly >low compared to most of the SURBL lists, it has been giving me >good results >and hitting things I would consider spam. And as such, I have the test >currently weighted at 0.5. > >Bill LOL, thats cause UC just ain't that big yet. I keep trying to keep up with all the domains Jeff keeps whitelisting, but he's like some sort of mad robot on overdrive ;) --Chris (Good grief I've been hungry all day!)

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too
by Chris Santerre 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

>-----Original Message----- >From: Alex Broens [mailto:surbl@alexb.ch] >Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 12:51 PM >To: SURBL Discussion list >Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains >too > > >Bill Landry wrote: >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Alex Broens" <surbl(a)alexb.ch> >> >>>Jeff Chan wrote: >>> >>>> http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/wikipedia-dmoz.srt >>>> >>>>Please also take a look at these blocklist hits (potential FPs) >>>>and share what you think: >>>> >>>> >> >> >http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/wikipedia-dmoz-blocklis >t.summed.txt >> >>>>Would there be many FNs (missed spams) if we whitelisted all >>>>of these? In other words are these all truly False Positives? >>>>If not, which ones do you feel are true spammers and why. >>> >>>probably not a new idea, but why not run a "wl.surbl.org" >with all the >>>whitelisted domains and ppl can choose to use it or not. >> >> >> I like this idea! Whitelist the most commonly used 1,000 or >so domains, and >> then create a wl.surbl.org for the rest of the >wikipedia-dmoz domains. > >WOW... Bill didn't bark at me this time. > >my point is the following: > >take for example "angelfire. com". This domain may have >legitimate users >but my user base would NEVER have contact with anybody hosting >a site or >anything there. If they support spam, list them, put pressure >on them to >stop supporting spammers, bla, bla, bla. >I wouldn't appreciate it being whitelisted as then if there's >abuse, and >it does get blacklisted, there's no pressure on the domain holder to >clean up. I'm hoping UC list will help with that. Anyone who wishes to use it can add a minor score to spam for UC hits. This would put at least some sort of preasure for these grey hats to do something. > >As I imagine we're fighting spam here, not just filtering, I have a >certain difficulty understanding why the world is crying for >whitelisting instead of putting pressure on so called whitehats who >support abuse for a lifetime. I completely agree, but when working with SURBL I can't use this mindset. I have to go by Jeff's vision. However with UC its a whole different ball game. > >as Chris said, you could make whitelisting a lifetime task. >I believe the better approach would be to decrease potential FP's by >increasing the reporting QUALITY !!!!!!!! > >Alex > >//Are we fighting Spam or working for Messagelabs & Co. for free? // OUCH!!! I hear ya.....but OUCH! ;) --Chris

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RE: Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too
by Chris Santerre 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

>-----Original Message----- >From: Daniel Quinlan [mailto:quinlan@pathname.com] >Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 2:01 PM >To: Chris Santerre >Cc: 'Jeff Chan'; SURBL Discuss; SpamAssassin Developers >Subject: Re: Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too > > >Chris Santerre <csanterre(a)MerchantsOverseas.com> writes: > >> I think this is just plain nuts to whitelist all of these! Why? If we >> don't try to whitelist the most popular sites, then what the heck it >> the point? We could whitelist millions of legit domains forever. The >> popular ones are the most important. > >The points: > > - whitelisting legitimate domains limits the effectiveness of joe job > attacks that result in FPs in various SURBL blacklists > - whitelisting could be used as negative points for MAIL FROM if > combined with SPF (and more domains is better) Yeah, but not everyone is using SPF yet. But if they were, sure! > >In addition: > > - I would only whitelist those domains (a) subject to editorial > removal (b) so long as their domain registration is old enough and > (c) so long as they pass other criteria such as no SBL listing for > NS->A. Yeah date seems to be key in more and more cases. Granted a spammer could buy one of these older ones, but hasn't happened often enough. > - I would maintain the automated whitelist separately from the human > edited whitelist and handle it differently. For example, perhaps > automated whitelist entries can only remove a single blacklist hit > (like SpamCop), but to remove two independent blacklist hits, it > requires a human decision. > Did you look at the example from the list I gave? It doesn't even have a web page! Just says testing. I'm all for whitelisting, but popular/useful domains only. >> so: >> -1 for adding all those intersected to WL >> +1 for whitelisting the blacklist hits. > >I think there are other options available due to the miracle of >programming. ;-) > Well like they say around here, "You can't argue with success." But taking away spam points based on an autowhitelist still makes me nervous. But you might have a few tricks up your sleeve D.Q. that I don't know about yet ;) --Chris

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Re: Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too
by Daniel Quinlan 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

Chris Santerre <csanterre(a)MerchantsOverseas.com> writes: > I think this is just plain nuts to whitelist all of these! Why? If we > don't try to whitelist the most popular sites, then what the heck it > the point? We could whitelist millions of legit domains forever. The > popular ones are the most important. The points: - whitelisting legitimate domains limits the effectiveness of joe job attacks that result in FPs in various SURBL blacklists - whitelisting could be used as negative points for MAIL FROM if combined with SPF (and more domains is better) In addition: - I would only whitelist those domains (a) subject to editorial removal (b) so long as their domain registration is old enough and (c) so long as they pass other criteria such as no SBL listing for NS->A. - I would maintain the automated whitelist separately from the human edited whitelist and handle it differently. For example, perhaps automated whitelist entries can only remove a single blacklist hit (like SpamCop), but to remove two independent blacklist hits, it requires a human decision. > so: > -1 for adding all those intersected to WL > +1 for whitelisting the blacklist hits. I think there are other options available due to the miracle of programming. ;-) Daniel -- Daniel Quinlan ApacheCon! 13-17 November (3 SpamAssassin http://www.pathname.com/~quinlan/ http://www.apachecon.com/ sessions & more)

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RE: [SURBL-Discuss] Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains too
by Chris Santerre 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

>-----Original Message----- >From: Alex Broens [mailto:surbl@alexb.ch] >Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 11:53 AM >To: Jeff Chan; SURBL Discussion list >Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Revised DMOZ data, got Wikipedia domains >too > > >Jeff Chan wrote: >> http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/wikipedia-dmoz.srt >> >> Please also take a look at these blocklist hits (potential FPs) >> and share what you think: >> >> >http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/wikipedia-dmoz-blocklis >t.summed.txt >> >> Would there be many FNs (missed spams) if we whitelisted all >> of these? In other words are these all truly False Positives? >> If not, which ones do you feel are true spammers and why. > >probably not a new idea, but why not run a "wl.surbl.org" with all the >whitelisted domains and ppl can choose to use it or not. > > IMHO More traffic and scan time. Better to just ignore having them in the list. Also things like Yahoo, AOL, ect... will most likely have SA code to not even bother to look those up. --Chris

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Possible large whitelist from DMOZ data
by Jeff Chan 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

Daniel Quinlan, one of the principal SpamAssassin architects had some good suggestions for reducing false positives in the SURBL data. One was using public databases of URIs, particularly hand-built ones like dmoz.org and wikipedia.org or even yahoo.com as sources of mostly legitimate domains. (The wikipedia is not a web directory in a conventional sense; it's more like an open encyclopedia, but it has a relatively large collection of URIs.) Presumably most of the URIs in these are legitimate and don't belong to spammers, especially in DMOZ since it's hand-built. So the question is: can these be useful as whitelist sources or perhaps as one of the checks on new SURBL additions. The DMOZ open directory publishes it's data in RDF form at: http://rdf.dmoz.org/ So we downloaded the URL data, extracted the domains and compared them against the SURBL block and whitelists: % join dmoz.srt ../multi.domains.sort | wc 1338 1338 20533 % join dmoz.srt ../whitelist-domains.sort | wc 7375 7375 96720 % join dmoz.srt ../multi.domains.sort > dmoz-blocklist.txt % join dmoz.srt ../whitelist-domains.sort > dmoz-whitelist.txt There were 1338 DMOZ hits against our blocklisted domains and 7375 against our whitelists. You can view those matches at: http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.txt http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-whitelist.txt Of the 1338 DMOZ hits against our blocklists, which arguably could be false positives, most are in WS. Here is a list with the data from multi.surbl.org showing list membership included: %join dmoz.srt ../multi.domains.summed > dmoz-blocklist.summed.txt http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.summed.txt And some list counts from those hits: [ws] hits: 1173 [ob] hits: 165 [jp] hits: 61 [sc] hits: 8 [ab] hits: 4 [ph] hits: 2 These add up to more than 1338 since some records hit multiple lists. The actual hits are in: http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.ws http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.ob http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.jp http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.sc http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.ab http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz-blocklist.ph Data source folks, please review these and try to determine which ones are FPs and which would result in false negatives if they came off the lists. For ones that are FPs you may want to eliminate them on your end. For the ones that could cause FNs, we'd like to know about those as a measure of using the DMOZ data for whitelisting. Right now I'm leaning towards whitelisting all of these, so please speak up! The 7.4k DMOZ whitelist hits represents a majority of the 12.25k whitelist entries that are not reserved .us geographic domains, so there is significant overlap between DMOZ and our existing whitelists, which is probably speaks well for both lists. % wc dotus_reservedlist_v3.lower.sort 52049 52049 1012735 dotus_reservedlist_v3.lower.sort % wc ../whitelist-domains.sort 64299 64299 1169155 ../whitelist-domains.sort % join dmoz.srt dotus_reservedlist_v3.lower.sort | wc 7 7 112 The DMOZ data has about 2.3 million domains. How does anyone feel about adding them to our whitelists? A 1.2 MB gzip of the extracted domains is at: http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/dmoz.srt.gz I think we can safely say that whitelisting DMOZ domains will reduce FPs. Probably a more important question is: how many FNs would that cause? In other words, how many purely spam domains are in DMOZ, where whitelisting them would wrongly exclude spam domains from SURBLs? One way to answer that is to note that the lists ab, sc, jp, ph, which have much lower FP rates than ws (measured by the SpamAssassin corpora checks, for example, and also anecdotally by human FP reports) appear relatively infrequently in the DMOZ hits. In other words, SURBL lists that we know are quite spammy like sc, jp, etc. don't match DMOZ often, so the DMOZ data may not have too many spam domains. Similar tests could be done against other proposed whitelists. (We'll probably try the wikipedia data next.) Another concern is that since these directories are relatively open, spammers could simply add themselves and effectively get whitelisted. However I intend to take a snapshot of these and probably not try to refresh the data very often in future (it at all), instead using them as relatively static snapshots of established domains. Doing that would miss some new additions, but could also prevent some future abuse by spammers. On the other hand 2 million domains is a pretty good start.... :-) Extraction scripts are not perfect, particularly in the simplistic chopping to three levels of cctlds, but they're probably adequate: http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/extract-dmoz-domains http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/chop-two-level-domains.sed http://spamcheck.freeapp.net/whitelists/reduce-to-third-level.sed Comments please, Jeff C. -- Jeff Chan mailto:jeffc@surbl.org http://www.surbl.org/

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Strange domains, Get no hits. Are they trying to fool SURBL?
by Martin 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

Hi, Got two different spams not getting caught by SURBL. The domains for both of the spams looks like this: http://ss.net.yourstuffspotMUNGED.com?qd="and a tracking id" AND http://mq.net.yourstuffspotMUNGED.com?r="and a tracking id" I checked the domain at rulesemporium and got a hit on yourstuffspotMUNGED.com but not at the subdomains. Somehow SURBL don't catch it even though it's listed on WS. Are they trying to fool SURBL or what is going on? Thanks in advance / Martin

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