-----Original Message----- From: Jeff Chan [mailto:jeffc@surbl.org] Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 10:31 AM To: 'SURBL Discussion list' Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Theory about FPs for sites with open subscriptions
On Saturday, October 16, 2004, 6:57:56 AM, Rob McEwen wrote:
Recently, a high-profile news web site (ranked about 1,500
on alexa.com) had
the IP address of the server sending their newsletters blocked by bl.spamcop.net
I contacted someone from SpamCop and they mentioned that, upon investigation, this site had an "open loop" newsletter subscription.
Recognizing that open loop subscriptions is a bad policy...
this is one of
the reasons that, IMHO, SpamCop's RBL is much too aggressive
to use for
all-or-none, "yes/no" blocking. (Though I do use it for auditing.)
More importantly, I hope that this kind of stuff does NOT
**automatically**
get propagated from SpamCop to SURBL? (Though I'm largely
unfamiliar with
this process.)
The SpamCop RBL and our use of SpamCop's Spmavertised site data are totally unconnected, aside from using some of the same reports as input data. Their BL policies have no effect on our sc.surbl.org policies.
The problem with these open subscriptions getting onto SURBLs is happening on OB, the Outblaze spamtrap SURBL, and WS, the manual and some spamtrap SURBL. That, plus some looking at the NANAS reports leads me to think some spamtraps may be getting poisoned with these open subscription domains. The poisoning may be deliberate or unintentional, with good intentions or bad, but either way most of these open subscription sites should not be getting onto our lists since many have otherwise legitimate uses.
Obviously open subscriptions are an extremely poor practice and open for abuse, but that alone should not be a reason to get listed in a SURBL, especially for otherwise legitimate industrial/engineering/child protection sites, etc.
Perhaps it may be time for WS to have its own spamtraps? Most of you might already have them. I don't use any. Only what comes into my company. However a few "one time" aliases that were made for business reasons, I haven't deleted and they are starting to get spam.
I just think we might be able to get some nice clean data with some nice new spamtraps for WS.
Thoughts?
--Chris