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@lists.surbl.org [mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org] On Behalf Of Nick Askew Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 1:46 PM To: discuss@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@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@lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
It was not meant as a complaint but rather a suggested improvement to the SURBL mechanism. I am more than happy to suggest to ALT-N a way to improve their product and will probably do so. However if people here think for good reason that complaints to the ISP's of spam URL's would backfire then there is not point proceeding so I thought a discussion at this level would be a good start.
-----Original Message----- From: discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org [mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Wilson Sent: 20 December 2004 20:59 To: SURBL Discussion list Subject: RE: [SURBL-Discuss] SURBL and listing abuse address
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@lists.surbl.org [mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org] On Behalf Of Nick Askew Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 1:46 PM To: discuss@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@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@lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/dis%3E cuss
Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/dis%3E cuss
On Monday, December 20, 2004, 12:26:25 PM, Nick Askew wrote:
if people here think for good reason that complaints to the ISP's of spam URL's would backfire then there is not point proceeding so I thought a discussion at this level would be a good start.
It could definitely backfire. There are ISPs (like in China, Russia, Brazil, the U.S., etc.) that apparently don't kick off spammers who host web sites on their servers. For all we know those same ISPs could be forwarding spam complaints to the spammers, and the spammer could be using the complaints simply to confirm the addresses (and successful delivery) they are sending to. This has been a likely problem for a long time with responding in any way to spam.
Once a spammer gets such a delivery, the address the spam was sent to becomes much more valuable to try to send more spam to, and to sell to other spammers since it's known to be a valid address. Spammers may not take a close look at the type of blocking and try to force the mail through in various ways.
Any kind of response that can get back to spammers can be regarded as a poor practice for some of these reasons.
Jeff C. -- "If it appears in hams, then don't list it."
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Jeff Chan -
Matthew Wilson -
Nick Askew