[SURBL-Discuss] Proposing a greylist

[Chris Santerre]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jeff Chan [mailto:jeffc at surbl.org]
>Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 10:45 AM
>To: SURBL Discuss
>Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] Proposing a greylist
>
>
>On Thursday, September 2, 2004, 7:09:27 AM, Chris Santerre wrote:
>> I am officially proposing a greylist surbl. 
>
>> We are going to see more and more of this stuff. We might as 
>well deal with
>> it now. I'm suggesting a greylist for all spammers that ride 
>that line. Like
>> the euniverse junk we have been talking about. 
>
>> 1)We DO NOT include it in multi. 
>> 2)We SCREAM to the world that it WILL hit some legit, and 
>that only hard
>> liners should use.
>> 3)We DON'T remove domains unless they go completely black, 
>or have no NANAS
>> hits for 3-4 months. 
>> 4)See number 2 again.
>> 5)We tell people it is completely optional and to see number 2.
>
>> I predict it would be used more for personal emails. IT also 
>gives us an in
>> between mechanism. Rather then list or no list. We get a grey list we
>> desperately need. 
>
>I'd rather focus on black lists for the upstream mail servers.

I know, but we need some middle ground. Take the chokepoints ;)

>
>Greylists are messier, more time-consuming, difficult to
>categorize, error-prone, controversial, and subjective
>than black or white lists.  We can already see how much
>effort a few borderline cases consume.  Creating and
>maintaining these as a third category would multiply that.

Actually I find it LESS time consuming! While we are figuring out what to
do, we simply drop them into the grey list. I think it would take far less
time! Someone submitts them again, we can see they have already been
greylisted, gives reviewers more info. 

I see this being no more work then we already do. We just get a third
option.


>
>If we make greylists, they will be misapplied, legitimate
>mails will be blocked, people will (somewhat rightly)
>complain, and our reputation will be damaged.
>

We can never provide a technical solution to stupidity. Misuse of the list
is NOT our problem. It really isn't. I think the creation of a greylist will
HELP our reputation. Right now people say "How come they don't list
XXXXX.com?" or "I keep getting these and submitting but you won't list!"
Well now we could say, use the greylist, but it WILL block legit emails. We
won't skirt around that at all. Flat out tell people that the domains listed
in the grey list do have legit uses, but also send spam. Choice is theirs. 

>I know it would perhaps be more fun to play the "find every
>spammer" game, but I think we should instead focus on
>improving the quality of the data we already have.

You have to read my signiture quote again. I'm thinking of how Mr.Spammy is
going to deal with his SURBL problem. He is going to host some legit sites. 

>
>When we can get the FP rate of WS below 0.01%, then maybe
>we can think about greylists....  ;-)
>
>Jeff C.

That is our goal. And we are a hell of a lot more responsive then other RBLs
are. greylisting is our future. Hell I'll maintain it alone if you want!

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