[SURBL-Discuss] The (bad) situation with Yahoo / Geocities.

[Eric Montréal]

Hi,

Guy Rosen wrote:

>We've been compiling and reporting lists of GeoCities sites and from
>here too it seems GeoCities isn't handling them well. 
>
Everyone agrees on that ;-)

>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.
>
>  
>
Would you like to share and increase our coverage (if so, email me off 
list) ?

>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?
>
>  
>
I don't have a 'smoking gun' proof, however the list had more than 300 
alive Geocities sites. When
the list building script ran the next time (one hour later) they were 
only 14 left. Some of the addresses
on this list were kept alive more than 3 months and went away that day.
That means 95% of the listed sites were gone. Considering that new URIs 
are constantly added,
the 14 remaining ones could have been added between the moment they 
grabbed it and the next run.

But if they did not use the list, that's even better ! It means they 
can, whenever they see fit, remove
more than 95% of all their spammy sites. Poof ! gone ...

If they can do that, then why don't they *always* do it ?

However, my point was not bragging about them using my list, but their 
removal proves they are
perfectly aware of the situation, and they could at least mitigate the 
problem but they usually
*choose* to let 98% of them online (more than so called 'bulletproof' 
hosts !). Why ?

That's why I wrote (and I still think) that, if they don't act quickly 
and effectively by themselves,
exposing the facts to a broader audience will be the way to go.

Eric.


>Guy Rosen
>Lead Analyst, Operations Team
>Blue Security
>http://www.bluesecurity.com/
>Tel: +972-9-9577736 x228
>AIM: guyrrosen (double R)
>
>  
>