[SURBL-Discuss] Notification of Blacklist Status

[SURBL Role]

What happens if a spammer decides to use, say, abuse at shiftfocus.ca as
the contact on their thousands of domains?


On 7/2/09, Petros Kolyvas <pk at shiftfocus.ca> wrote:
> Thanks for the reply.
>
>  I would, however retort that if the contact info is faulty, and a
>  message simply isn't delivered (hopefully you'll get a notification of
>  an invalid address,) this could count as a further strike against a
>  domain.
>
>  However, if the contact information is good, and a message is properly
>  received, it does help speed along the process. We keep both info at shiftfocus.ca
>   and abuse at shiftfocus.ca so that we can be notified of any trouble.
>  The hope was that we might know about the trouble and take action
>  before something like this occurs.
>
>  For example, until today we didn't know we were somehow (and
>  mistakenly) on a blacklist. How long were we on the blacklist? It
>  would certainly explain some odd behaviour of sent messages over the
>  last couple of months.
>
>  Having completed another "lookup," no additional information is
>  offered. We can't face our accuser so to speak or see how, why or when
>  we were added in any detail.
>
>  Back to my original point, it seems to me the overhead for the simple
>  e-mail notification would be quite low and the net effect would be
>  some increased feeling of goodwill from those who might suffer from
>  false positives. The increased level of openness could only help
>  further the cause.
>
>  I am not saying this to criticise the effort, far from it. I still
>  applaud the gargantuan and nearly impossible effort of keeping the
>  streets "clean." At the same time, as an outsider who is suffering a
>  little from the cleaning, these are my thoughts. They remain opinion
>  and should be considered such.
>
>  I do wish you all the best,
>
> Petros Kolyvas
>
>  --
>  ShiftFocus Media
>  for Arts and Education
>
>  Phone: 514.667-9778 ext. 231
>  Fax: 866.850.5451
>
>  42 Milner Street
>  Montreal, QC, H4X 2H5
>
>
> On 2-Jul-09, at 2:13 PM, SURBL Role wrote:
>
>  > Thanks for a good suggestion and for your kind words, but 99.99+% of
>  > the sites on SURBL lists likely have false contact information or are
>  > hosted on compromised computers, so it's often not feasible to contact
>  > them.
>  >
>  > Probably the best approach is to follow the removal procedure at:
>  >
>  >  http://www.surbl.org/lookup/
>  >
>  > as you're doing.
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > On 7/2/09, Petros Kolyvas <pk at shiftfocus.ca> wrote:
>  >> Dear All,
>  >>
>  >> I was notified today via an error message from a mail server that a
>  >> domain/URL in the e-mail was on a blacklist somewhere. I took the
>  >> time
>  >> to check and sure enough our own domain is on that list with the note
>  >> PH.
>  >>
>  >> The problem is that our domain is hosted on a shared web host from
>  >> what I believe to be a fairly reputable web host here in Montreal
>  >> (iWeb.com.) We have no ability to control or monitor the servers at a
>  >> level that would allow us to work on, modify, patch, or make any low-
>  >> level changes that requested in the "Removal Request."
>  >>
>  >> More importantly is why a domain isn't notified upon being
>  >> blacklisted? (Via the info at ... or abuse at .... mailboxes) I can
>  >> understand the need for immediately blacklisting troublesome domains;
>  >> with that I have no qualms. However it seems that, in the hope of
>  >> weeding out false positives like our own, at least a note that the
>  >> domain is being added to the blacklist would help in some kind of
>  >> active response - instead of the reactive one where we start
>  >> receiving
>  >> cryptic messages from clients' servers indicating something is amiss.
>  >>
>  >> That being said, thanks for all your hard work to keep this giant and
>  >> messy infrastructure as clean as humanly possible.
>  >>
>  >> Be well,
>  >> Petros Kolyvas
>  >>
>  >> --
>  >> ShiftFocus Media
>  >> for Arts and Education
>  >>
>  >> Phone: 514.667-9778 ext. 231
>  >> Fax: 866.850.5451
>  >>
>  >> 42 Milner Street
>  >> Montreal, QC, H4X 2H5
>  >>
>  >> _______________________________________________
>  >> Discuss mailing list
>  >> Discuss at lists.surbl.org
>  >> http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>  >>
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