[SURBL-Discuss] SURBL reports on short links that don't exist or aren't blacklisted

Dave Warren lists at hireahit.com
Thu Aug 4 01:54:18 CEST 2011


On 8/3/2011 3:33 PM, Ron Guerin wrote:
> SURBL Whitelisters wrote:
>> Perhaps the abusers have code that creates a shortened link but
>> doesn't check that it works, and they spam the shortened link anyway
>> whether it works or not.
> I have found it to be the case, that abuse links are most often never
> checked to see if they actually work after creation.  I don't really
> track hits to disabled redirections, so I'm not speaking from facts now,
> but I suspect at least some of the already disabled URLs do in fact get
> used even though they'd been disabled long before the actual abuse takes
> place.  The kind of attention to detail I see in the abuse (I have one
> IP address that I blocked years ago that continually tries to submit
> abuse still) would not lead me to conclude they bother checking the URLs
>   just before use either.
>

This makes sense, given the lack of attention to detail spammers put 
into their craft in general.  Perhaps it would be worthwhile if SURBL's 
(and others') processes included checking pages for 400 error codes 
before sending (automated?) abuse reports?





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