On Sat, 9 Sep 2000, Greywolf wrote:

> On Sat, 9 Sep 2000, Jay Maynard wrote:
[Jay suggests using the RBL to get prevent spamsters from hitting this
list.]

> Not a bad idea, as long as it's doing the right thing with the RBL.
> I have the misfortune to live on an address owned by above.net, and they
> block the ORBS scanner, so they have been put on the RBL because no
> reliable information has been obtained to the contrary.
> 
> This is bad for me because, due to my IP, I get rejected trying to mail
> to one of either planix.com or weird.org (or do I have them backwards?).
> pobox.com also rejects me because of this.

There are two problems with this.  1) MAPS RBL also lives in above.net's
addresses.  2) MAPS RBL and ORBS are run by different groups which don't
quite agree with each other.

The RBL will only list IP addresses which people have complained to MAPS
about.  ORBS takes a much more aggressive approach by probing various
sites looking for open relays and blacklisting any they find.  Not
surprisingly, a lot of network admins don't appreciate being probed for
any reason and therefore block the ORBS scans.  ORBS has had network
connections yanked because of this sort of thing.  They will sometimes
list sites as spam sites for blocking scans.  The incoherent emails often
sent to "vulnerable" sites (often mistaken) further tarnish my opinion of
ORBS.

Check www.orbs.org and www.bzzzzzz.com/spam.html you'll see why these guys
don't give me warm fuzzies.


Garph, the anti-spam