kre@munnari.OZ.AU (Robert Elz) writes:
> ps: I'm not exactly sure what all the fuss is about - the amount of spam that
> either comes through, or pretends to come through, netbsd lists, is
> still negligible.

Agreed.  Spam on this and the other lists is essentially non-existent.

One reason for insisting on a valid rDNS is to have an ISP or company
name to fire a complaint to.  I'm obviously not going to spend more
than a keystroke or two sending a complaint.  Everything has to be
automatic.  Without a valid rDNS I have to start guessing from
traceroutes or using whois to get likely candidates.  That is way to
much work.  It is much easier if I can use a snippet of elisp in my
mailreader that just looks at the first received line, snips out the
name given in the rDNS field (ignoring the HELO of course!) and fires
off a short complaint.

The few folks that don't have rDNS, I simply whitelist.  There are a
hell of a lot fewer of them than the spammers coming from "anonymous"
IP's because they found that such IP's are relatively safe to spam
from.  Most Internet users these days when given a Received line with
a bad rDNS and a bunk HELO would fire the complaint off to the ISP
named in the HELO, totally missing the mark.

-wolfgang