RE: OT: Why Friends Don't Let Friends use RBLs
- From: "Jeff Sloan" <jsloan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ISALists" <isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 10:28:05 -0500
OOPS
I use Surf Control's Spam filter, and use the RBL feature on it as well.
I also use the Reverse DNS lookup feature on it as well, and custom
keyword dictionaries, yada yada.
The RBL lists I use, several, drop about 10,000 attempts per day for
only about 80 total users.
About 90 percent of the mail that gets through that is still spam that
is caught with the dictionary and other methods.
When I do have a problem, entire domains, etc, I white list what I can,
then contact the sender in question.
My reasoning for contacting them and conversation goes like this:
MY system is blocking your e-mail.
This or that is the reason why.
I can allow mail from you, but that does not fix YOUR problem.
YOUR problem is that other companies, including AOL and the like, may be
blocking your e-mail using the same methods I am, and your mail may not
get to those users either.
So here are the details of why you are being blocked, and if you let me
talk to your e-mail admin, I will help him or her get it fixed for you
and or your company.
RBL has not been the biggest problem for me lately, it has been in the
past, but that 10,000 a day thing is hard to ignore.
The biggest now is the reverse lookup DNS.
NO PTR Record.
When their server tells mine 'I have a mail message for you', mine asks
back, 'well who are you?' If it is unwilling to tell me who it is, mine
says 'up yours' and hangs up.
Each of the calls I make results in the admin or ISP making the
necessary changes and fixes their problem with my stringent blocking
methods.
But again, it helps them communicate with the rest of the hardliners out
there.
As time goes by, there will be more and more 'hardliners' out there, and
it becomes the senders problem to comply with the hardliners rules, or
they simply wont be heard.
I have not tried to turn off the RBL part to see how the rest of the
filter would handle it.
I already have to review several hundred a day to release the few false
positives, so I cringe to think how many I might have to go through when
I turn off the RBL feature.
My Rant:
For me, the term spam includes mail sent from one person to his or her
friend that would welcome it.
"Hey, check out this movie clip!"
"Two guys walk in to a bar"
"God loves you"
"Have you seen this child"
Yada yada
A user gets it, reads it, saves it, sends it to his friends at work,
they do the same, they send it out to their outside friends, they sent
it to their other friends, and it makes it back to my network from
outside again and again.
I block all this crap as policy says business use only.
Personal e-mail where someone actually takes the time to type a message
to friend, family, etc, is always allowed, but send a cute card or
forward a joke or picture, and they will never see it.
So I am the e-mail Nazi here, but we get more done with less people
because playing and wasting time on the computer system is nearly
impossible, or at least not fun any more.
Jeff Sloan
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