Re: Commecial vs fairness (was: spam support)

[Anne Marcel Roorda <]

In message <p0510030bb89291da363c@localhost>, Steve Linford writes:

> At 10:41 am +0100 (GMT) 15/2/02, Anne Marcel Roorda wrote:
> >    Using a blacklist to force compliance with some perception of normality
> >  is a double edged sword. It may work, but if the blacklist is not cleaned
> >  up in time it will collect innocent parties. Once enough innocent parties
> >  have been collected people will stop using the blacklist.
> 
> Except I'm talking of local MTA blacklists which normally do not get 
> cleaned up except every few months or years. If you find your IP 
> unfairly blacklisted by local MTA admins then you have to contact the 
> admin of every MTA to get it removed from each.
> 
> DNSBLs such as RBL, SBL, etc., are a different thing as the data in a 
> DNSBL is changing all the time to block new problems and unblock 
> solved problems, so IPs do not remain 'caught' on DNSBLs. However 
> only something like 30% of ISPs use DNSBLs, the rest rely on locally 
> maintained blacklists, maintained by ISP admins who don't have either 
> the time to dedicate to the problem nor the knowledge of spam outfit 
> movements.

  I agree that local blacklists will allways be a problem, but having RIPE
(or someone else) enforce a general AUP will not change that.

  There will allways be a certain amount of time between recognising a
SPAM operator, and enforcing the AUP. So even though the AUP is enforced,
the IP numbers may still end up in an unmaintained blacklist.

  Same problem as before.

  Educating admins on how to maintain a blacklist if they so choose
would be a better sollution. Getting them to drop the local blacklist
and move to one of the several publicly available blacklists would be
even better.

- marcel