blackhole spam => mail unreliability (Re: A Trial Balloon to Ban Email?)

Adam Back adam at cypherspace.org
Fri May 9 22:02:45 PDT 2003


On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 10:11:52AM -0600, Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:
> So it is much easier for ISPs to have lists of other trusted &/or
> untrusted ISPs that they will accept email from.

Any internet user needs to be able to send mail to any other internet
user.  Which means the default has to be open (blacklists rather than
whitelists).  Then you have the blackhole lists like ORBs etc, which
block domains used predominantly by spammers.  But the problem is
spammers don't stay in one place, they buy service from ISPs and spam
flat-out until the ISP notices and cancels the account.  Some ISPs are
more grey -- they want to make money from spammers by providing them
service, and some ISPs just don't notice or respond that quickly.  The
ISP can't distinguish spammers from non-spammers when they receive
customer orders.  The blackhole people are arbitrary vigilantes by and
large, so the overall effect you might argue does reduce spam, but it
also results in lost mail.

My experience was I couldn't get mail from my brother who was using
btinternet, one of the largest ISPs in the UK because some idiot
blackholer blackholed their dynamic IPs.  Not doubt there were at some
time some spammers using BTinternet as with just about any other ISP.
Recently I couldn't receive mail from John Gilmore, and so it goes.

So I don't see how this is a "solution", rather it is just a broken
countermeasure with scatter gun fall-out of false positives for all
the other people who find themselves sharing the same ISP as spammers
long enough for the blackhole people to add them.

Adam





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