DoS of spam blackhole lists

[John Kozubik]

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Andrew Thomas wrote:

> Considering that it appears that spammers are now resorting
> to DoS'ing sites that host spam lists, wouldn't now be a good
> time to investigate the possibilities of a distributed, or at
> least, load balanced blacklist provider?

That's an interesting reaction to the problem.  Here's a better idea:

a) admit that your stupid, self-appointed-netcop blacklists and
self-righteous spam projects are inherently flawed, and are generally
populated by spam reports made by clueless idiots that don't realize they
are reporting forged and/or incorrect addresses.

The net effect is that a lot of innocent bystanders/IP-blocks/ISPs waste a
lot of time dealing with your self-righteous crusader projects.

b) realize that the distributed method you suggest already exists - it is
called procmail(*).

Please spend your sophomore year working on something besides
"self-appointed-spam-netcop-site-of-the-week".


(*) or you could setup a dummy email account on all web-published
documents, and delete any email that arrives in both mailboxes, or you
could implement a challenge/response mechanism for all new senders.  All
three mechanisms mentioned are distributed, independent, and don't require
some asshole swooping in to save us with his miraculous spews database.

-----
John Kozubik - john at kozubik.com - http://www.kozubik.com