6 ms·

IP blacklists are a waste of everyone's time.

by austerity 12y ago

mike-cardwell 12y ago
IP blacklists are the reason Email still works.
- __david__ 12y ago
  For lazy sysadmins, maybe. I don't use any blacklists, only spamassassin and the spam for me and my users is perfectly manageable.
  - mike-cardwell 12y ago
    Hate to break it to you, but SpamAssassin uses blacklists.
    - __david__ 12y ago
      It doesn't use them to insta-spam an email, which I think is where blacklists go wrong. It gives spam points to the message if the sender is on the lists, which turns them from "blacklists" into "suspicious lists". If an otherwise normal email happens to come from a blacklisted computer, it'll still have a chance to get through, which is the correct thing to do, in my opinion. I still believe that everyone has the right to run their own SMTP server, and I dislike that so many places blacklist someone just because they are on a cable modem.
fixermark 12y ago
Possibly, but if Amazon isn't doing enough to secure SES against abuse by spammers(1), it's not unfair for entities intended to guard against spam to treat it as a spam source. This is one of the risks of letting third-parties run software on one's systems. (1) keeping in mind that the definitions of "spam" can be quite subjective
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  Amazon SES definitely does have a spam problem, and the issue is that they don't bother doing anything about abuse reports. I've reported a spammer (who scraped our email address) to them, but the spams kept coming. Other people have reported the same thing. If you're running a bulk mailing server you simply must respond to abuse reports, otherwise your service will get blacklisted and be essentially useless. Other providers such as mailchimp are much more proactive about getting rid of spammers.
lazyant 12y ago
Not my time and my clients'. By appending in the Posfix configuration file line smtpd_recipient_restrictions = ... spamcop and spamhaus , spam decreases in like 95% without even touching your server further (spamassassin I'm looking at you). I you add greylisting you get rid virtually of all of spam.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- giulianob 12y ago
  Yes but if everyone using SES is getting blacklisted then you will also have a lot of legit emails being blocked.
  - lazyant 12y ago
    Correct, and the onus is on Amazon to tighten up and crack down on abusers.
  - dataminded 12y ago
    Or Amazon might take a closer look at who is using SES and clean up the system. I'm all for cleaning up email.
- eli 12y ago
  How much good mail gets mistakenly canned? I'd rather sift through a little spam than lose something I wanted.
  - ScottWhigham 12y ago
    I think we'd all rather "sift through a little spam than lose something I wanted" but my guess is that you've never run an email server. "a little spam" is not what you will get - it will be orders of magnitude more spam than legit emails. This is hard stuff - Gmail, supposedly one of the best, catches between 2 and 10 emails a day in my "Spam" folder that aren't actually spam. If I were to turn off the spam filter (if you could) in Gmail, I'd get 2,000 emails a day - of which 50 would be legit.
ScottWhigham 12y ago
This sort of vague comment with no substance is just opinion stated as fact. If you have more information - hell, even a more expressed opinion, I'd be interested. As expressed, however, it's a garbage comment that waste's everyone's time. Why bother?
- pconf 12y ago
  >This sort of vague comment Not sure about "vague comment"s but anyone who has run an email server, used an rbl/rhsbl, and followed the logs <http://www.postconf.com/docs/spamrep/> http://www.postconf.com/docs/spamrep/> would say the same. Having done so for years and run reports on dozens of servers daily it is clear that blacklists are the most effective form of spam blocking, by at least an order of magnitude.
  - ScottWhigham 12y ago
    I can't tell whether you agree with the OP or with my comment. Your first sentence argues that OP is right - "IP blacklists are a waste of everyone's time". Your second sentence though is "it is clear that blacklists are the most effective form of spam blocking, by at least an order of magnitude." Maybe a typo in your reply?
    - pconf 12y ago
      > Maybe a typo Could be a bug in your web browser. The first sentence is a quote as indicated by the ">" character at the beginning of the line.
  - ScottWhigham 12y ago
    Could be a bug in your web browser. I got that part, I'm talking about your first sentence. ... anyone who has run an email server... would say the same. This reads as though you agree that "IP blacklists are a waste of everyone's time" as OP said. And maybe you do (and that's fine) - I'm just unclear given your second sentence.

IP blacklists are a waste of everyone's time.

mike-cardwell 12y ago

IP blacklists are the reason Email still works.

__david__ 12y ago
For lazy sysadmins, maybe. I don't use any blacklists, only spamassassin and the spam for me and my users is perfectly manageable.
- mike-cardwell 12y ago
  Hate to break it to you, but SpamAssassin uses blacklists.
  - __david__ 12y ago
    It doesn't use them to insta-spam an email, which I think is where blacklists go wrong. It gives spam points to the message if the sender is on the lists, which turns them from "blacklists" into "suspicious lists". If an otherwise normal email happens to come from a blacklisted computer, it'll still have a chance to get through, which is the correct thing to do, in my opinion. I still believe that everyone has the right to run their own SMTP server, and I dislike that so many places blacklist someone just because they are on a cable modem.

fixermark 12y ago

Possibly, but if Amazon isn't doing enough to secure SES against abuse by spammers(1), it's not unfair for entities intended to guard against spam to treat it as a spam source. This is one of the risks of letting third-parties run software on one's systems. (1) keeping in mind that the definitions of "spam" can be quite subjective

cpncrunch 12y ago
Amazon SES definitely does have a spam problem, and the issue is that they don't bother doing anything about abuse reports. I've reported a spammer (who scraped our email address) to them, but the spams kept coming. Other people have reported the same thing. If you're running a bulk mailing server you simply must respond to abuse reports, otherwise your service will get blacklisted and be essentially useless. Other providers such as mailchimp are much more proactive about getting rid of spammers.

lazyant 12y ago

Not my time and my clients'. By appending in the Posfix configuration file line smtpd_recipient_restrictions = ... spamcop and spamhaus , spam decreases in like 95% without even touching your server further (spamassassin I'm looking at you). I you add greylisting you get rid virtually of all of spam.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
giulianob 12y ago
Yes but if everyone using SES is getting blacklisted then you will also have a lot of legit emails being blocked.
- lazyant 12y ago
  Correct, and the onus is on Amazon to tighten up and crack down on abusers.
- dataminded 12y ago
  Or Amazon might take a closer look at who is using SES and clean up the system. I'm all for cleaning up email.
eli 12y ago
How much good mail gets mistakenly canned? I'd rather sift through a little spam than lose something I wanted.
- ScottWhigham 12y ago
  I think we'd all rather "sift through a little spam than lose something I wanted" but my guess is that you've never run an email server. "a little spam" is not what you will get - it will be orders of magnitude more spam than legit emails. This is hard stuff - Gmail, supposedly one of the best, catches between 2 and 10 emails a day in my "Spam" folder that aren't actually spam. If I were to turn off the spam filter (if you could) in Gmail, I'd get 2,000 emails a day - of which 50 would be legit.

ScottWhigham 12y ago

This sort of vague comment with no substance is just opinion stated as fact. If you have more information - hell, even a more expressed opinion, I'd be interested. As expressed, however, it's a garbage comment that waste's everyone's time. Why bother?

pconf 12y ago
>This sort of vague comment Not sure about "vague comment"s but anyone who has run an email server, used an rbl/rhsbl, and followed the logs <http://www.postconf.com/docs/spamrep/> http://www.postconf.com/docs/spamrep/> would say the same. Having done so for years and run reports on dozens of servers daily it is clear that blacklists are the most effective form of spam blocking, by at least an order of magnitude.
- ScottWhigham 12y ago
  I can't tell whether you agree with the OP or with my comment. Your first sentence argues that OP is right - "IP blacklists are a waste of everyone's time". Your second sentence though is "it is clear that blacklists are the most effective form of spam blocking, by at least an order of magnitude." Maybe a typo in your reply?
  - pconf 12y ago
    > Maybe a typo Could be a bug in your web browser. The first sentence is a quote as indicated by the ">" character at the beginning of the line.
- ScottWhigham 12y ago
  Could be a bug in your web browser. I got that part, I'm talking about your first sentence. ... anyone who has run an email server... would say the same. This reads as though you agree that "IP blacklists are a waste of everyone's time" as OP said. And maybe you do (and that's fine) - I'm just unclear given your second sentence.