Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

blog.sucuri.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 61 posts

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#31

Post by JoachimSchipper »

furyg3 wrote: post #14

Spamhaus is the most rabid group of extreme anti-spammer teenagers out there (or at least they act like teenagers). I've had various SMTP servers (for various companies) blocked by them, usually for very questionable reasons. You used to have to argue with them on their forum (and take a beating from all of the kids on that site) before they'd remove you. The result is that SMTP admins get it from both sides: Spammer…

> Spamhaus is the most rabid group of extreme anti-spammer teenagers out there

I see you've never met SORBS. Or even NANAE (news.admin.net-abuse.email).

Blacklists are a pretty powerful tool to get ISPs and the like to do something about their spam. And Spamhaus is usually right. And yes, I've been on SORBS (due to some other account in the same /24 spamming at some point in the past...)

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#32

Post by tptacek »

dingdingding wrote: post #17
tptacek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you blacklist the mechanism by which tens of percentage points worth of Internet users send mail, you are not part of the solution to spam.

I know the google fanboys will hate this, but the problem is letting just anyone or just any machine create an account and use your service. It's google's responsibility to can the spam coming from their domain. Google doesn't care though. If they make it harder to get a gmail account, then they make it harder to spam their "legitimate" users with advertisements and why would they want to do that? If you are a compan…

I'm guessing it's not the "google fanboys" who hate this sentiment, so much as it is the people who expect to be able to use email instead of sacrificing chickens to the sysadmin/net-abuse gods.

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#33

Post by [deleted] »

bmm6o wrote: post #25
dingdingding wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the google fanboys will hate this, but the problem is letting just anyone or just any machine create an account and use your service. It's google's responsibility to can the spam coming from their domain. Google doesn't care though. If they make it harder to get a gmail account, then they make it harder to spam their "legitimate" users with advertisements and why would they want to do that? If you are a compan…

> Fine, maybe so, but if you are someone who uses gmail, you are surrounded by a cadre of spammers and should understand your credibility is instantly devalued. "My credibility"? When I send my mom an email, I expect her to get it. When she sends me one, I expect to get it. >Birds of a feather flock together. Yes, because I am a spammer. If gmail has a lot of spammers using their service, they should address this. Bu…

[deleted]

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#34

Post by akadruid »

Does anyone know if this affects Postini?

We've switched once already this month - our new office was assigned an IP by C&W business that is in the same block as thousands of Virgin home cable-modems, so we got blacklisted by Spamhaus and others. Management got quite twitchy so I moved all the outgoing email to go via our Postini account which was previously only filtering incoming. Don't fancy having to find a third option now.

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#35

Post by [deleted] »

thenduks wrote: post #21
Kadin wrote: post #6

Seems like it might be biting off a bit more than they can chew. Given the choice between the service Spamhaus' list provides, and being able to receive mail from what's undoubtedly one of the largest webmail providers in the world ( the biggest?), a lot of people are going to can Spamhaus. I'd hope that Google will react by doing something about the spam, but they could much more easily do nothing, put out some reco…

Google isn't even close to the biggest email provider (by some sources both Yahoo and Microsoft are more than twice their size)... but your point stands :)

[deleted]

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#36

Post by dingdingding »

tptacek wrote: post #32
dingdingding wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the google fanboys will hate this, but the problem is letting just anyone or just any machine create an account and use your service. It's google's responsibility to can the spam coming from their domain. Google doesn't care though. If they make it harder to get a gmail account, then they make it harder to spam their "legitimate" users with advertisements and why would they want to do that? If you are a compan…

I'm guessing it's not the "google fanboys" who hate this sentiment, so much as it is the people who expect to be able to use email instead of sacrificing chickens to the sysadmin/net-abuse gods.

"expect to be able to use email" This just summarizes the problem. People "expect" to use a free email system and still be treated equally to those who pay good money for a legitimate SMTP host that cares about the quality of service they provide to their customers.

Legitimate email providers take measures to ensure their customers aren't spammers and those who don't end up on the spammer lists and this is exactly the way it should be.

Until Google takes a stand against the spammers who use their systems, they should be on the list just like all the others.

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#37

Post by jlees »

auxbuss wrote: post #28
furyg3 wrote: post #14

Spamhaus is the most rabid group of extreme anti-spammer teenagers out there (or at least they act like teenagers). I've had various SMTP servers (for various companies) blocked by them, usually for very questionable reasons. You used to have to argue with them on their forum (and take a beating from all of the kids on that site) before they'd remove you. The result is that SMTP admins get it from both sides: Spammer…

Google are no better. I can't send email to gmail addresses -- well sometimes I can and sometimes I can't -- because Google (sometimes) says of my server: Our system has detected an unusual rate of 550-5.7.1 unsolicited mail originating from your IP address. To protect our 550-5.7.1 users from spam, mail sent from your IP address has been blocked. This is complete bullshit. We have SPFs in DNS. We don't relay, and ha…

Did you contact using the delivery form at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=m... and still get no response?

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#38

Post by barrkel »

dingdingding wrote: post #17
tptacek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you blacklist the mechanism by which tens of percentage points worth of Internet users send mail, you are not part of the solution to spam.

I know the google fanboys will hate this, but the problem is letting just anyone or just any machine create an account and use your service. It's google's responsibility to can the spam coming from their domain. Google doesn't care though. If they make it harder to get a gmail account, then they make it harder to spam their "legitimate" users with advertisements and why would they want to do that? If you are a compan…

Perhaps, instead, you should try using a better spam blocking system. Gmail's system works quite well.

I personally wouldn't touch Spamhaus with a ten foot pole. From everything I hear, they seem seriously biased towards incorrectly blacklisting IPs than letting a few bad ones through; more highly favouring false positives than false negatives in terms of identifying malice, in other words. Thing is, I believe most reasonable people prefer the reverse trade-off; they would rather get a little more spam than risk losing email.

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#39

Post by barrkel »

dingdingding wrote: post #36
tptacek wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing it's not the "google fanboys" who hate this sentiment, so much as it is the people who expect to be able to use email instead of sacrificing chickens to the sysadmin/net-abuse gods.

"expect to be able to use email" This just summarizes the problem. People "expect" to use a free email system and still be treated equally to those who pay good money for a legitimate SMTP host that cares about the quality of service they provide to their customers . Legitimate email providers take measures to ensure their customers aren't spammers and those who don't end up on the spammer lists and this is exactly t…

You wouldn't happen to be in the business of providing paid email accounts, would you?

Re: Gmail blacklisted by Spamhaus

#40

Post by [deleted] »

scott_s wrote: post #26
dingdingding wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the google fanboys will hate this, but the problem is letting just anyone or just any machine create an account and use your service. It's google's responsibility to can the spam coming from their domain. Google doesn't care though. If they make it harder to get a gmail account, then they make it harder to spam their "legitimate" users with advertisements and why would they want to do that? If you are a compan…

You get spam in your inbox? I see maybe one a month. Gmail filters it for me.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN