Spam blacklisting is out of control • Hacker News Board

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#21

Post by convolvatron » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

pandemicsoul wrote: post #7

Spam blocklists are run by an unaccountable cowboy cult that somehow has managed to consolidate a ton of power simply for the fact that most people who run email inbox services didn't want to deal with the problem of spam, so they were more than willing to just hand over anti-spam "enforcement" to anyone who was allegedly doing "what was best for the internet." There's no check on these people who run these blacklist…

no. its because of spam. just because these people are doing a less than perfect job of keeping the screaming hordes out of my inbox doesn't remove any of the blame from the hordes.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#22

Post by multjoy » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

pandemicsoul wrote: post #7

Spam blocklists are run by an unaccountable cowboy cult that somehow has managed to consolidate a ton of power simply for the fact that most people who run email inbox services didn't want to deal with the problem of spam, so they were more than willing to just hand over anti-spam "enforcement" to anyone who was allegedly doing "what was best for the internet." There's no check on these people who run these blacklist…

So what's the alternative? SBLs work, clearly, and almost every mail host, in the absence of distributed list, would work up their own lists in short order.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#23

Post by r_hoods_ghost » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

boudin wrote: post #13

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah except we've had this recently with Linode's IP range landing on that exact blacklist and being blocked by Microsoft and other major mail providers, knocking out our ability to send to huge chunks of our customers. I've had to get the mail server moved off Linode to another hosting company as paying the ransom fee did nothing. UceProtect does seem at least as morally dubious if not more so that the spammers it a…

Which other major provider uses this list? Uceprotect is attempting to racket me from time to time. While I'm blocked i try different providers to guess the ones using this, I only found Hotmail blocking me.

Unfortunately we were being blocked by all Microsoft mail services so outlook.com but also anyone using hosted 365, exchange etc. which in our case meant a lot of our enterprise and public sector customers. Also NHS.net mail and a lot of large hospital groups in Europe (APHP etc.)

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#24

Post by collegeburner » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #8

LinuxBender wrote: post #2

There is a typo in their title. If intentional please instead consider words like block reject and deny for the people that do not speak English as a first language. I've dealt with real time blocklists as long as they have existed. They are not going away any time soon. I agree that the paid exception lists are a bit shady but I also see the validity of their methods of temporarily punishing everyone on a hosts netw…

Yeah except we've had this recently with Linode's IP range landing on that exact blacklist and being blocked by Microsoft and other major mail providers, knocking out our ability to send to huge chunks of our customers. I've had to get the mail server moved off Linode to another hosting company as paying the ransom fee did nothing. UceProtect does seem at least as morally dubious if not more so that the spammers it a…

What hosts are best for running a mail server? I have the same issue.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#25

Post by TillE » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

Email is a fundamentally broken protocol which has become less and less important, I don't really get the point of running your own server except as a technical exercise.

Set up your email wherever is convenient, encrypt stuff that matters, and move as much communication as possible elsewhere.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#26

Post by jijji » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

this is the first time that I've ever heard of a email blacklist provider offering to remove an IP from their database if you pay a monthly fee... it sounds like extortion.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#27

Post by istillwritecode » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

pandemicsoul wrote: post #7

Spam blocklists are run by an unaccountable cowboy cult that somehow has managed to consolidate a ton of power simply for the fact that most people who run email inbox services didn't want to deal with the problem of spam, so they were more than willing to just hand over anti-spam "enforcement" to anyone who was allegedly doing "what was best for the internet." There's no check on these people who run these blacklist…

Let's not classify all spam blacklists as the same. UCEPROTECT is in a special class of extortionist cowboy, because it's basically just an inaccurate protection racket throwing a wide net across cloud providers who won't play their game. Some other blacklists are updated regularly and only contain IP addresses that have actually sent spam. By contrast, UCEPROTECT3 just lumps ISPs into the list even though an address has never sent spam.

I run a mail server on AWS, and we use some blacklists to drop mail. It's quite effective and that's why people keep using them. A properly curated blacklist is a powerful tool, and more accurate than the machine learning mush that people have come to rely upon.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#28

Post by karmicthreat » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

I think many RBLs started out with good intentions. But it does feel like like many of them have shifted to pure grift. Pay for "priority" review definitely has negatively impacted this. UCEPROTECTL3 especially feels like an extortion attempt similar to the threatening domain renewal scams. But I've never notice any outgoing email from my services being blocked by it. So it just goes in the crank file.

Really we probably need some sort of anti-RBL system. To keep good actors honest and force bad actors out of business.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#29

Post by DrBoring » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

TillE wrote: post #25

Email is a fundamentally broken protocol which has become less and less important, I don't really get the point of running your own server except as a technical exercise. Set up your email wherever is convenient, encrypt stuff that matters, and move as much communication as possible elsewhere.

But where is elsewhere?

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#30

Post by istillwritecode » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

If you start a new mail server in 2022 (or migrate from a previous address), you have to apply to be whitelisted by outlook.com and the many domains owned by Microsoft. They no longer accept mail from servers they haven't seen before. Companies such as google, microsoft, and facebook would rather that email died, and are actively working to destroy it through neglect, so that people will shift their messaging to proprietary networks they happen to own. Email has problems - spam being one of them, but it's as potentially important as IP routing itself, and we should work to preserve it.