>That brings me to another problem. I found out I was listed in one of the >obscure SPAM databases out there, but not really me. Seems the company I >colo at has had some spammers in the past and supposedly didn't respond >quick enough when complaints were made to them. So now their IP addresses >are listed with wild cards, one of them being 216.242.16.*, which contains >my small 16 IP address block.
Just yesterday we were talking with someone who was in a similar situation. You should note, though, that the spam tests that take such drastic actions are rarely used to block E-mail, and people using them are almost always aware of the drawbacks of the tests. FYI, we keep the "official" list of spam databases (at http://www.declude.com/junkmail/support/ip4r.htm ), and whenever we hear of a spam test that is overly aggressive, we make sure to have a warning listed so that people know what they are getting in for. And, we make sure that they are not enabled by default in our software. Typically, the people who do use those tests use them as part of a weighting system. If you don't run an open relay, and don't use broken software to send your mail, you should be fine even if you are listed in one of the overly aggressive spam databases. Your bigger problem may actually be the admins that got spam from an address within the same Class C that yours is in, and blacklisted 216.242.16.*. Lots of admins blindly blacklist IP ranges like that, unfortunately. >When I asked them if they could please list it to get my 216.242.16.192/28 >block out of there, since I don't SPAM and don't Relay, the response I got >was that I should just go head and find a new colo company. Yea! That's >easy to do when you have a contract and a couple hundred websites to move, >IP addresses to change, DNS servers to change, blah blah blah. And that's the response that gets us to put a warning by the test, so people who use it are aware of the drawbacks. If they list IPs of mailservers that they know are legitimate, their entry gets a warning. >So while I'm firmly against SPAM, I'm also firmly against these holier >than thou SPAM databases that can just take it upon themselves to block >whoever they darn well please even if it's totally unwarranted. My >argument to them was, since they are blocking my mail server because a >client of a client of the company that supplies my communication services >was spamming, then why don't they just block the entire sprintlink.net IP >block since a client of a client of a client of theirs is a spammer. <G> There are at least 3 spam databases that currently block at least a Class B range of Sprint, and won't unblock "good" servers. Their thought is that if you do business with a company that is friendly to spammers, your mail is suspect. In some cases, that's a good theory. But when blocking huge IP ranges of Sprint, it's going to catch a lot of good mail. It may be useful in a weighting system, but would rarely be useful for blocking mail. -Scott --- Declude: Anti-virus, Anti-spam and Anti-hijacking solutions for IMail. http://www.declude.com --- [This E-mail was scanned for viruses by Declude Virus (http://www.declude.com)] Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
