Oops. Bad sentence. I realize blocking domains is different than rbl's and ip addresses.
I should have split the two ideas up. I use RBl's, but I don't agree with blocking out IP address blocks or domains for the reasons already stated. The customer switched ISP's because the problem with the blocked IP address could not be resolved. I will reiterate that it wasn't just the single address that was blocked, but an entire block of addresses. I do; however, feel that whitelists could be used. We all sign up for user groups and have to verify our intention with a reply email. I am sure a lot of us have filled out forms on the web site to receive information or to download a file. I understand that getting on the whitelist needs to be fairly painless or it just won't work. I kind of imagine it to work something like this. You send me an email for the first time, and receive an email asking you to reply so that you can be added to the list. You reply and the original email gets delivered. We have one ISP in Toronto advertising a program that does just this. It is http://ipermitmail.com I am watching with interest to see how it goes. I know that I am probably in the minority, but it's my 2 cents. Regards, Wil McGilvery Manager Lynch Digital Media Inc 416-744-7949 416-716-3964 (cell) 1-866-314-4678 416-744-0406 FAX www.LynchDigital.com -----Original Message----- From: Matthew Carpenter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 11:46 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 22:07:19 -0400 "Wil McGilvery" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Blocking domains doesn't really work. One of my customer's employees > couldn't send mail to his house because his personal ISP was using RBL's and > the work mail server ip was in an address block that had been listed. The > employees personal ISP refused to let the mail through. (Get your IP off the > list) and the business ISP couldn't or wouldn't get the address block off > the list. Sorry Wil, but it appears that there is a misconception here. RBL's are Server (IP ADDRESS) specific. At least the ones worth using are. Dialup RBLs are different, but are a choice whether to use them or not. Blocking whole address ranges and blocking based on domain name have nothing to do with RBL's if you select appropriate RBLs. Again, the onus is on the administrator using the RBL's to use them responsibly... kinda like Beer. How many of you are willing to give up your Beer because some idiots like to kill themselves or other people when abusing it? > > Our solution was to switch to a new ISP. (Someone else probably got the bad > address). Not a bad solution, so long as you exerted pressure on the ISP first and let them know why you were leaving. One key concept here is RESPONSIBLE INTERNET CITIZENSHIP. Consequences without explanation are like going home and spanking your child without explaining what behavior caused you to punish them. > Blocking legitimate email can be worse for your business than the spam. Again, your company gets to choose which RBL's to use. Don't use Spews! (see other post) > We can't afford to have customers orders blocked and even though I do use > RBL's, I spent a fair bit of time monitoring the system at the beginning to > make sure we didn't miss anything and now all of our customers/vendors etc > get whitelisted. > > One idea that I like but has not gained much acceptance is the programs like > TMDA where someone has to be on your whitelist before mail is accepted. A > solution like this would only work if it was widely accepted and some easy > yet secure method of getting added to the list was possible. (Maybe > something similar to the way people sign up for user groups). This solution doesn't scale. What about new customers. WhiteLists are worse than blacklists! Perhaps a SOHO can get away with them, but again, you are allowing email only from a select few, and you have to maintain the list! At least with RBL's there is cooperation over the Internet over which systems are naughty and need to be blocked. And you have a direct effect over that, whether you are the BL'ed system or the one getting SPAM. Power to the Intelligent and Knowledgible people! Encourage people to understand the world we live in, not just change the world for the dumbest common denominator! Microsoft has been trying that for years and look where it got them... and us. They keep making billions but the end users get crappy software and stability/security problems -- Matthew Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.eisgr.com/ Enterprise Information Systems * Network Service Appliances * Network Consulting, Integration & Support * Web Integration and E-Business _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
