Buonasera nexiane,

executive summary: «the Ads are sent from legitimate senders, which are
not on any blacklist»; chi usa una RBL danneggia anche te, digli di
smettere.

ci risiamo, recentemente una mia email è stata respinta dal server del
mio destinatario perché l'IP del server di posta del mio provider [1] è
finito in una di quelle simpatiche liste di proscrizione dette RBL
(Real-time Blackhole List), tipo:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---

   host mailserver.del.destinatario[IP.del.mailserver] said: 554 5.7.1
        Service unavailable; Client host [IP.del.mio.mailserver] blocked
        by RBL; Blocked - see
        https://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?IP.del.mio.mailserver (in reply
        to RCPT TO command)

--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

in pratica il server del destinatario si rifiuta di accettare il
messaggio ancora prima di verificarne "la spammosità" perché l'indirizzo
IP del server di posta che uso è incluso nella RBL gestita da
spamcop.net (ma ce ne sono a bizzeffe e ogni gestore può usarne una o
più a sua scelta)

so per certo che cose analoghe succedono regolarmente anche ad alcune
nexiane

come gesto simbolico propedeuto ad un insperato evento catachico del
"mondo email", voglio condividere con tutti i discriminati di questo
"mondo" un recente articolo che ben illustra la situazione e mi toglie
le parole di bocca:

https://blog.roastidio.us/posts/spam_blacklists_are_out_of_control/
«SPAM blacklisting is out of control»
February 4, 2022

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---

[...] Yesterday, I suddenly found out that my IP is blacklisted!
Specifically, I am on UCEPROTECTL2 and UCEPROTECTL3. I don’t SPAM, so
how can it be? Did I get pwn’ed?

It turns out that my server is fine. However, they think my IP is in a
bad neighborhood: Someone else using the IPs from the same hosting
company as I do is spamming.

So what should I do?

I see three options:

[...]

Finally, I can pay up. UCEPROTECT conveniently embedded a link to
http://www.whitelisted.org/, which offers to whitelist my IP. Had I been
on the whitelist, the blacklists would not concern me.

[...] There is only one problem:

 Registration is available for 1 Month (25 CHF), 6 Month (50 CHF), 12
 Month (70 CHF), 24 Month (90 CHF)

To me this is highway robbery. 25 CHF per month is five times the amount
I paid to my hosting company for the VPS! I got the cheap VPS because my
hosting company is in a fierce competition with other hosting companies;
how many whitelisting companies are out there? Did I sense monopoly?

Are the blacklists that useful?

[...] I know I can use a blacklist and cut down the volume of unwanted
emails to my inbox, but the difference won’t be much, because the Ads
are sent from legitimate senders, which are not on any blacklist. Even
if they were, they surely are rich enough to pay the 25 CHF per month
whitelisting fee.

What is SPAM, but some form of advertisement from poor people, with
questionable intentions and potentially harmful content? Now email
advertising is a multi billion dollar industry, while SPAM has been
demonized over the years. I can’t help to wonder if it has anything to
do with the rise of big email vendors, who with no exception are Ads
platforms themselves. Your “free” personal email accounts are nothing
but an Ads delivery pipeline customized to exploit you. Your paid and
hosted corporate email accounts are run by the same big email
vendors. How much better can they be? The big email vendors love to
enforce onerous rules for SPAM blocking; is it for their users, or for
themselves?

The problem of SPAM control boils down to the issue of signal to noise
ratio that one can tolerate. More filtering leads to higher signal to
noise ratio, with collateral damages such as filtering out some real
signals.  To me, an intelligent user armed with a good email client, one
trash email would only cost me half a second to glimp through. On the
other hand, if a legitimate email from a future friend or a potential
business associate were accidentally blocked, the lost opportunity cost
is several magnitudes higher. From a cost benefit analysis point of
view, I cannot justify blacklisting IPs in my email setup; and I don’t
think I am alone.

If by any slim chances, you happen to be in charge of an email setup,
please, don’t sink to the low of the big email vendors. IP blacklists
have their place, however, please don’t use the overarching neighboring
blacklists such as UCEPROTECTL2 and UCEPROTECTL3.

--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

...e manco le altre, che hanno /tutte/ problemi del tutto analoghi [2]

Per chi avesse voglia di "seguire il bianconiglio", questo thread su
Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30222736 vi
guiderà fino alla sorgente a fare due chiacchiere con l'architetto, ma
prima bisogna scegliere la pillolina rossa B-)


saluti, 380°

[1] uno grossino, che sa il fatto suo, chi volesse lo /trovasse/
facilmente nei metatadi delle mie email; notare che - come ormai nel 99%
dei casi - posso inviare solo /autenticandomi/ col mio server di posta.

[2] ad esempio sorbs.net:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_and_Open_Relay_Blocking_System#False_positives
ad esempio spamcop.net:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/spamcop-anti-spam-service-suffers-an-outage-after-its-domain-expired/

-- 
380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego)

«Noi, incompetenti come siamo,
 non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché»

Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts.  Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

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