Doug Roberts pleads: > We just set up shop at a co-lo, started firing off mails to customers that > requested to download our product (a spamassassin-based filter, ironically) > and discovered that we are the proud owners of part of a class C that has > been blocked because the previous owners were spammers. [...] > > A short investigation shows us on the Spamhaus block list, and SPEWS > (http://www.spews.org/html/S1725.html, who seemed to indicate in their FAQ > that I should plead my case you this community). We've contacted our ISP > (he.net), but is there anything else I should be doing, or is this an ISP > thing?
I've run into this problem with an acquaintance of mine and his experience with SPEWS can pretty much be summed up as, "Prove you're not a spammer and we'll de-list your IP range." This behaviour, of course, is completely untenable. After all, when did you stop beating your wife? (That was sarcasm intended to point out the impossibility of proving a negative.) As such, I've had to zero out the SPEWS (and SPEWS-derived) tests in SA. The upshot of this experience proved to me, once and for all, that blackhole lists are a *bad* (*BAD*) idea unless you, yourself, happen to be administering the list. The whole thing revolves around trust, and a single false-positive in a supposedly-trusted list nullifies that trust (for me, at least). Disclaimer: Whilst I'm a naturally sarcastic bastard, I do try not to offend unnecessarily. I do use "bad language" on occasion, and my e-mail address has been blacklisted from lots of places because of the name I inherited from my parents (I am *not* amused by this). That blacklisting has led to many humourous exchanges between co-workers (cow-orkers?) and other ISPs because my messages to them got blocked. "What do you mean your Internic Technical Contact and Postmaster cannot contact us?" "His last name is 'Friend'. You seem to be blocking that name." "Damn. You're right. Sorry. We'll fix that." The war goes on. Sigh. Cheers. +------------------------------------------------+---------------------+ | Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston | | Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA | | mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] +---------------------+ | http://users.rcn.com/crfriend/museum | ICBM: 42:22N 71:47W | +------------------------------------------------+---------------------+ ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email sponsored by: Free pre-built ASP.NET sites including Data Reports, E-commerce, Portals, and Forums are available now. Download today and enter to win an XBOX or Visual Studio .NET. http://aspnet.click-url.com/go/psa00100003ave/direct;at.aspnet_072303_01/01 _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
