[nzlug] (OT) Sorbs etc

[Tony Wills]

At 14:22 11/10/2006, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>Tony Wills <ajwills at paradise.net.nz> writes:
> > At 09:09 11/10/2006, Cliff Pratt wrote:
> >>...
> >>>Cliff Pratt wrote:
> >>>> Greylisting is an evil perversion of the SMTP protocol and if I find
> >>>> any servers using it I blacklist them. Nasty obnoxious bandwidth and
> >>>> spool space wasters!
> >> ...Greylisting adds a load to my servers. Greylisting is at the bounds
> >> of the RFC and totally subverts the idea of retrying failed sends. The
> >> retry facility is intended for temporary errors, not for SPAM control!
> >
> > My original point is the RBLs that block properly set-up mail servers
> > that have never sent any SPAM, just because they're from a range of
> > addresses that someone has decided are 'not proper' is a much greater
> > perversion (if not violation) of the RFC.
>
>I don't think that word means what you think it means either...

If you mean per·vert (pr-vûrt)
1. To cause to turn away from what is right, proper, or good; corrupt.
2. To bring to a bad or worse condition; debase.
3. To put to a wrong or improper use; misuse.
4. To interpret incorrectly; misconstrue or distort:

then I think Cliff & I both mean what we say.

>To the best of my knowledge there is no RFC, IETF approved or otherwise,
>that mandates that any Internet host must accept any traffic that it
>doesn't feel like accepting.
>  ...

Ok, I got carried away, being accused of using evil perverted software does 
that to one :-(

>Claiming that an RBL that blocks "dial-up" ranges ... is violating the RFC 
>weakens your
>otherwise reasonable claim that this is a bad idea.

I never talked about "dial-up" ranges, only about the practice of including 
blocks of addresses ( whether these be dynamically assigned or static 
addresses) that someone deemed 'bad' regardless of their Spam generating 
status.
But good call, this discussion has been a bit emotionally loaded (excessive 
Spam does that to one :-).

I think the suggestion of using greylisting in combination with an RBL (qv 
Matt Brown post) is a great idea - now how do we get the big ISPs to 
impliment it :-)

Tony.