Comments on: Spamhaus, SpamCop Dissed By NTsecurity http://www.emailbattles.com/2004/11/17/spam_aajjgjfhea_ff/ Spam, Security, Privacy, Spyware, Phishing & Viruses from the Front Lines. Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:56:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: Anonymous Lumberjack http://www.emailbattles.com/2004/11/17/spam_aajjgjfhea_ff/#comment-1586 Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:36:44 +0000 http://www.emailbattles.com/2004/11/17/spam_aajjgjfhea_ff/#comment-1586 Filters are great, but they are expensive (for bandwidth costs and processing requirements on my end) because the cost of spam is still my burden. Blacklists work extremely well because the blocked spam never enters my system in the first place, and pressure is put on the sending systems' upstream providers to clean up their act when users complain that their eMail is blocked. "Clueless" is the word I'd use to describe you because spammers regularly forge Received SMTP headers. If SpamCop.Net believed every Rececived SMTP header it found, then I wouldn't use it. You also call it a "false positive" when an entire ISPs netblock is blacklisted, but I don't see it this way -- to me, if the ISP gets their entire netblock blacklisted, then there's obviously a very serious problem on their systems and the only ones who will truly have the needed influence to put an end to the spam problem are the paying customers who don't like being blacklisted. I see it as completely justifiable to blacklist an ISPs entire netblocks after they've demonstrated that they don't take the spam problem seriously, because they 1., don't terminate spammers (ignoring abuse reports may be part of the problem), and 2., are more likely to acquire additional spammers as customers (ISPs who take the spam problem seriously tend to be far less attractive to spammers). Filters are great, but they are expensive (for bandwidth costs and processing requirements on my end) because the cost of spam is still my burden. Blacklists work extremely well because the blocked spam never enters my system in the first place, and pressure is put on the sending systems’ upstream providers to clean up their act when users complain that their eMail is blocked.

“Clueless” is the word I’d use to describe you because spammers
regularly forge Received SMTP headers. If SpamCop.Net believed every
Rececived SMTP header it found, then I wouldn’t use it.

You also call it a “false positive” when an entire ISPs netblock is
blacklisted, but I don’t see it this way — to me, if the ISP gets
their entire netblock blacklisted, then there’s obviously a very
serious problem on their systems and the only ones who will truly have
the needed influence to put an end to the spam problem are the paying
customers who don’t like being blacklisted.

I see it as completely justifiable to blacklist an ISPs entire
netblocks after they’ve demonstrated that they don’t take the spam
problem seriously, because they 1., don’t terminate spammers (ignoring
abuse reports may be part of the problem), and 2., are more likely to
acquire additional spammers as customers (ISPs who take the spam
problem seriously tend to be far less attractive to spammers).

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