Being blacklisted sucks

[riddler 0]

So I own my own domain name, which translates to a specific IP, which is apparently owned by a company that has a reputation for allowing spammers on their sites. This means that some people have made lists saying this entire range of IPs (one of which is mine) are spammers. So now a lot of ISPs use this list and block all email from these IPs (one of which is mine). The result is I can't email some of my friends, because their servers all block my emails assuming they are spam.

So I find myself in the unfortunate position of emailing the guys that make the lists and kindly asking them to remove me from their list. Meanwhile, they are yelling at me because they are frustrated at all the people that are asking to be removed from their list. I get responses like this:

Me: "In any event, I would like to be removed from everyone's list."

Him: "And I wish an end to US attempts to attack a country without a UN resolution because the oil barons that sponsored president Bush want that oil in Iraq. I want an end to the bombings on innocent citizens
in Afghanistan. I want an end to the boycot on water refineries, so children in Iraq won't die of polluted water. I probably won't get that either. Those oil barons want that money."

Apparently he is also angry at the US, so I get to deal with that too. Some guy in the Netherlands that also owns a site on Christmas Island.

Some people need to get away from their computers and try skydiving.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[narcimund 0]

Easy answer: Move to a web hosting company that maintains reputable servers. I can recommend one :)

First Class Citizen Twice Over

[jraf 0]

Oh, he don't like us? LET"S FUCKING MAIL BOMB THE BASTARD!!!!

jraf

Me Jungleman! Me have large Babalui.
Muff #3275

[riddler 0]

Can you recommend how I get the money back from paying for a year of hosting in advance to datalink? It was only $50 or so, and now I know why!

I hate spammers. I'm starting to hate spam vigilantes too.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[narcimund 0]

My company is one of those Spam Vigilantes. We're maniacal about being good Net citizens. We don't get blacklisted.

We also return unused fees if someone leaves early, but nobody ever has.

Sorry about your $50.

First Class Citizen Twice Over

[sangiro 4]

Your comapny has probably landed themselves in the ORDB and a few others. Yahoo, Hotmail and most other large hosts will be blocking you in that case. Move companies - click on the webhostworks.net banner! I understand you may have paid in advance but if you're on in the ORDB and you don't have a dedicated IP address that your hosting company can secure for you then you'll be fighting a loosing battle. Once you get set up in a way that people cannot relay spam through your IP address it is quick and easy to be removed from the ORDB. It may be time to cut your losses, move hosts.

Safe swoops
Sangiro

[jfields 0]

I have to chime in with Narcimund and the boss man.

While you may not have done anything wrong, it is all about the company you keep. If you are in a blacklisted IP range, it can be incredibly difficult to persuade the list owners to reinstate connectivity to your individual IP. Many simply won't do it, as a means of inducing further pressure against the spammers. If the ISP notices that all the decent customers are leaving, they may finally decide it isn't worth it to be spammer friendly.

There are lots of different realtime block lists RBL's. Some of them are ORDB, MAPS and Spamhaus. At my company, we use Spamhaus, and find that it is excellent at cutting down spam without substantial false positives. I am considering running both MAPS and Spamhaus, as our e-mail firewalling system has the capacity to simultaneously run multiple RBLs. In addition to that, we have a fairly extensive rule-based filtering system that I customize to eliminate yet more spam.

I'm sorry about your deposit, but the best thing to do would be to migrate now and save yourself further headaches.

Here is a page where you can see if you are on Spamhaus' blocked IP range:
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/index.lasso

Here is a list of some of the people that make your life miserable:
http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/index.lasso

[riddler 0]

Yeah - it's not ORDB - it's Joe Jared's list.

http://relays.osirusoft.com

Honestly, I don't see how anyone could have a problem with open relays these days - it hasn't been a problem send SM8.9, but I guess there's lots of old systems out there.

My provider doesn't have a problem with open relays - they just sell to spammers. One guy on there has listed nearly half the world's IPs (no joke) for filtering - that's the guy I'm talking with now.

The funny thing is I hate spam as much as any admin. I used to be a NANAE regular and did my share of getting spammers killed. I even got a copy of the very first email spam send by Sanford Wallace. So I know these guys' frustrations. But some of them are REAL assholes. I think we're going to see a fresh round of lawsuits in the US as more and more legitimate people get blacklisted.

narcimund - could you send me a PM a let me know about your hosting company? - thanks

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[jfields 0]

Quote

So I know these guys' frustrations. But some of them are REAL assholes. I think we're going to see a fresh round of lawsuits in the US as more and more legitimate people get blacklisted.

You mean the maintainers of the blacklists getting sued? MAPS has been dealing with that for awhile, but they are continuing to use the collective power of their members to fight the spammers. I don't think lawsuits will do very well, since the service is entirely voluntary. Nobody is required to sign up to their services. The fact that so many people do is a testament to the need.

In a bizarre way, the worse things get, the quicker they will start to polarize things. Instead of a huge spectrum of grey between the good guys and the bad guys, the folks in the middle will get shunted to one side or the other, depending on their preferences. The good providers will get good customers, and understand the value of giving spammers the boot instantly. The spam-friendly ISPs will get few in number, so the spammers will end up congregating more closely in black-listable IP blocks.