SORBS - Legitimate Anti-Spam organisation?

[scottyman]

guys,
i think the critical issue is one where many companies use these lists without understanding the policies and mechanisms behind them.
i've had a couple of companies get stuck where they get blacklisted for no reason (i.e. small business running on ADSL - sorbs will blacklist the entire netblock - then it's their problem to get themselves delisted)
hotmail is consistently blacklisted, but because of convoluted mailsweeper policies at a couple of large high-street travel stores, there's no way to get spreadsheets from their call centres to their head office, so hotmail is used.
it's not worth my time or effort to get ppl sorted out on this front - BT does not support rDNS for small biz clients so what are they supposed to do? cough up another few grand a year for leased line and remote managed firewall? don't make me laugh - you find an alternative way of getting a message to the sorbs afflicted partner and tell them to drop SORBs or you can't do business together.
simple as that.

[ikonia]

(i.e. small business running on ADSL - sorbs will blacklist the entire netblock - then it's their problem to get themselves delisted)

Correct as that netblock is normally an ADSL service which as a genral rule of thumb should not be actuing as world wide SMTP service routing. It is VERY easy to get the individual IP address removed or marked as "exception" and as I've said, I'm more than happy to advise people on a.) how to do this b.) if its worth doing c.) a better option

BT does not support rDNS for small biz clients so what are they supposed to do? cough up another few grand a year for leased line and remote managed firewall?

no, use the free smarthost SMTP service that BT provides to all its small business and even certain residential situations. ADSL / Broadband should not be used as an direct SMTP routing service, if anything it should be used as an SMTP gateway for the small business and then relayed to the BT SMTP service. This is a very straight forward task to setup in most mail software unix and windows based, and takes about 30 minutes to setup and arrange. The service is totally free with BT as it is with any respectable ISP.

Small businesses are supposed to use the authorised ISP's SMTP relay or smart host, therefore a.) making hte ISP accountable for spam (if you spam through the smart host BT could and would catch you - and kick you off the service) b.) making BT a point of contact or complaint for spam that can be traced back to its users and actioned.

Most businesses use these lists VERY effectivly, as I say the results I've had are superb. If a business is not using these lists properly, you can contact the IT provider / Business and request a whitelisting on their own server which will over look sorbs and other lists.

[chicken]

use the free smarthost SMTP service that BT provides to all its small business and even certain residential situations. ADSL / Broadband should not be used as an direct SMTP routing service, if anything it should be used as an SMTP gateway for the small business and then relayed to the BT SMTP service. This is a very straight forward task to setup in most mail software unix and windows based, and takes about 30 minutes to setup and arrange. The service is totally free with BT as it is with any respectable ISP.

Thanks, I'll look into that

[GDVS]

So you're saying banning an entire country under the heading "This is an anti-spam list" is fine?

Hell yes, no-one in China has a reason to email me so I might as well block the whole IP range. The kind people running the relevant DNSBL just save me the effort of tracking down all the IPs assigned to China. If I do need to correspond with someone in China then I'll use my GMail address
[quote]These companies mentioned DON'T send spam, so therefore shouldn't be on an anti-spam list, whether they be in China, or just on an ISP that doesn't reverse DNS properly. These factors do not prove they send spam, therefore have no place on an anti-spam site.[quote]
SORBS is not a list of spammers, it's mainly a list of "high risk" users. If I choose to only permit people with properly configured "low risk" mail servers then that's my choice. It's also a choice that means I reject 90% of my spam before spamassassin even gets a look in.

The purpose of spam blacklists is to remove unwanted mail, anyone in charge of such lists should do their upmost to ensure this doesn't affect genuine mail, and not take the shoot first, ask questions later approach.

You are wrong, the point (with some DNSBLs, SORBS being one) is to make spam uneconomical and ensure no-one will give a spammer rack space. The point is to make the consequences of spam hurt so badly that you change ISP rather than buy service from someone who supports/permits spam. I'm not hurt by this, my mail relay isn't on any blacklist anywhere (except for country blacklists), that's because I run it properly.