Re: RBL report..

[Daniel Martin <Daniel.Martin@jhu.edu>]

Nils Jeppe <nils@jeppe.de> writes:

> On Sat, 25 Mar 2000, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> 
> > ORBS deserves special mention because of their insane hit count, I don't
> > know what that is about but ORBS would block 10% of the mails we get. I
> > think it is without question that the majority of those blocks are
> > legitimate mails. ORBS is also almost completely inclusive of the RSS and
> > RBL.
> 
> ORBS blocks all open relays. A lot of people have open relays. Since open
> relays still do not have any reason for existence other than admin
> ignorance, the "correct" way here would be to block all open relays and
> then fix the mail servers. ORBS really cuts down on spam, the accounts I
> have protected by ORBS usually only get one type of spam: that is spam
> resent via mailing lists.

ORBS BLOCKS MORE THAN OPEN RELAYS.
Sorry to shout, but I've been bitten by ORBS before.
It blocks open relays *or machines which relay for open relays*.

This means that since my campus's smarthost trusts any machine inside
jhu.edu to send mail out (and why shouldn't it?), an open realy
anywhere on campus can cause all mail going through the smarthost to
be blocked.

To repeat: ORBS does not block only mail that came through open
relays, it blocks mail that came through servers that have in the past 
served open relays.  It allows a single open relay on a mail network
to cause the entire mail network to be blocked.  It is to my mind an
inordinately severe response to the problem.