Re: NEVER USE SORBS

["Cameron L. Spitzer" <cls@truffula.sj.ca.us>]

[This message has also been posted to linux.debian.isp.]

In article <6D74U-2dN-21@gated-at.bofh.it>, CaT wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 03:33:13PM +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
>> > I eventually set my webserver (where I have have control of rDNS) as a 
>> > smarthost because  SORBS didn't like my upstreams naming convention.
>> 
>> well then, you finally figured out how to get mail working correctly
>> from a dynamic IP address - use a smarthost. preferably one under your
>> own control.
>
> Wow. And here I thought an IP address was an IP address, each as capable
> as the other of being an IP address.

You were wrong.  Some IP addresses are usable for sending email.
Most are not.

The difference is whether the ISP who owns any particular
IP address has *earned* a good reputation for that IP address
by controlling abuse.

The address 58.20.185.68 is worthless.  It's got no PTR in
reverse DNS.  It belongs to a spammer.  It's on the Spamhaus Block List.
It's on spammer-friendly China Netcom Hunan Province.
If you don't want spam on your network, you firewall that whole
segment.  No legitimate email comes from there.  If China Netcom Hunan
has any legitimate customers, they have figured this out by now
and they send their email from some place better.

The address 193.248.12.34 is worthless.  It belongs to a company that
appears to ignore complaints.  It's in the middle of thousands of
consumer broadband IP addresses, full of trojaned Microsoft PCs.
If you put a well maintained Debian box at 193.248.12.35, nobody
would care.  We don't even try to map tiny little islands in
that vast ocean of spam sources.  You would always have trouble
sending mail from there.  Not because of SORBS or SPEWS or Spamcop.
Those listings are just symptoms.  Criminal negligence at Wanadoo is
the disease.

At the other extreme, 208.201.224.37 is valuable.  It belongs to
a company that polices its network carefully.  You can be *sure*
you will not get junk email from there.
It cost *money* for the owner of 208.201.224.37 to earn its
good reputation.  He can charge a premium for it and doesn't
have to do business with criminals.  If he lets me put my server
in that range, I will not have trouble sending legitimate email.
But if I send spam he will pull the plug fast.


Cameron