TechTheft

Building a DNSBL

Intentional Collateral Damage is a ghastly tactic that can cause a lot of grief down the road for a lot of people. The consequences with other policies should be considered thoroughly before any decision to use it is made.

Ideally you should come up with a better solution. After all we are all trying to get rid of the spammers, protecting users and businesses on the net, not running everyone off at gunpoint. Remember, it does cost unwitting victims money and time to move to get a good provider.

Take in mind though that thousands of ISPs worldwide have already tried these methods and proven their inadequacy or downright failure:

• Listing the spammer IPs only - failed.
  • 'Pink' providers simply move the spammers quickly.
  • Spammers simply use proxies and relays to send their crap.
• Whitelisting inside listed blocks - ineffective **
  • 'Pink' providers still have no reason to deal with paying spammers.
  • Spammers use proxies and relays inside whitelisted networks.
• Trusted Recommendation blocking - partially effective
  • Spammers use proxies and relays inside trusted networks
  • Many trusted peers or some high-traffic peers are required to work. Join one of the existing networks, don't make your own without a pre-existing set of trusted peers.

For a more comprehensive list of FUSSP as they are known visit www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html.

** Ineffective within the blocklist itself, end-users who have to do this have found some good results. However, making exceptions removes any motivation for the originating network to take action. Irresponsible providers don't listen to complaints from non-customers so the rest of the internet is forced to turn them into complaints from paying customers.

Just imagine your average businessman's response to a non-customer telling him to give up a paying customer. It's quite ludicrous to think that relying on his sense of goodwill is going to work; he's trying to earn a living.

It's a matter of one's point of view. What does one want to achieve by blocking? Just block the spam? Or encourage the originating networks to effectively police their own netblocks? Something else?