A scenario which occurs frequently is reason enough for avoiding spamcop or a similar entity in your spam fighting campaigns…
Take a random user on our network. This user has a standard domain hosted on our servers, which includes email services (pop3/imap/forwarders, etc.). This user also has an email address with their ISP, which they use as they primary mailbox.
In turn, this user has their @domain.com mailboxes with our hosting services forwarded to their @ISP mailbox.
A spam message destined for a mailbox @domain.com in turn gets forwarded to their @ISP mailbox. The user unknowingly sees this as generic spam and reports it to their ISP as well as other organizations such as spamcop.
Careful view of the email headers will indicate that the spam message came from a specific sender, was then bounced through the Network Redux server, and then hit the users @ISP mailbox.
Spamcop and AOL, as examples, do not detect or take into account any differences from an open relay, and a mail forwarding service. As a result not only will the sender be listed, the Network Redux server is listed as well.
As a web hosting provider we deal with this nonsense on a weekly basis, and there is very little that can be done about it.
Network and email administrators should be entirely leery of using RBLs in conjunction with mail delivery services, as they are prone to false positives as a result of these analytical mechanisms for tracing the source of spam.
This entry was posted on June 2, 2006, 4:53 am and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0.
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An argument against the usage of RBLs
A scenario which occurs frequently is reason enough for avoiding spamcop or a similar entity in your spam fighting campaigns…
Take a random user on our network. This user has a standard domain hosted on our servers, which includes email services (pop3/imap/forwarders, etc.). This user also has an email address with their ISP, which they use as they primary mailbox.
In turn, this user has their @domain.com mailboxes with our hosting services forwarded to their @ISP mailbox.
A spam message destined for a mailbox @domain.com in turn gets forwarded to their @ISP mailbox. The user unknowingly sees this as generic spam and reports it to their ISP as well as other organizations such as spamcop.
Careful view of the email headers will indicate that the spam message came from a specific sender, was then bounced through the Network Redux server, and then hit the users @ISP mailbox.
Spamcop and AOL, as examples, do not detect or take into account any differences from an open relay, and a mail forwarding service. As a result not only will the sender be listed, the Network Redux server is listed as well.
As a web hosting provider we deal with this nonsense on a weekly basis, and there is very little that can be done about it.
Network and email administrators should be entirely leery of using RBLs in conjunction with mail delivery services, as they are prone to false positives as a result of these analytical mechanisms for tracing the source of spam.
This entry was posted on June 2, 2006, 4:53 am and is filed under Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.