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MAPS vs. Gordon Feyck: Who Owns the DUL?
etrnl writes "The spam-l mailing list has an interesting post from Nick Nicholas about a recent lawsuit between MAPS, LLC. and Gordon Fecyk, who had arranged with Paul Vixie to host the DUL with MAPS in 1998. Even more interesting is that Nick was the Executive Director of MAPS who hired Gordon at MAPS in 1999. Notable quote from Nick: 'I find
it extremely ironic that an organization which is currently soliciting donations
to its own legal defense fund would now be using its limited resources to pursue
litigation against a former employee.'"
MAPS wants a temporary restraining order on two separate copyright claims:
first, that Feyck can't use the DUL database, and second, that he can't run a too-similar website (now
down). The bone of contention is that Feyck claims he
bought back
the DUL from MAPS, and
MAPS disagrees.
Incidentally, the DUL is currently stopping CmdrTaco from directly emailing one of the Slash coders.
Yes, in reputable news sources, acronyms are explained the first time they appear in a story. HTML even has an tag which lets you explain it with a mouseover.
DUL (Dial-up User List) is not a blacklist, though it is often mistaken for such. The DUL is a listing of dynamic ISPs that is used as a filter by subscriber ISPs to prevent direct e-mail from those addresses.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Did you try clicking the link on "MAPS, LLC"? It's in the story. The linked page also has a link to the DUL.
MAPS = Mail Abuse Prevention System
DUL = Dial-up User List
Maps is used by over 5000 mail servers and ISPs worldwide.
http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/
Search and archives are at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/spam-l.html
But you have to be a subscriber to use the above.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
That is nothing worked until a few days ago. I recommend anybody that has spam problems, can run procmail or is in charge of a mail server running sendmail check out the "Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse" (DCC) at http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/dcc/
It took me some time to get the dcc sendmail milter dccm working correctly but, since I did, this has become my new best friend. Its catching 100% of spam targeted at me and rejecting it.
From what I know about MAPS I think its a needed service to keep ISPs in check. But it seems targeted at attacking the delivers of spam and doesn't seem to provide much to directly protect the recipients of spam mail. DCC is the only solution I've found that accurately prevents spam mail from even being delivered to myself or users. I think this is necessary because if nobody actually receives spam the spammers will starve.
So If you're like me and think spam is a rashy plague that you can't get rid of their is a cream available and it is named DCC. Check it out.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Are you talking about RACSA? This RACSA? The RACSA that brings up more than 13,000 various spam sightings, complaints, and abuse reports in a Google search? Considering that most internet users have little clue on what to do with spam, and the percentage of clued folks actually posting to the news.admin.net-abuse* groups is extremely small, 13,000 is a big number.
Do you recognize the name Ralsky? There's less than 6000 Google hits for him. 13,000 is a big number.
RACSA has a spam problem. They need to fix it. Until they do, they're going to be running what amounts to a big LAN.
Shaun
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Yes, this prevents someone from running their own SMTP relay on a dynamic IP, but it's the only effective way of preventing such direct-to-target-server spam from going through.
There is a SPAM-L web archive, but it's only available to registered SPAM-L members. The identical message was posted to news.admin.net-abuse.email, and is available to all.
It's also worth noting that the DUL is the most valuable part of the MAPS services in that it blocks more spam than the other parts. Without it, MAPS will almost certainly lose customers.
This is wrong: MAPS is a limited liability company (LLC).
It is not a not-for-profit. The two are mututally exclusive under California law.
c) There is no direct way to be removed from SPEWS.
Bullshit. Or are all those SPEWS: messages in news:news.admin.net-abuse.email figments of my imagination?
From the spews faq
So sort your spam problem, then post in nane once its sorted. Until then, don't expect a lot of us to accept your crap.
It drops any connections from any IP address within the list. It doesn't check any headers, it just checks the IP address of the connecting machine.
So, for example,
a) if dialup user a sends through an smtp server on dialup user b's box, it gets rejected, as the smtp server is running on dialup space.
b) if dialup user a sends directly to an smtp server using the DUL, it gets dropped again
c) if ddialup user a sends to smtp server on dialup user B, which in turn forwards and relays properly through his ISPs SMTP server, it will get through, as the ISP SMTP server will not be in the DUL.
I disagree with this assessment. There are at least two other things that work, and IMHO work better. The first is spamassassin, and the second is TMDA. I use both of these in series. And I've not received a single spam in my inbox since January (when I started using them). I used to get 20-30 per day. Now I'm down to zero.
I don't know how well SPEWS works. But I've used other RBL type systems and they always, at some point or another failed, and could sometimes fail big - where I suddenly start getting hundreds of spam from a non-listed IP. The two systems above can fail, but on a single instance, single email at a time. When they fail, they fail small.
IMHO, SPEWS, RBL, and any other IP based list systems are antiquated technology in comparison to spamassassin and TMDA. But YMMV.
$.02
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.