Spanish Internet Provider's SMTP traffic Blocked

Andrew D Kirch writes "After being barraged by spam and 419 scams from Rima-TDE and telefonica.es [translated], the AHBL has announced that all of Spain's national ISP's e-mail will be blocked by their blacklisting service. One has to ask though, is blocking an entire country like this the future of spamfighting, or has something gone horribly wrong?"

Comments

about time

[tannhaus]

Well, I'd say less than 5% of the email I receive is legitimate email...so I really don't care if they decide to start nuking to try and stop spam...do SOMETHING

Re:about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Look where that got us, eh?

Yeah, clearly we should have left the Taleban and Saddam in charge of their respective regimes. Who cares if Osama wants to run a few training camps for resistance fighters?

And oh yeah, what was up with the whole "no-fly zone" thing? It was Saddam's country, he should be able to do whatever he wants. I'm sure he and the Kurds would get along just fine if it weren't for the US's unilateral aggression.

Re:about time

[tarunthegreat]

I see, so... leaving a one despot in charge of a country is ok if he licks your ass, but gases his own people, and supports terrorism against its neighbour and sells nukes to the 'Axis of Evil' (Pakistan, in case u didn't know), but let's get rid of the others...because as you so loudly proclaim to the whole world, an American life is worth at a 100 rest-of-the-world lives. Who the fuck are you to decide which country to destabilize and which one to leave intact? And this brings me to another point: You're so proud of being a 'superpower' - well would u like to tell me which country of comparable size, in terms of military strength or geographical area you have picked a fight with since WW2? American military 'might' since WW2 has been based on the cowardly principle of attacking weak, pitiful countries - Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan. Oh yea buddy, that shows some real strength there. Try picking a fight with Russia, China, India. See how afraid they'll be of America.

You guys still don't get it, and looks like u never will, which means that 9/11 will be repeated, and repeated until the message finally gets into your thick, steel-plated skull. The funniest thing is that most Americans are still stumped as to why Iraqis aren't thanking America for 'liberating' them. Gee uncle sam, thanks for liberating my country and murdering my brother by accident, if it wasn't for you guys, he would have died a random, gruesome death at the hands of some crazed military men....oh wait....

Re:about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Saddam killed less Iraqi civilian than the US army did. The Bush killed more Iraqi than Saddam killed american.

The decisive factor is just that Bush has all the MDW he need while Saddam has none.

Dumb

[KalvinB]

I don't think nuking large countries in an effort to kill a few flies can in any way be rationalized as an intelligent measure.

This blacklist has just made it very clear that they're more retarded than the spammers and that their blacklist should be avoided.

They're advocating more damage be caused than any amount of spam could ever cause.

Spam is not a political problem. It's a social problem. Trying to force countries to treat it like a political problem is just going to result in more stupid laws that don't do anything.

For my e-mail server I filter out domains that spammers use. And I get very little spam as a result. What spam I do get, I forward to my spam@icarusindie.com account (where all "report as spam" spam goes) and take care of it the next update. And with a current list of ~980 domains, that works out to around $8000 or so I've cost spammers. All without inflicting any collateral damage or trying to pull a stupid stunt to try to influence the leaders of a country.

These blacklist runners have just become more desperate and irrational than the spammers. Spammers try very hard to get through my system and I can sit back and drink my Coke and beat the crap out of them without spilling a drop.

I can just see these people out there with a crazed look in their eyes widly swinging a baseball bat and hitting only air.

KNOCK IT OFF!

Ben

Re:Dumb

[corbettw]

But they're not blocking an entire country, they're blocking a single ISP. Of course, that ISP is a monopoly, so most, if not all, of the public in Spain will be effected. Plus, the fact that that ISP is the largest in a given country because of a state granted monopoly is probably one of the reasons they haven't responded to anything short of blacklisting.

And while I hate to say it, and I know it sounds like flamebait (and maybe it is, I'm not sure), I have to point out that the recent Spanish elections have proven that Spaniards will bow to overt pressure very quickly. I'm not saying putting their largest ISP in a blacklist is at all the same thing as terrorists killing innocent people. All I'm saying is that the Spainards have proven themselves to have no backbone, so doing something extreme, like cutting them off from the Internet, virtually guarantees they will crack down on spammers in very short order.

Re:Blacklist 'em all.

[maxpublic]

Hell, I don't get any email from Spain either. So tell me again why I should give a shit?

Oh, wait - *I shouldn't*. Silly me.

Max

Re:It might be unfair...

[javiercero]

Yah, it is always great when someone else is getting screwed so things get fixed. I am sure if it was your e-mail being blocked you may not be so understanding. But hey typical yankee mentality, afterall no spam ever came out of the good ol' USA, no siree bob!