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Should You Trust MAPS?
"I spent all weekend long trying to get a hold of the people at MAPS, as they don't bother telling you when they are open. When I finally got a hold of someone on Monday morning (not an easy task, mind you!), they told me that they are not open on the weekend, so it would have been *impossible* to resolve this issue quickly. And because I was only a customer of the company who owns these IPs, they would not unblock my subset of IPs. Despite the problem originating from a handful of IP addresses, MAPS saw it appropriate to block over 180,000 IP addresses just before the weekend! I had already made several phone calls and emails to my co-location facility, and they told me they were doing their best to get a hold of someone there. Several emails had been sent, and just as I first experienced, they could not reach anyone at MAPS by phone. When I finally talked to someone at MAPS, he told me that he would not be proactive in the matter by actually phoning my co-locator to work this out.
These people at MAPS thinks themselves quite high and holy, and in some ways they are: many ISPs and the like will bounce emails just because MAPS tells them to. (I've since removed MAPS from my list of RBL servers to check.) As a small-business owner, MAPS can be very hurtful to a business and very uncooperative in helping resolve the issue. I gave them a couple subnets of mine to unblock, but they would not, even though my IPs were not involved in the original complaint.
This experience has certainly made me think twice about who I trust to decide the fate of my incoming email."
Nobody should trust maps, as they might be out of date, or insecure and flawed.
maybe a form of passive protest is in order here. Since you've been black-balled by these Lords of Spam, you might as well dive into the Spam business. Make whatever money you can selling viagara, cialis soft tabs and penile ejection units, might as well.. around town everybody knows you as the hero-cum-spammer.
When they take you off the list, stop spamming.
Yeah, except it sounds like the submitters IP was not involved in the spam complaint. Its difficult to respond to something you never recieve.
If hunting spammers was legal this wouldnt be a problem at all.. Uh. unless someone thinks you sent them spam due to faked headers etc..
At the very least it should be reasonable to punch someone who buys something from spam. The main problem is the vast and bountiful supply of idiots that make it worthwhile for the spammer bastards to carry on as they do.
Starsucks
I've set up my network and they have blocked me and they refuse to tell me why despite me asking for SEVERAL YEARS.
They will not tell me why my 192.168.1.x network is blocked.
You could chase it around all day, and all you're likely to do is destroy your own house.
Intersting analogy. Speaking from experience?
-Valiss
Yes, but I'm that kind of person.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
>"Projectile" is a Crosman 760B Pumpmaster Air Rifle
You throw your gun at them?
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I killed your bunny.
Well, let's say it's a very large fly, with a profile of 1 cm^2. And let's assume it represents 1 IP. Then the fly swatter would only have to be 18 m^2. This is roughly 140,000 times smaller than a square mile sheet.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
On behalf of many members of the male gender I would say no. We don't trust those lying overpriced pieces of paper. And we don't ask for directions. We rely on our innate sense of direction.
One time, I even made it to Mexico without consulting a map. It took me days but I got there. I learned a lot that I didn't expect from that road trip. Like it's so cold in Mexico that there's moose everywhere. Also the Mexicans tend to pronounce things a bit differently. Like "about" is pronounced more like "aboot". And they tend to say "eh?" a lot. It's far different than the Mexico I read about as a kid.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Leave the bunny alone, it has teeth...
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(^v^)
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This is the cute vorpal bunny virus, copy to your sig or runaway, runaway in fear!
So many here are so quick to jump to the conclusion that the co-lo facility "harbours" spammers. That is not, in fact, the case. They have a very specific and clear Acceptable Use Policy, and they are very quick to terminate customers in violation of said policy when they find a breach.
You're right: you do have the right to choose to use MAPS if you want to. By starting this discussion, I'm hoping to get some good dialogue going about the effectiveness of RBLs (MAPS in particular), and whether or not the practices of these RBLs are really something us geeks want to support.
You should always trust your security to outside companies.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I prefer chopsticks!
If you send me mail and I don't get it I don't see how it harms you at all.
Um...how about if you sent me a request for technical support, and my response didn't reach you? Or you sent me the directions to the restaurant we're supposed to meet back, and I responded with "I'm going to have to cancel tonight" and you showed up anyway? Or you wrote to me (the love of your life, who is angry at you) to tell me you were sorry, and I wrote back that "yes, I forgive you, now come over now!" and you didn't get it, and assumed I'd ignored you and the relationship was over?
Just off the top of my head.
2. You say that your list is 100% opt-in. Any anti-spammer will tell you that isn't good enough - it needs to be double-opt-in with confirmation. And besides, it doesn't matter what you say - spammers lie.
3. RBL's are perfect for eliminating the usefulness of the email system for commercial use - this is the entire point of the anti-spam movement. If email is only useful for informal, friend-to-friend communications and useless and unreliable for things like order confirmations, newsletters and other commercial stuff, they have won.
See? You must be new to this.
So I don't see any problem with these spam blacklists, it hasn't hurt me a bit!