Paul Graham Describes Dangers of Spam Blacklists
CRoby writes "Paul Graham posted an essay describing the danger and corruption of the main spammer blacklists today. It discusses MAPS and the SBL, the blacklist created to try to alleviate the abuses of MAPS, and suggests (maybe) another blacklist's creation."
$idea will not help cut down on spam. In fact, it is detrimental. This has been know for $num_years years, but I feel I must prove that I am really smart by writing an article about it.
Blacklists have a structural flaw: there is no one to watch the watchers.
Lisa: If you're the police, who will police the police?
Homer: I 'unno, Coast Guard?
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
Here is my very own private /etc/mail/access blocklist which I use on my own mail server: