Long-Dead ORDB Begins Returning False Positives

Chapter80 writes "At noon today (Eastern Standard Time), the long dead ORDB spam identification system began returning false positives as a way to get sleeping users to remove the ORDB query from their spam filters. The net effect: all mail is blocked on servers still configured to use the ORDB service, which was taken out of commission in December of 2006. So if you're not getting any mail, check your spam filter configuration!"

Comments

Re:Whoa! ORDB better have a good disclaimer

[ZenDragon]

They arent being lost, simply being flagged as spam by the database. People will have to go into their respectave administration interface and "release" the mail and/or mark it as safe. Kind of a pain in the ass, but if your depending on a spam database that is over a year old, its not likley doing much for you anyway.

Re:It's the only way to get them to stop

[brassman]

Mod parent up. I don't have the article in front of me and I have no doubt that 'dickish' won't believe me anyway -- but the last time this happened, someone high up in the .org domain administration reported that the entire .org TLD was at risk of foundering under the load of UNANSWERED queries.

I tell you three times: At the volumes we're talking about, merely turning off the server does not solve the problem caused by people continuing to query it.