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

Wow, they've got that ass-backwards.

[One Childish N00b]

Why not just make it let all mail through, i.e. turning itself off? Wouldn't that wake people up enough to stop using it? Or automate it to send an email notifying the user that the filter they are using is outdated and unsupported?

Blocking all incoming email seems a surefire way to get their asses sued, and doesn't even make the source of the problem all that obvious.

Obfuscation

[Protonk]

I'm not an sysadmin. What is a "sleeping user"? What is ORDB? What does this summary mean?

Note: Don't tell me to RTFA, I will. Don't tell me to "justfuckingoogleit", because my returns on doing that will likely be pretty low.

Re:Why DNS-RBLs suck

[djce]

Last-Modified: Mon, 15 May 2006 15:28:07 GMT

Anti-spam advice that's that old is often worth taking with a big fat dose of NaCl. Of course it might still be OK, but it's worth bearing in mind the age of the advice.

Re:Nope.

[Robber Baron]

No emails, but it's not the ORDB system. I just don't have any friends. That's too bad. I made some nice Nigerian friends and I'm helping them with their finances, and I made some other friends who promise to show me how to make my pee-pee grow bigger, all through the magic of e-mail! So who knows? Maybe your turn will come soon.