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Detecting Anonymously Registered Domains

Posted by kdawson on from the may-i-tell-them-who-is-calling dept.

Spamresource.com has up a piece describing a new service that could be useful in evaluating the reputation of sites you deal with — anonwhois.org returns information on domains registered anonymously. It provides a DNSBL-style service that "is not a blacklist and wasn't meant to be used for outright rejection of mail." Only 619,000 domains are listed so far, but more are added as they are queried, so the database will grow more complete. Anonwhois.org seems to be a sister site to Spam Eating Monkey.

9 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Continued misuse of blacklists by suso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It provides a DNSBL-style service that "is not a blacklist and wasn't meant to be used for outright rejection of mail.

    Which of course means that in a year or two us mail administrators will start encountering mail servers that have been setup to reject mail based soley on them being on this blacklist.

    1. Re:Continued misuse of blacklists by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "It's not a testing ground for stuff you found on Google or software you downloaded from Sourceforge."

      Now, that's an interesting take. I mean, the internet was BUILT by people doing that sort of thing, wasn't it? Geeks and nerds finding ways to do cool stuff. You're suggesting that the days of innovation are over, and everyone needs to toe the line, or the internet police will come calling?

      Granted, I understand what you're trying to say - there is a lot of serious business conducted on the internet, and hobbyists shouldn't be getting in the way of all of that. All the same - I believe you need to make some allowances for hobbyists. Those open source nerds may very well hand you the gift of a lifetime next month, or next year, making your admin job easier by orders of magnitude.

      Just keep an open mind, is all I'm saying. ;^)

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  2. Stupid by tgd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In 2010, who *doesn't* use a "hiding" service for a domain? For fifteen years now you'd basically have to throw away any e-mail address on a domain, and get inundated with physical spam on any mailing address used.

    Black listing domains because the owner doesn't want to deal with jackass spammers and bulk mailers is just stupid.

    1. Re:Stupid by Sir_Dill · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I second this

      This has to be the brainchild of a spammer or someone who hasn't been a domain owner for very long (if at all).

      The parent has a VERY good point about scammers and spammers scraping whois for personal information to use for whatever nefarious purpose.

      Consider also that for the many people who register their own domains, the address listed is their personal physical address.

      Anyone who ISN'T using an anonymizer is opening the floodgates for scamming and spamming.

    2. Re:Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And you do realize that, in the United States, it is a PMITA Federal Crime to register a domain with false information.

      Absurd, yes. But true.

    3. Re:Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I don't use a hiding service. I've owned my domains for 10 years. My name, PO BOX, and phone number are all real. I can't really say it has been an issue.

      I realize the irony of posting as anonymous coward, but every time I create an account I get modded down as flame bait for being a m$ fan boy.

  3. What's the point? by DJ+Jones · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the dumbest thing since lawn darts. I can tell you who is listed anonymously just by looking at the standard whois database. There's only a handful of privacy companies that represent the majority of anonymous domains. If you could find their contact information then that would be useful.

    Congrats, you are the proud owners of a text parsing machine.

  4. Dumb idea. by loxosceles · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I can't think of a good use for this flavor of dnsbl... too little correlation with anything that matters. A lot of privacy-conscious domain owners use private registration, and it has nothing to do with using the domain for spam or other nefarious purposes.

  5. This will only get misused by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The next step is someone taking this too far and thinking "Great, I can incorporate this into my blacklists!" The problem here ist the underlying assumption that using anonymous registration makes you a spammer.

    While that is certainly a use for anonymous registration, there are a lot of us who register anonymously to avoid having our names and addresses unnecessarily exposed to spam and risk of identity theft.