I like stuff.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Still cleaning.

But I will say that in this break, I've come to the decision that sendmail configuration is not worth the feature set in most cases, and getting emails saying one of my servers is now on such-and-such block list shall bug me no further, as the only information they're willing to give me is that their HIGHLY SECRETIVE algorithm detects ALL SPAM HOSTS by blocking MACHINES THAT HAVE BEEN HACKED AND ARE NOW SENDING OUT SPAM.

I'll give you a hint. I didn't tell that mail server what it's domain was, and now email is bouncing for a few domains because by my best guess, the CBL is about as smart as a box of rocks. My guess is that seeing email coming from "localhost" ran me afoul of their sophisticated detection methods, as I've been monitoring outgoing port 25 traffic since the first time they listed me.

Fuck it. I hate spam as much as the next person, but it ain't an easy problem to solve, and blacklists still don't fix the situation. The problem is that there are shitheads in the world that believe spam is ethically valid, and the misguided few that they profit from.

Argh. Frustrated. Enough. Back to cleaning.

-transiit

1 comment:

stiill said...

Yeah, some of the criteria are maddening. It's easy to have a "misconfigured" mail server, even if it's not hazardous or broken in any way.

I'm not in a position to say if all these criteria actually help prevent spam, but I will say the mass-mailers are probably the best people to diagnose and fix your problem. :)