blacklisting by SORBS

[Wolfgang S. Rupprecht]

Claude Jones <claude_jones at levitjames.com> writes:
> This is not strictly a Fedora question, but I would like to query
> the list on this since it's such a large user base. Recently, our
> ISP has been added to the SORBS blacklist as a source of spam. We're
> being told that SORBS is demanding money from our ISP to remove them
> from the list. I can't speak to whether the ISP is or is not a
> source of large amounts of spam, though it seems unlikely, since
> they are in the Washington, DC area, and have many government
> agencies as clients. Two questions: Is anyone else having
> questionable issues with SORBS? Does it sound like extortion for
> such a service to be asking for money from an ISP to remove them
> from such a list?  -- Claude Jones Bluemont, VA, USA

Government agencies are some of the most careless organizations out
there.  They put out computer IT to the lowest bidder and it shows.
(Just a quick look at the mail headers from gov machines shows quite a
few machines that are set up not knowing their own fully qualified
host names and in some cases not having self-consistent entries in
DNS.)

If SORBS says your ISP spammed them, you can be sure that its true.
Your real problem is almost certaily with the people running your ISP.
They probably don't have effective enough controls to keep spammers
from using them to spam from.  You failed to post the IP of the
machine that SORBS blocked.  You need use the following URL (or
similar) to check to see which of the many lists is blocking that IP
and why.  Often it is an eye-opening experience when people find out
that their ISP really only pays lip service to stopping outgoing spam.

          http://www.moensted.dk/spam/

OB fedora: the postfix in fedora works just find to keep outsiders
from relaying through you and the fact that its linux keeps all the
hundreds of ms-viruses from using your box to as a springboard to send
spam from.  I've often thought that an ISP could make money by
offering slightly lower rates to linux and BSD users because they
aren't as much a risk.

-wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht                http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
      Microsoft Vista - because "Virus Installer" was too long.