[AktiviX-discuss] dying under the spam

ana ana at aktivix.org
Thu Nov 22 19:16:27 UTC 2007


Alan Dawson wrote:
> 2.  This is only applied to the lists server.  I don't perceive mailing a list s
> a process that is tightly timebound.
>
> 3.  We can whitelist sites that we trust (for example riseup etc ) so they never
> get grey listed.
>
> I have a (small) list of sites that don't behave so well with greylisting, which
> i've added to the whitelist
>
> We can communicate with the aktivix list admins the changes and the likely
> effects.
>
> what do you think ?
>   

I think it is great, particularly in the light of the points I've left
there :) I was a bit worried that the greylisting was applied in the
mail server too, sorry I must have missed that. So, thanks for this.

Ian Gregory wrote:

> But those servers are not behaving "correctly" are they?

The problems is when those servers belong to big corporations, the users
can/will not change over to aktivix for instance, and you don't have the
power to make them change, yet you want emails from them to reach
aktivix users.

> If somone using one of those servers for outgoing SMTP sends
> me an email, and my server is not using greylisting but just
> happens to be down at the time, what then? I don't get the
> email.

Not necessarily. If the sending server behaves "correctly", then will
try again after failing, and the email will normally "loop" (without
either sender or recipient noticing) until the receiving sender is up
again. That is what happens after a few hours of the aktivix server
being down - we all receive all those waiting messages at last.

If the sending server gets fed up with trying, it produces a "bounce
message" (not sure about the name) to the sender saying, sorry tried too
many times, and the person sending knows that there is a problem.

With greylisting however, the receiving server produces a temporary
error; if the sending server does not try again, then the person sending
the email does _not_ receive a notification like in the example above
and therefore doesn't even know that there is a problem at the receiving
end...

> Sure greylisting would increase the frequency of symptoms
> but there is an underlying problem with the outgoing server
> which should be fixed anyway.

yes, that is what professional isps tell their users (look, tell your
friend to tell their servers admins to sort their server out) but this
is not what they need to hear, what they need to hear is, ok i'll
whitelist your friends' addresses to make sure you receive their emails.
And that is what takes time.

But as greylisting is not applied in the mailserver then this wont
happen :) and if there are problems in the list server, the sender can
easily check if something arrived to the list by checking the archive ...

Then Alan Dawson wrote...

> Also when a spam client resends an email, we have a better chance of
> spotting it as the spam client will have been advertising itself to
> the rest of the
> internet and may have been added to various RBL ( real time block
> lists ) lists.

can i take the pleasure to translate this :) - spamcop for instance
gives people the chance to report emails as spam. This measure - and i
guess others too - makes it possible to create databases (lists) of
"spam-offending" servers, or IPs.

> we use  relays.ordb.org and sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org at aktivix.org and
> lists.aktivix.org
Spamhaus a famous one of these database, bloody hard to get out of it
once you (server) have been reported.

So as an addition to the knowledge-sharing: if you spam you are
jeopardising the rest of the people who share your server.

And yes in my little experience as well it is always big corporations
the worst offenders ...

Hope this is not too tedious.

ana





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