[Baypiggies] [OT] IronPort Blacklists Google

[Paul McNett]

Marilyn Davis wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2006, Paul McNett wrote:
>> I only post this here because I thought it interesting that there is 
>> another connection, besides meeting locations, between the two 
>> companies. Sorry if it is considered clutter by some.
>>
>> I presume that someone malicious is submitting gmail addresses to cause 
>> trouble, not that IronPort or Google are at direct fault.
> 
> No, but it does show how vulnerable all ip's, i.e., all of us, are to
> attack via blacklists.

Yes it does.


> I note that deliberate.com is still blacklisted by Paul's
> intersight.com system, even though I went to the url and filled in the
> form long ago, and, even though there can not be any legitimate claims
> of spam against deliberate.com.  
> 
> Blacklisting is not a good idea.

I think it is a good idea in that it makes mail server administrators 
more careful regarding the mail they relay. If you run a mailserver for 
many businesses and individuals, and one individual's email can result 
in your whole server getting blacklisted, then you are going to make 
damn sure you do some automated checking of outgoing email, or all your 
users could move elsewhere.

But in general, black/white absolutes are certainly evil.


> Or, if you want to use a blacklist, use it for an additional piece of
> information to factor into your heuristic, not as a sole reason for
> blocking mail.

I've changed my incoming rules to add 1.5 to the Spam score if the 
sender is blacklisted, instead of rejecting the mail out of hand like I 
was doing before.

-- 
Paul McNett
http://paulmcnett.com
http://dabodev.com