** Sometime around 11:40 -0500 01/10/2001, Steve Howie said:

>ORBS have placed us on their blacklist database.
>
>Anyone have a similar problem?
>
>The reason they gave was that we have "incorrect sign-up procedures", and
>that we were sending mail to "domains which have been deactivated".
>
>We only have Subscription by owner and Subscription=open,confirm lists.
>
>Apparently, they seem to feel that until we vet every single one of our
>subscribers email addresses and put measures in place to stop "hit and
>run" spamming, we shall remain on their blacklist.
>
>Ensuring mail does not gets delivered to non-existant accounts/domains is
>a noble goal, but even if it were possible to keep up 100%, all it takes
>is one failing address in their eyes.
>
>So ... what to do? This is nigh-on impossible to comply with if you ask
>me.

Scotty,

All of the resultant posturing in this thread notwithstanding, the
bottom line is that decisions by the ORBS administrator to add
machines to the ORBS database are often arbitrary and capricious;
witness, for example, his listing of a specific company solely
because that company blocked ORBS from probing his servers. There are
some members of the anti-spam community who could best be described
as "rabid dogs." ORBS is somewhat rabid. They fail even to recognize
the fact that they are [sometimes] spamming for the sole purpose of
preventing spam.

Many of us have been round and round about ORBS, both in public and
in private forums, and have realized that there is simply no hope of
engaging in a rational discussion with someone who feels that
spamming to prevent spam is justifiable.

The only bright light in all of this is that ORBS is, in many cases,
recognized for the subjective and capricious operation that it is --
and, thus, there are only a small handful of sites that actually use
it. So, being listed in ORBS is about as significant as being listed
in Michael Goodleigh's "Most Irresponsible Sysadmins of the Internet"
book (the annual edition, not the daily web site).


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