On 10 Jan 2001, at 11:40, Steve Howie wrote:

>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

Once upon a time the first priority of a Postmaster was to always get the
mail through.  My feeling is that spam needs to be dealt with as severely
as possible, as long as it doesn't interfere with getting all the mail
through... even spam.  The anti-spam contingent in SPAM-L seems to be
completely obsessed with a macho posture of burning-the-village-to-save-it
and, as I mentioned here, has repeatedly stated that it is willing to
block non-confirmed lists by HOST SITE IP, or delivering BACKBONE.  That
is, a single non-compliant list at SJU that generates a (probably a forged
subscription) complaint by a subscriber in Europe will result in PEACH
being blacklisted and sites throughout Europe that are stupid enough to
use the blacklist will lose ALL list traffic from the US.  I'm hoping I
helped quash or delay this particular proposal, but I doubt it.

My own discussions with them last month were a total nightmare; I have a
decent record of hunting down and terminating idiots who SPAM this system,
and I was consistently berated as some kind of feeble minded pansy who
didn't understand "their rights" to live in a completely spam free world,
at _any_ cost.  ORBS may have been a good idea once, and I've used it
myself as recently as an hour ago to verify that a relay was a known
problem, but the anti-spam community has completely lost touch with
reality and is more interested in empowering themselves to punish others
than in actually solving any problems.

I believe too many ISP's have allowed spammers to drive them into sleeping
with the devil; I know that the problems this site experiences due to bogus
spam filters (eg: null return-path) and blacklisting "mistakes" are orders
of magnitude worse than any service impairments caused by spammers.  I'm
hoping that the non-geek population of the 'net can come to understand that
SPAM is a transient (yeah... apparently "transient" can mean "decade" in
the greater scheme of things ;-) problem that will eventually fade away,
without society having to destroy the perception of e-mail as a reliable
means of communication in the process.  But I'm an optimist.  In the mean
time I've taken a hard line against blocking ISP's by bulk-deleting their
subscribers and cutting them off until we can have it out over the phone,
postmaster to postmaster.

I'd wish you Good Luck with ORBS, but they see themselves as having the
whip and nothing anyone says or does will help you.  Or the rest of us
when our turn comes.
                                                      -Kary