Please confirm your message - Re: [Wylug-discuss] server based /home

[gARetH baBB]

On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, James Holden (WYLUG) wrote:

> That's a funny way to get whitelisted, but I appreciate that some people
> don't like this sort of thing.

viz. when abuse at blueyonder started doing a similar thing - "email doesn't
work, only use this dodgy web form" - they just started getting blocked by
loads of people as basically being an abuse sink.

You're not doing exactly the same thing, but something damn close - people
use email because it's email and they don't have to prat about, and
needing to go through any further stage is just going to get people to
tell you to fuck off.

And as soon as you start sending stuff out in response to bogus addresses
derived from spam runs, people will just either block you or complain to
ntl.

> Well I happen to not like getting around 500 (mostly pornographic or
> fraudulent) spams per day to wade through. I think of the filter making
> me a bit like being ex-directory.

You're doing it wrong then, I don't filter on content nor do I resort to
bizarre tactics like you have (I do have blacklists for sender and helo
though) and I get at *most* 2 or 3 a day.

Let's look at your primary MX, zion.2dcube.co.uk.

(I'm presuming some of these things, because depending on how you config
things it's hard to tell without going through a full mail delivery
including the DATA part)

It's accepted a non-qualified HELO (fish).

It's accepted a bogus HELO/EHLO of "jamesholden.net"

It's accepted a bogus HELO/EHLO of 80.84.72.131.

It's accepted MAIL without any previous valid HELO/EHLO.

It's not doing sender verify callouts.

That's 80% of spam allowed through which otherwise would have been caught.

Looking at www.jamesholden.net you have in the first few lines
"james at jamesholden.net" raw, no encoded @ or anything - you deserve all
you get ! Stop complaining and eat your spam.