curses! Spamcop foils me again...

[danaeris]

208.97.132.5 listed in bl.spamcop.net (127.0.0.2)


If there are no reports of ongoing objectionable email from this system it will be delisted automatically in approximately 17 hours.
Causes of listing

* System has sent mail to SpamCop spam traps in the past week (spam traps are secret, no reports or evidence are provided by SpamCop)
* SpamCop users have reported system as a source of spam less than 10 times in the past week

Additional potential problems
(these factors do not directly result in spamcop listing)

* System administrator has already delisted this system once

Because of the above problems, express-delisting is not available
Listing History
System has been listed for less than 24 hours.


So, is this an issue with my laptop, the place from which I'm connecting to the internet, or dreamhost's mail server?

---

In other news, last night was great, but this morning I am cranky on the level of severe pms. Bizarre impulses to hit people or things. All under control so far. Hope it stays that way, or goes away entirely.

Comments

[geekosaur]

It's dreamhost's mail server, not your laptop. Could be a configuration problem on the mail server, or a virus on one of their other customers' machines, or even a buggy script on one of their web servers that allows spammers to subvert it to send mail (mmm, bad PHP code...).

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

Yes, I checked the IP on samspade.org and that's one of Dreamhost's.

This doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them - every web host or ISP gets hit by spammers once in a while (spammers often hop from one host to another, doing quick mail blasts and then shutting down their accounts and moving on before they can be penalized). All a host can really do is stay vigilant and stomp on them as soon as they find them, and/or install safeguards on their system which suspend a user's mail automatically if they're sending too much too fast, but neither of those measures are foolproof.

Plus, like the other commenter said, even one user with a virus could trigger something like this. Or lazy people who'd rather report a newsletter they subscribed to but are tired of as spam than remember how to unsubscribe (something that drives mailing list administrators crazy).

Stuff like this is one of the reasons why, while I used to like Spamcop, I don't any more - their system is too sensitive and very prone to false positives, so they end up nailing all kinds of legitimate mail.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I should add - you might want to forward that message to abuse@dreamhost.com, or submit it through the support form at https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=support.msg&

Chances are they're already aware of the situation and working on it, but in case they're not, letting them know about it would be good.

[ebenezer.livejournal.com]

Just what we need, incentivizing yet another ISP to restrict the ability for its customers to do anything besides browsing the web.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was me. Livejournal keeps logging me out for some reason. Very annoying.

[ebenezer.livejournal.com]

Letting Dreamhost know Spamcop has blocked them is somehow going to make them stop allowing e-mail? Sorry, not following you there...

It is really quite simple. If customers tell an ISP that being off a blacklist matters, then the ISP will try to figure out what needs to be done to stay off the blacklist. It is naive to assume that this just implies that the ISP would be more reactive to blacklist complaints -- they don't want customers to complain in the first place! Instead, the ISP will tighten restrictions on its customers so that it keeps a lower profile. This means disallowing customers to run certain services, disallowing customers to access certain services, disallowing customers from accessing the Internet without configuring their computers in particular ways, etc.

Anything to keep the vigilantes satisfied, and this is vigilante justice at its worst.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

While I share your concern about the blacklists being unaccountable and frequently abused, saying that being blacklisted doesn't matter and should just be ignored isn't very realistic. When you suddenly find you can no longer send e-mail to your biggest client, that's kind of important. You can't afford to just say "Oh well, I didn't really need to send them any e-mail anyway."

In my case, I was able to find a workaround (temporarily changing from using Dreamhost's SMTP server to my ISP's), but that's not going to work for everyone. A lot of people either don't have access to multiple SMTP servers, or don't know how to change them if they do. Like it or not, organizations like Spamcop have the power to be a major pain in everyone's ass. :-(

I think that overall, Dreamhost keeps a pretty good balance between allowing customers maximal freedom while keeping a tight rein on spam and other security issues. The only things they typically disallow you from doing are things like using the original version of formmail.cgi, which is massively insecure and can easily be exploited by spammers, or specific versions of other scripts that have similar weaknesses. And even then, they don't just tell you "You can't run that," they'll usually say "The version you're using has some major security holes, you need to download this patch or upgrade to a newer version."

So I don't really think that this is likely to somehow cow them into suddenly deciding no one can have anything but static HTML on their web sites...

[ebenezer.livejournal.com]

From what you describe, it appears that Dreamhost is doing the smart thing (for now) by raising security awareness without implementing draconian policies. Hooray for Dreamhost.

However, the underlying problem here is the undue power bestowed upon (that is, self-proclaimed by) Spamcop and the fact that the act of complaining about Spamcop buttresses its influence. Indeed, complaints are part of the "game": Customer cannot get mail through. Customer complains to ISP. ISP locks down its network and takes greater responsibility for its customers to acquiesce to whatever demands the blacklister makes. Reasons for listing may be evidence of spam, weird traffic (a la SORBS (http://www.sorbs.net/)), or in fact anything arbitrary. Repeat as "needed", where "needed" is defined by whatever extent desired by those parties clever enough to convince people to use their services.

Even if we accept that the intentions of these organizations are non-malicious (which is a dangerous leap as far as I am concerned, it is clear that they believe that the network should play a greater role in arbitrating what traffic is good and what traffic is evil. This holds serious repercussions for the future of the Internet as a free and neutral medium. I think that the best solution is to work around these blacklisters without playing their "game".

That said, I do not believe that ignoring blacklisters will make them go away. I think that there is a dangerous culture looming here; it is the culture that is willing to accept false-positives as collateral damage, an argument that the ends justify the means in the War on Spam. This is quite dangerous: who are we to say that it is OK that someone else's mail is dropped? Spamcop thinks that it is OK, ISPs that use Spamcop's listings to filter mail think that it is OK, and by extension, customers of ISPs that use Spamcop's listings think that it is OK. I think that these customers are the ones that ought to accept the consequences of their decision to use such filters.

As recipients of electronic mail, we must be careful not to choose ISPs that use filters of this sort. As senders of electronic mail, we must not be angry at our ISPs when our intended recipients have actively chosen to filter our mail; instead, we should take the attitude that the lost mail is their problem.

In short, I think that the economic and ethical arguments against playing the blacklisting game are compelling, and the senders should not be the ones who complain about mistakes.

[ebenezer.livejournal.com]

I think that it is a problem with Spamcop. Blacklisting services are at best ignorant, at worst malicious, and always politically-motivated.

http://paulgraham.com/spamhausblacklist.html