Infinite Monkeys and other BLs

[Kevin Miller]

Don't know what version you're running, but my spam.lists.conf says:

        #Infinite-Monkeys               proxies.relays.monkeys.com.
        #osirusoft.com                  relays.osirusoft.com.
        # These two lists are now dead and must not be used.

That comment saying they're dead has been in there since last fall when they
announced they were going belly up.  And both entries have been commented
out as well.

I don't know how Julian could have made it much clearer.  I suspect he left
them in so that people wouldn't add them manually, not knowing they're
defunct.

I can't say why infinite-monkeys did what they did, but I can hazard a
guess.  They were probably getting hammered by mail servers that were still
trying to use them, which could get rather expensive as they have to pay for
all that bandwidth.  It's been public knowledge that they shouldn't be used
for 5 or 6 months.  Lacking the resources to contact every clueless admin
out there, there's a limited number of way to get their attention and
convince them to stop linking to them.  Shutting down the server might be
easier for email admins, but many would probably never even notice that now
they're getting a few timeouts, and the requests would still be traveling
down the pike, jacking up the bandwidth bill.  They have other servers and
probably a range of IP addresses that have to remain live.  If you're
serving up a range of addresses, the requests will still come in, even if
the server is off.

Sometimes you just have to shout to wake some people up...

...Kevin
--
Kevin Miller                Registered Linux User No: 307357
CBJ MIS Dept.               Network Systems Administrator, Mail
Administrator
155 South Seward Street     ph: (907) 586-0242
Juneau, Alaska 99801        fax: (907 586-4500


>-----Original Message-----
>From: James Hammett [mailto:james at CHE.UTEXAS.EDU]
>Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 10:08 AM
>To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>Subject: Re: Infinite Monkeys and other BLs
>
>
>At 06:57 PM +0000 on 3/17/04, you (Michele Neylon :: Blacknight
>Solutions) wrote:
>>  >
>>>  I think his question was, why does the file currently being
>>>  distributed with Mailscanner still have Infinite Monkey in it.
>>
>>Where?
>>>
>>>  IMHO, the actions of the people at IM were vindictive and uncalled
>>>  for.  I hope someone takes some legal actions against them.
>>>
>>Do my eyes deceive me?
>>Christ!
>
>Shutdown the server and just not responding to the request would
>result in a TIMEOUT. I wouldn't have problem with that.
>
>Instead they DELIBERATELY configured their server to provide FALSE
>information.  At our site, this resulted in the loss of work.
>
>If you don't want to offer the service, just don't offer the service.
>DON'T PROVIDE FALSE INFORMATION.
>
>
>
>>The majority of RBLs are not for profit run by people in
>their spare time.
>>They come under constant attack from spammers and their
>supporters and now
>>you want to whine like this?
>>
>
>Then just stop offering the service. Don't start producing
>false information.
>
>later,
>James
>--
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>-----------
>James Hammett
>Users Services / Server and Lab Administration
>(SLAM)
>Information Technology Services ( (ITS)
>  CPE 4.442
>Chemical Engineering Unix Support
>     471-9701
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>-------------
>        An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
>everywhere - MLK jr.
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>-------------
>