OT: Spamcop BL - good or dangerous?

[DAve]

John Rudd wrote:
> Paul Kelly :: Blacknight Solutions wrote:
>> Gerard Seibert wrote:
>>> On Wednesday November 29, 2006 at 06:21:54 (AM) Arthur Sherman wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sometimes I get a message from any of lists I'm subscribed to, that 
>>>> mail to
>>>> my address bounces.
>>>> And as a reason I see Spamcop blocking sender's (legitimate) server.
>>>>
>>>> Here comes the question:
>>>> What would you use instead of Spamcop?
>>>> It gotta be free service, and the more lists the better: right now, 
>>>> Spamcop
>>>> is #1 blocking BL in the logs.
>>>> I am afraid if I drop it, the blocking will be worse.
>>>
>>> SpamCop does not block legitimate servers. I use SpamCop myself.
>>
>> I'm sorry, but that is complete rubbish. SpamCop users blatantly report
>> every and any e-mail they receive even double opt-in mailing lists etc.
>> It is an extremely dangerous BL to use if you wish to get legitimate 
>> e-mail.
>>
>> The only rbl of use (at smtp transaction time) is xbl. Anything else
>> will drop legitimate mail, that is a fact.
>>
> 
> I'm with you up until this point.
> 
> Spamcop is absolute trash when it comes to just about every aspect of 
> their operations ... so I wouldn't trust their RBL at all.  At most, I 
> might use it in SpamAssassin with a _VERY_ low score.  Even then, I 
> would be suspicious of their reliability.
> 
> However, I don't think XBL is the only valid RBL to use at SMTP time. 
> I've found SBL to be useful, and spamhaus in general to be reliable and 
> accurate (not just their XBL).  I therefore expect that I'll also be 
> using the PBL (and thus zen.spamhaus.org) in the near future.
> 

We have been using zen.spamhaus.org for about two weeks now with 
excellent results, not one reported false positive. My users would let 
me know in a heartbeat if there were.

It's too new to recommend, but I would certainly suggest doing your own 
testing as it is looking very promising. The big plus for us was PBL 
replaced our dialup RBL with better results, and no FP.

DAve

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