Spamcop.net RBL blocking emails by mistake?

[John Rudd]

On Sep 8, 2006, at 9:54 PM, Res wrote:

> On Fri, 8 Sep 2006, John Rudd wrote:
>
>> On Sep 8, 2006, at 7:35 PM, Res wrote:
>>> That depends upon why there were listed, of course we all know 
>>> spammers never see what they do as spamming, spamcop do have an 
>>> automated listing process if you send to one of their spamtrap 
>>> addresses, an address thats never real, never read, nerer given out 
>>> to anyone, to send to this address means someones up to no good, be 
>>> it deliberate or virus, either way its a
>>> legitmate listing IMHO caused by the sender.
>>
>> Except of course that ... you're wrong.  Not just a little wrong, 
>> flat out wrong.
>>
>> Autoresponders, if they see a message from a spamtrap, will respond 
>> to it.
>
> i never said they didnt, they dont respond to and address on your 
> network just for the hell of it, but with your antichrist attitude 
> towards SC im sure you'll think of a reason.
>
>> That seems to be what has happened to us.  Multiple times.
>
> yes, and how? i mean you are clearly 110% stating it was not your 
> users and they never did this (but ive neer know a spamemr to admit to 
> anything), my question to you is how the hell do you know!
> Most people in this case are virus infected and most never even know 
> they
> are doing it themselves!

We keep a sharp eye on the behavior of hosts around our network, to 
ensure that we don't end up with zombies here.  When we detect one, we 
deal with it quickly.  We haven't a zombie attack here in quite a 
while, and the spamcop listings have happened rather recently.

We also take other precautions to keep it from happening.

Last, we know our users aren't doing it directly because they're not 
out buying target lists for spamming (it doesn't apply to our business 
case even remotely ... and, again, we monitor the traffic behavior of 
our users; AND our announcements get channeled through a particular 
server to ensure that it doesn't impact our other email services).

There isn't anything that would point us to concluding that our users 
did it directly, nor any recent zombie activity on our network.  The 
only things that makes sense at all, and that we wouldn't be able to 
track are: user set their account's email forward to a spamtrap (which 
doesn't really make sense at all), or a spamtrap was in the return-path 
for a message that hit a vacation autoresponder.


> something presented their email address from your mail server to the 
> spamtrap address.
>
>
> everyone is entitled to their own opinion, some ppl applaud SC for 
> their stand and others like you are appauled by it, welcome to life :)

I would applaud their stand if they did it in a manner which was 
rational and intelligent ... instead of insane and idiotic.  I have no 
problem with their "stand" (their goals).  I have a problem with their 
methods (which are often inaccurate) and their dogmas (such as their 
position on autoresponders).