[Asrg] I'm black-hole listed, now what?

[Douglas Otis]

On Mar 2, 2007, at 4:21 PM, Steve Atkins wrote:

>
> On Mar 2, 2007, at 4:01 PM, <gep2 at terabites.com>  
> <gep2 at terabites.com> wrote:
>
> [snip story of "my customer is an idiot with their mailserver and  
> their virus farm NATted to the same IP address"]
>
>> Dammit, people, we keep going back to what color fabric we're  
>> going to use to upholster the "whack-a-mole" mallet, rather than  
>> coming up with a real SOLUTION for this problem...!!!  :-((
>
> The main problem in this case is NATs, and the clueless consultants  
> who specify and deploy them. The solution is to not put critical  
> services behind them.

Everyone can agree that Black-hole lists can be a PITA.  Australia's  
has a good approach, but it requires international cooperation.  The  
Opt-Out provisions of the US CAN-SPAM legislation must be struck when  
seeking broader International cooperation.  One can only hope  
legislators do not insist upon mandating a half-baked technical  
requirement, such as requiring everyone to publish SPF records  
without considering the greater problem these records can create.

A solution for coping with the immediate problem would be to relay  
outbound email through a trusted (better managed) provider.

There are also several websites that will assist you in identifying  
the black-hole lists.  If being black-hole listed is the only damage  
from an infected system, consider yourself lucky.

A black-hole search is available at:

http://www.moensted.dk/spam/

It wouldn't hurt to donate to this site, if it helps with your  
problem.  This page provides a link to the mail-abuse.com black-hole  
lists that must be checked separately.

-Doug