RE: PDL anti-spam blacklist

From: Brian Taylor <drak3(at)attbi.com>
Date: Sat Jan 04 2003 - 21:11:30 EST

It seems like I have a pretty good sized stick for this dead horse I am about to beat senseless. BUT, in matters like these, I have always had better experiences with larger ISP's who are corporate enough to have a (healthy) paranoia for liability and legal matters that all mid to large sized companies seem to share.

Yes, I'll be the first to admit that many Tier 1 ISP's sometimes turn an apathetic cheek to matters such as these, but having been a wired country boy in rural Michigan and Alabama, I can tell you that the three Mom n' Pop ISP's did not seem to have a firm grasp of Best Practices related to being a good netizen. This included abuse complaints originating from their ISPs, known spammers from their domain (which ended them on a RBL in the first place) and a few other things. I don't know if it was a matter of staffing, apathy or what. But I'd be willing to bet that a lack of policies and a brazen attitude towards possible legal issues are the cause.

Back to the topic, if something like this blackhole example were to happen to hypothetical companies like EarthPink, Qwestion or AT&TTT, the sheer worry of lawsuits or losing business would probably be the main motivators to take care of something like this. At least my experiences have been in this fashion.

I'm not dogging Mom n Pop ISP's, nor their administrators (who are generally quite skilled). Like I said, they just don't seem to have a firm grasp on Best Practices as they are frequently "the last gas station for 400 miles" and operate with a bit of an isolationist mindset.

Just my .03

BT

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Brian Taylor
johnthedwarf@ziplip.com
"Sure you can get HIV from a mosquito -- if you have unprotected sex with one!"

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-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher X. Candreva [mailto:chris@westnet.com] Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 12:00 PM
To: Brian Taylor
Cc: incidents@securityfocus.com
Subject: RE: PDL anti-spam blacklist

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Brian Taylor wrote:

> who end up on it due to their ISP. Not a lot one can do about that,
> particularly if they have a mom & pop ISP like those in more rural areas.

What make you think a small ISP will be less likely to fix things and get of the list ? Seems to me the big guys are the ones with open relay customers all over the place.

Of course, if your small ISP is also clueless, then yes, you may be in trouble. Hopefully there is a cluefull competitor to switch to.

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Chris Candreva -- chris@westnet.com -- (914) 967-7816 WestNet Internet Services of Westchester http://www.westnet.com/

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This list is provided by the SecurityFocus ARIS analyzer service. For more information on this free incident handling, management and tracking system please see: http://aris.securityfocus.com Received on Mon Jan 6 15:08:09 2003