Re: Advice on MTA blacklist

On 10/9/07, John Rudd <jrudd@ucsc.edu> wrote:
>
> R.Smits wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Which spam blacklists do you use in your MTA config. (postfix)
> > smptd_client_restrictions
> >
> > Currently we only use : reject_rbl_client list.dsbl.org
> >
> > We let spamassassin fight the rest of the spam. But the load of spam is
> > getting to high for our organisation. Wich list is safe enough to block
> > senders at MTA level ?
> >
> > Spamhaus, or spamcop ?
> >
>
>
> Spamhaus: yes. Use zen.spamhaus.org (you might end up needing to pay
> for it, and use a local cache, if you're a heavy traffic site, but,
> frankly, it's worth paying for).
>
>
> Spamcop: no. Don't use them as an MTA RBL. I'm leery of even using
> them as a SA RBL, but it's a very bad idea to use them as an MTA RBL
> (too many false positives).
>

I disagree.. spamcop definitely used to be much too aggresive, but for the past few months I have used them at MTA reject level and have no known FPs. This is on a site with about 10k users/about 1 million msg per day, and they usually let me know pretty quickly when there's a problem. I do use dnswl.org to whitelist before RBLs. You might still not want to use spamcop to reject if you're paranoid (and I'll agree they've been overly agressive in the past), but I think it's very safe to use in SA.

btw this article is what convinced me to give spamcop a second look: http://www.dnsbl.com/2007/05/spamcop-bl-another-look-its-accurate.html

-Aaron Received on Tue Oct 9 13:23:56 2007