Boycott SORBS

[inferencia]

Hi Guys,

Im a bit frustrated with SORBS. I have a server listed with SORBS and to get delisted I have to make a donation to Joe Blow who is not even related to the company in any way, $50 via paypal.

What the |#@~@ kinda of BS is this ? I have removed SORBS from all of my exim.conf on all of my servers.

¿ Any one else feel jipped ?

 

[nobaloney]

Of course the problem is that SORBS is used by a lot of people, and you haven't solved the problem. All you've done is made it so you can see your own server. Others who rely on SORBS can still not see you.

My understanding is that SORBS lets you pick from a range of charities. Is that no longer true?

Note that I'm not condoning anything they or you do. I'm just explaining.

Why do you say you got included?

Jeff

 

[inferencia]

Hi Jeff,

That was the best I could do to help myself. I had customers on that server emailing me about the problem, but since the server my compies operations are also were blocking thier emails cause exim would check sorbs.

I wouldn't mind paying the $50, but they give no security that I would be delisted. The money would go to god knows who, and it just seems really shady.

My problem was that a user's account was hacked and spam was being sent from it. I corrected the problem, and know I have to pay $50 to god knows who, and god knows how many times.

Someone is getting rich off of this spam crisis that affects all of us. And another problem is that there must be many other legitimet servers we are blocking cuase the found themselves feeling the same way. I don't mind having my server blocked until I fix the problem, that sounds about fair, but not to pay Joe Blow $50.

THAT'S ALSO ABUSE

 

[OliverScott]

"The affected IPs (the ones used to send the spam) will only be delisted when US$50 is donated to a SORBS nominated charity or good cause. The charities and good causes SORBS approves will not have any connection with any member of the SORBS administrators, either past or present."

From this I gather that SORBS are not making any money from the delisting process, but are instead using this as a way to fine SPAMMERS (which you are given that you are the administrator of a server sending spam) and to generate money for good causes (assuming their website is accuratre). Quite a good idea in my opinion!

If your server was responsible for sending SPAM then you are responsible for this unfortunately. Personally though I can sympathise strongly with your situation (as it was someone elses malicious actions which caused this), it is not you I feel sorry for, but the users of your server who are now affected due to no fault of their own (a position I have been in in the past when using a shared server). I would personally get on and pay the 'fine' as $50 is not a large amount of money and otherwise you are in serious danger of loosing customers...

Due to these sort of issues I am reluctant to reject emails at smtp time due to a blacklisting in a database - personally I am currently letting these blacklistings add to my spamassassin scores so that email won't be blocked unless it hits several blacklists or a blacklist as well as other rules.

 

[inferencia]

which you are given that you are the administrator of a server sending spam

That's were your theory of it being a good idea falls apart. My server is NO LONGER sending spam. We corrected the issue immediately after being notified.

So tell me, why the hell do I have to give any one $50 when my server is no longer the problem.

SORBS is currently the problem.

 

[tlchost]

So tell me, why the hell do I have to give any one $50 when my server is no longer the problem.

SORBS is currently the problem.

Technically you're right....but since lots of people use SORBS, you're stuck..unless you want to sue them for loss of revenue, etc.

The other alternative would be to explain in non-emotional terms what happened and how you corrected it...and email that yo everyone who blocks you via SORBS, asking them to whitelist you.

I think, if you value your own time, that it will cost you more than 50 bucks to do that.

This is a lot like the red-light cameras...they know they got you....you know they got you. so you and they both know that sooner or later you'll pay to play.

 

[MyNet-Tony]

SORBS is BS and a scam, charities or not. It's extortion.

I just discovered the IPs I got with my new VPS is listed by SORBS and I will be darned if I am going to pay ANYTHING TO ANYONE.

So now my IPs are messed up because of someother jerk and now I have to deal with the SORBS jerks to get it fixed because I don't want to get new IPs and go through all that prorogation again. I just got my sites back up.

There should be a process involved with getting delisted from a spam list, not money exchanged to anyone. And any spam list that has any sort of ability to block sites should be governed and not allowed to do crap like this.

 

[tlchost]

SORBS is BS and a scam, charities or not. It's extortion.

Yea, it does smack of some high-handed tactics.

I just discovered the IPs I got with my new VPS is listed by SORBS and I will be darned if I am going to pay ANYTHING TO ANYONE.

After having some ips listed by SPEWS and fighting the fight, which I lost, I promised myself that I would check the IP of the provider before I did business with them. I also make it part of my contract with them that if the ips, or block of ips they give me end up being blocked die to activity on their part or their customers, they will move me, at no charge to clean ips.

So now my IPs are messed up because of someother jerk and now I have to deal with the SORBS jerks to get it fixed because I don't want to get new IPs and go through all that prorogation again. I just got my sites back up.

There should be a process involved with getting delisted from a spam list, not money exchanged to anyone. And any spam list that has any sort of ability to block sites should be governed and not allowed to do crap like this.

Well, it is governed....if it's bad, folks don't use it...if it's really bad, like SPEWS was, then sooner or later someone takes them down.

One of the problems is that people don't like spam....and will use RBL's to eliminate it.....and the attitude is "If a few innocent folks get hurt, that is offset by the larger number of folks that get their mail filtered."

I'm not disagreeing with your sentiments, I'm just a realist.

Look at accounting software for web providers. How much of it is designed and maintained by accountants or other experts in accounting? Why should I invite the software accounting vendor to be my silent partner....does he share my risks? Can he appear before the IRS in my behalf. Does his way of doing things force me to pay more money to my CPA cause it's not proper accounting

But, folks insist they need online accounting....and I wonder, do they really need it? Are we computer types guilty of using technology for technology's sake?

You could start a non-profit, say the Society for Fair Spam Protection. and then designate that the 50 bucks goes to that charity

If it were me. I'd ask my provider to give me clean IPs...and while they are doing that I'd find another one that will.

Good Luck!

 

[nobaloney]

That's were your theory of it being a good idea falls apart. My server is NO LONGER sending spam. We corrected the issue immediately after being notified.

So tell me, why the hell do I have to give any one $50 when my server is no longer the problem.

You don't. SORBS is a private group, doing what they're legally allowed to do, because they believe it helps with the SPAM situation. Sure there are automatic lists, for example SPAMCOP. And people complain about them, too.

You have several other options:

1) Live with it.

2) Find the spam newsgroups/lists where they read, and post there your rationale and why you don't want to send money to a charity. They've been known to read those posts and react.

4) Write the postmaster of every server using SORBS who blocks you and ask to be unblocked. Some (perhaps most) will. We do.

5) Sue them. They're in Australia. Many people have tried to sue them. No one has one because all they're doing is publishing a list according to specifications they publish and it's up to individual postmaster to use that list or not.

6) Sue those individual postmasters. I don't know if this has been tried or not.

Technically you're right....but since lots of people use SORBS, you're stuck..unless you want to sue them for loss of revenue, etc.

I suppose that's possible; as I wrote above, no one has been successful yet. And you won't get anything if you win, except perhaps satisfactions; they're in Australia because Australian law works for them.

The other alternative would be to explain in non-emotional terms what happened and how you corrected it...and email that yo everyone who blocks you via SORBS, asking them to whitelist you.

Or explain on the lists/newsgroups SORBS frequents, and explain there. They do read, and sometimes they do respond. They can be quite reasonable; don't forget they're users too, and their servers can get blocked by other lists, so they understand the issues and the difficulties.

This is a lot like the red-light cameras...they know they got you....you know they got you. so you and they both know that sooner or later you'll pay to play.

Those I fight, if I know I'm right. But only because there's only one place to have to go to resolve the issue.

SORBS generally isn't about punishing you for the acts of your provider, unless your provider is a known spammer, in which case they'll presume you're a spammer as well.

Follow my suggestions above on how to contact them if you don't want to ask your provider for new IP#s.

I don't know where you are or where your provider operates, but in the U.S. there's the fit for use doctrine. If your provider gave you IP#s which you can't use because they're blocked and they won't give you new ones it should be simple to get out of your contract, if any.

Now that specific responses to specific posts are out of the way...

Since 04:08 (PST) on June 17, six days and almost ten hours ago, SORBS has rejected 3,486 emails into our server. None of them were reported to us as false positives even though SpamBlocker lets every blocked server know why the email is being refused, and the RFCs require that the notification be sent back to the end user.

For me that's too good a record to stop using them.

Your mileage may of course vary, and you can stop using them.

I've moved this thread to the E-Mail forum, though I'm not sure it shouldn't be considered offtopic, because it's really not about anything either technical or DA related except that the DA exim.conf file lists it by default.

I've already explained that I'm going to leave the current blocklist in my published SpamBlocker exim.conf file. You can of course manually remove it or comment it out, or even petition DirectAdmin to take SORBS out of the file they distribute, or even to stop using my file or to rewrite it.

That's certainly something to consider.

But if the thread continues to be a bash-SORBS thread, then there's really no reason to keep it open.