RBLs settings?

woodp

woodp

New Member
More than one email to me from a Yahoo or Comcast customer has bounced with a SMTP 550 code and spamcop being the culprit.
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?76.96.27.243"
Click to expand...

Today I logged into WHM | Service Configuration | Exim Configuration Manager | Basic Editor | RBLs and found that both bl.spamcop.net and zen.spamhaus.org were enabled even though the default is "disabled." I've disabled them both.

Just curious what others are doing. In general, I like what RBLs are doing, but spamcop is just a bit too aggressive for my taste. Other thoughts?
 
@woodp
It's our stock settings for these two RBLs to be enabled. You'll get a ton of spam with them disabled, so I'd recommend the people send you email resolve the issue on their end with their ISP.

If you do wish to disable them, we can certainly do this for you in a support ticket, or you can via WHM.
 
Jonathan,

I did disable the RBLs (or at least I think I did), and while I understand it's a problem with the sender's SMTP server, it's almost impossible to communicate that to them:
  • The error message they receive says "Delivery failed." If the error message said "Sending failed" they might be more responsive to their problem, but to any non-technical person, "delivery failure" is a receiver problem, not a sending problem.
  • "Yours is the *only* email address I have this problem with!"
  • "I don't know who to contact at Yahoo/Comcast! If you know so much, tell me who to contact. And did I mention you're the *only* one?"
Let me see how bad the spam gets. For now I'm tired of trying to explain RBLs to people who *know* the problem is really at the receiving end ... <sigh>
 
Well, it's been a couple weeks without spamcop and spamhaus doing their thing. The good news is customers stopped complaining about me blocking their email. <sigh> The less-than-good news is my spam count has almost doubled. I tend to run ~100 spam emails a day but during this test I'm closer to ~200.

Other than getting my money's worth from Cloudmark's Desktop One program, am I hurting anything?
 
Hi woodp,

You could just take Spamcop out and leave Spamhaus. Could even add some others back in to try to pick up the slack.

Here are some others:
cbl.abuseat.org
bl.mailspike.net
ix.dnsbl.manitu.net
dnsbl-1.uceprotect.net
psbl.surriel.com
dnsrbl.swinog.ch
bl.spameatingmonkey.net
dnsbl.sorbs.net

None of this addresses the fact that people's IP numbers are listed on a black list which is something that their ISP should be addressing. Which, by the way, I just looked up the IP in your original post on Spamcop and it was no longer listed ;)
 
I just looked up the IP in your original post on Spamcop and it was no longer listed ;)
Click to expand...

Right, that was three plus weeks ago - My experience with both Yahoo and Comcast is that they resolve these regular disagreements with Spamcop in 48 hours or less.

Here's the issue - Comcast and Yahoo are doing something that Spamcop deems inappropriate, but instead of acting like adults and working on the problem together, Spamcop goes nuclear on Comcast and Yahoo and turns their users into pawns who complain to ... you guessed it ... me!

Spamcop may be doing a service, but they're doing it vigilante style and without regards to unintended consequences. Unless I'm hurting something at KH, turning off Spamcop is a much better solution than continuing to have upset customers.

--

This thread started with me asking other KH users what they're doing about Spamcop's aggressiveness and so far no one has responded. Does that mean everyone else thinks Spamcop is doing a magnificent job?
 
You're not hurting anything at KH. It's your server. If a list is too aggressive for you don't use it.

No one else may be using it either lol
 
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