Spam Blackhole Lists Redux

tsu doh nimh writes "Are spam blackhole lists good, bad or indifferent? That appears to be the question they're tackling in this Washington Post story. It has some interesting back and forth between supporters of the lists and those who claim they condone censorship." J adds: Brad Templeton recently offered some comments on the most extreme pro-blacklist position.

You'd get better results...

[craenor]

By tossing spammers into blackholes...just a thought.

Re:You'd get better results...

[Zeebs]

By tossing spammers into blackholes...just a thought.

Now, what in gods name did blackholes ever do to you buddy!

What do you call...

[djupedal]

What do you call 100 spammers, chained together, and tossed into the ocean to drown?


A start...

No to blacklists! Yes to whitelists!

[axxackall]

Do you have a list of all women from Earth that you don't want to sleep with? I guess no. Instead, you have a list of all women from Earth you want to sleep with. Musch better as the second list must be much shorter than the first one :)

Same thing should be with email. No need to blacklist bad IPs (which might not belong permanently to a spammer) or email addresses (also very temporal). Instead, list all people you trust or all their features that make the being trusted by you. You can guess that I mean e-signatures, public keys and cross-trusted CA network.

P.S. if it's more appropriate, please use for the text above:

sed -e 's/women/men/g'

Re:What do you call...

[commodoresloat]

You're trapped in a room with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and a spammer. Thankfully, you're armed with a handgun. Unfortunately, you only have 2 bullets. What do you do?

Shoot the spammer twice.

Re:No to blacklists! Yes to whitelists!

[commodoresloat]

Do you have a list of all women from Earth that you don't want to sleep with? I guess no. Instead, you have a list of all women from Earth you want to sleep with. Musch better as the second list must be much shorter than the first one :)

Actually, I've known many guys for whom the first list would be shorter.

Re:You'd get better results...

[jazman_777]

By tossing spammers into blackholes...just a thought.

Or sending them to the center of the earth, in a big blob of iron. Good test case.

Re:You'd get better results...

[Zeebs]

Ok, so you covered spammers, now what about the blackholes?