Paul Graham Describes Dangers of Spam Blacklists

CRoby writes "Paul Graham posted an essay describing the danger and corruption of the main spammer blacklists today. It discusses MAPS and the SBL, the blacklist created to try to alleviate the abuses of MAPS, and suggests (maybe) another blacklist's creation."

$article_title by $blowhard

[Neil Blender]

$idea will not help cut down on spam. In fact, it is detrimental. This has been know for $num_years years, but I feel I must prove that I am really smart by writing an article about it.

Re:In soviet russia

[TeacherOfHeroes]

In Soviet Russia; old, tired, worn-out joke tells you

Oblig. Simpsons Reference

[Mr.Progressive]

Blacklists have a structural flaw: there is no one to watch the watchers.

Lisa: If you're the police, who will police the police?
Homer: I 'unno, Coast Guard?

Stopping spam is easy.

[jellomizer]

Just block the sub net 0.0.0.0

Re:OK, I'll go first: how is this legal?!

[Otter]

1) They're based in the UK.

That makes a defamation / slander / libel suit much easier, not harder.

Private blocklists.

[Pig Hogger]

There are many, many private blocklists that are not advertised anywhere.

Here is my very own private /etc/mail/access blocklist which I use on my own mail server:

#
12.217.112 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
12.217.113 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
12.217.114 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
12.217.115 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
12.217.116 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
12.217.117 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
12.217.118 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
12.217.119 550 Mediacom. Heh. What a fucking spamming cesspool. So why not eat shit and die???
24 550 Comcast, when you'll have cleaned your zombies, you can knock here. Not before.
24.174 550 Chuck Jones must be spinning in his grave when he see he's associated with spam. Close port 25, fuckers.
59.0 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.10 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.1 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.11 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.12 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.13 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.14 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.15 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.16 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.17 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.18 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.19 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.2 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.20 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.21 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.22 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.23 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.24 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.25 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.26 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.27 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.28 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.29 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.3 550 It's not surprizing that a country split in two like Korea would have a totally fucked-up "internet".
59.30 5

P.S.

[That's Unpossible!]

"A much better way to cut down on spam is to use $technology_I_created."

Re:A few comments

[sjames]

For any serious stuff, don't accept an IP address which was blacklisted in the past few years (is there a service which checks this?) or is close to current blacklist entries, unless you're really really well known.

That would be hard to check (by the ISP as well), and is increasingly rare. It'll have to be outside of 0.0.0.0/0