SORBS Blocklist Reportedly Sold For $451K

palegray.net writes "SORBS, a well-known email blocklist provider, has reportedly been sold for $451k. Early reports indicate an acquisition by GFI, a company specializing in various communications services. In recent years, SORBS has been the target of frequent accusations of mismanagement and poor conduct, leading many to wonder if this turn in events might signal a chance for improved behavior. Citing lack of ISP support, the blocklist released statements earlier this year that they would be shuttering their operation."

Re:has it

[doon]

Well sorbs (like most DNSBL's) is based on IP address, so generally speaking the users's email address isn't passed over the wire (in terms of BL usage).

Re:Too bad

[gmuslera]

Bad rap? Like putting in blacklist entire ISPs because a single customer had a trojan? Or whole hosting companies (a /19 range) because one client from a single IP got an intrusion? A lot simply stopped trying to get delisted by them, and not sure how much people trust in what they say anyway, just too much false positives and no easy/fast way to get out.

Re:Shutting down

[amorsen]

not the opposite that happened with others blacklists in the past.

In the one instance that comes to my mind, they answered NOT blacklisted for more than a year after disabling the service. Still the queries came flooding in. In the end the choice was between abandoning the domain (and pushing all that load to the .com or whichever name servers) or answering blacklisted to make people wake up.

Re:I did not like my interaction with SORBS

[palegray.net]

Wow. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about; do you even work in any sector remotely associated with large-scale network operations? How about this: I'll issue you a new netblock that's blocked via the SORBS DUHL (dial-up host list), even though the range isn't dynamically allocated at all. You'll try to get it removed from the list, at which point you'll be informed that you need to set your reverse DNS to something they find acceptable to even be considered for removal. You'll probably try to get ahold of a real person to explain the situation to; that will fail.

Meanwhile, several hundred brain-dead mail administrators, responsible for the delivery of email of tens of thousands of people, are happily using SORBS to block mail based on false assertions that your IP space is dynamically allocated. There's the one-two punch that pretty much guarantees you'll have mail delivery problems. If you're a business, that's a big deal; you could easily find yourself (as many have) unable to send email to partners, suppliers, and customers due to negligence beyond your control.

This isn't about being listed for a few days. It's about doing absolutely nothing wrong in the first place, having SORBS make provably false statements about the usage of entire netblocks, and then sitting by helplessly while SORBS refuses to address the situation, causing real damages to your business for months. I've got news for you: the Internet is bigger than "your ISP", and it's generally considered a bad practice to rely on another organization's SMTP service for your email unless they're an operation specifically geared toward doing so as their primary business model.

Next time you decide to post on a topic, please be certain you're well educated on the subject matter first.

Re:Too bad

[Guspaz]

Or how about listing entire netblocks because the RDNS of an IP "looks" dynamic?

I'm serious, they've blocked huge swathes of Linode (a virtual server provider) because Linode's default RDNS format (li12-345.members.linode.com) looks dynamic as if such a thing exists.

Linode's attempts to get the netblocks delisted was met with silence; SORBS simply ignores anybody who tries to get delisted.