OT: Just say no (to RBL)

While spam is on the rise, some people resort to battlefield thermonuclear weapons to solve the issue, not caring about the grave damage they do to legitimate users.

Specifically RBLs. RBLs are an old technology. The idea is that you don’t filter content, you block the source. This way you don’t ever have to deal with content you aren’t interested in. They blocking subnets. Things were good. Until someone noticed that legitimate users, who had the IPs in those subnets were being banned. The people doing the blocking didn’t care. Their argument was that legitimate users shouldn’t be patronizing outfits that allowed spammers to operate. I won’t go into much more of this, other than to say that if you are still using this old technology, you are likely hurting legitimate users. In the day and age of grey-listing and advanced tools to reject mail based upon content rather than destination, if you are still using this, you need to come into the current millenium in terms of technology. Worldnet are the latest offenders. This is what we got back from them from a recent email. 550-x.y.z.t blocked by ldap:ou=rblmx,dc=worldnet,dc=att,dc=net 550 Blocked for abuse. Too bad we aren’t an abuser, or this would make sense. Because of Worldnet’s policies and technology decisions, we cannot legitimately send email to a business contact. If you use technology, use it wisely. RBLs are not an example of wise use of technology. The last ISP that caused us pain like this, we helped the customer experiencing this find an ISP with a clue. That customer thanked us as it turns out that some of the collateral damage was to some of their largest customers. Just say no to RBLs, and please, don’t patronize any company that wastes your money by using them.