3Essentials discontinues usage of SORBS for spam filtering |
Article ID: 1418 |
 Back to Search
|
12/9/2010: 3Essentials is discontinuing usage of SORBS as a blacklist service for their enterprise spam filtering.
Over the past two weeks we have received a number of contacts from our customers that email from legitimate sources was being rejected due to being on SORBS DUL/DUHL blacklist. The intention of this blacklist, one of several SORBS lists, is to list IP addresses and ranges that are specified by the IP owner as a dynamically assigned IP address, and therefore not suitable for usage for an internet SMTP/mail relay server. It was this unique and original purpose that made SORBS blacklists a valuable asset in the fight against spam. However, it appears the SORBS list is either experiencing a significant technical issue which is not being addressed by it's owners/management in an appropriate time frame, or they have changed the parameters by which they are managing the list in a fashion that we deem no longer of value to our spam filtering services.
Upon our investigation, we found the following:
- statistically significant increase in the number of IPs SORBS is now reporting as being on one or more of their blacklists over the past 30 days when compared to previous 12 months history.
- increase in the number of false-positive contacts received by 3Essentials regarding emails blacklisted by SORBS DUL/DUHL listings.
- slow or no response to delisting, false-positive, and general inquiry contacts submitted to SORBS. When maintaining a blacklist service, responsible management of the service dictates a timely response to delisting and false-positive inquiries. This doesn't appear to be occurring presently at SORBS.
- significant "internet chatter" regarding identical observations from other internet service providers and mail administrators, the following is a sample:
As a result, as of 12/9/2010, 11:45am EST, we've removed SORBS as a blacklisting service we check as part of our spam filtering services. |
| |
| Downloads Associated With This Article |
| No downloads are currently associated with this article. |
KB
