Journal Sloppy's Journal: Thrust into the Spam Wars 4
A few years ago, I bought a mailbox at spamcop.net, and I have a couple of domains registered with gandi.net.
Spamcop provides an IMAP server (and web access to the mailbox too, if you want), spam filtering, and automated spam reporting tools.
Gandi is a DNS registrar (with a nice low rate and good terms of service -- I recommend them), but also provides a few network services as well. One of the services they provide, is that they can host a domain and have the MX record point to themselves, and then forward any mail sent to that domain, to another address. If you have a domain that you use for email only, and don't want to bother setting up a server for it, it's convenient. In my case, I used that service and had it forward mail to my spamcop mailbox.
(See where this is going, yet? You do, don't you. Yes, the audience has the luxury of that omniscient point of view, where two trains are on the same track, going in opposite directions. The camera cuts to one, then the other, each showing a contented train engineer, blissfully unaware of what is about to unfold.)
Sometimes spam gets through Spamcop's filters, and I report it. It's just a few mouseclicks in the web browser, the details totally automated. Clicky clicky, and abuse@somewhere is told about spammer@somewhere. There have never been any nasty consequences (at least for me). Until today.
Somehow, Gandi itself (who does not run an open relay, but does provide the forwarding service) got identified by Spamcop's software, as being complicit in the spamming. And I didn't notice or follow up on who my automated complaint was about to hit. It was so routine.
Then Gandi.net got added to bl.spamcop.net. Then Gandi notified me that they were cutting off my forwarding service, so that I would no longer receive spam from them and complain about them.
Oops. My bad.
After a bit of explanation, apologizing, and grovelling, I just got Gandi to restore my mail forwarding, and I haven't heard back from Spamcop yet about getting them removed.
Anyway, I feel like a particularly wussy nerd, since I happen to also run a virtual machine at linode.com, so why don't I just run my own SMTP and IMAP servers for those domains too, instead of using Gandi and Spamcop's servers? Duh. Brushing up on my postfix config file lore...
Of course, running my own SMTP server will probably get me even MORE personally involved in the Spam Wars. Hey, isn't that why I signed up for Spamcop in the first place, so that someone would just do stuff for me? Oh well.
for me (Score:2)
The only downside is that I still download all the spam, which is routed to a junk folder and colored red. I may just run postfix and spamassassin on one of our work servers and have all my accounts route to that.
Own server... (Score:1)
Of course, running my own SMTP server will probably get me even MORE personally involved in the Spam Wars.
Yes, you will... You will notice that people block people that run mailservers from DSL lines are considered to be spammers. We should send everything over our ISP's server. Of course that means limited attachment sizes, etc... I won't open that can of worms. I'm both pissed at spammers for sending spam (which I do not get that much, even if you'd think th
Getting more personally involved... (Score:2)
Yes, you'll wind up reporting yourself to your own ISP's abuse department. Be VERY careful that your forward and reverse DNS match the hostname your SMTP server announces itself as when you connect to it (at least with Sendmail, this is the same hostname it sticks in Received headers, which is what SpamCop looks at). If SpamCop sees ANYTHING suspicious, it will add the IP of your mail server to the
Re: (Score:2)