MrPerfekt's Journal: Blacklists.. soon to be gone?

The past two days has seen two stories about email blacklist services falling to DoS. Is this method of denying unwanted email bound to go the way of the DoDo? Well, if history teaches us much, yes.

The biggest targets of DoS has mostly been IRC services. Why? Well, because the people behind the packets easily feel wronged. They get their feelings hurt and what not and all of a sudden, the world owes them one. So to settle the score, they unleash, through illegitimate means, a fury of packets. IRC has gotten the brunt of this because well, when you're talking to someone in such and intimate and realtime manner as in IRC, it's easy to offend someone.

Moving back to the topic at hand, the blacklisted will always be offended. You are after all, by blacklisting somebody, telling them they did something wrong. Caught in the act. Guilty. I guess it was only a matter of time until somebody felt they weren't going to take it sitting down.

I don't feel this recent DoS situation is the work of spammers per se. Just a "wronged" net block admin seeking retribution.

Blacklisting's concept is arguably flawed anyway. Blacklisting entire /24's can take out alot of innocents and in some cases, they don't just stop at the /24. They can and sometimes do go much larger. The idea is to get the administrator of the larger block to put pressure on whomever is doing the spamming. But sometimes, no matter what you do, a spammer will get on your network and make you seem like you're not doing your job.

Obviously, in this situation, fast reaction is essential. However, it can quickly become too late. You're guilty! You let a spammer spam and a kitten will die. Getting off the blacklists is often a feat in itself and sometimes admins just choose to let it go and see if it will just go away.

It doesn't really work that way and customers begin to get angry that their email is not getting to where it has to go. That is when blacklists go bad. They're no longer a help but instead a hinderence. If the DoS'ing persists, blacklists will go away. Will spam much worse than it already is? I doubt it. But it will be one less target for angry people with packets.