Re:The False Positive/True Positive Ratio (Score 1)

This is interesting because it brings up the different reasons one could use a service like MAPS.

The first goal (and the one I was addressing) is to correctly identify the IP addressess from which spam originates. Clearly, MAPS did a miserable job in this case. Even with the possibiility that someone with a large number of IPs in the block could have been reassigning them to spammers (the observed behaviour that you mention), there is still no way my IP or the original poster's IP could have ever become spam sources. We had the rights to our IPs and were not using them for spam. Thus, even if they were trying to take action based on historical patterns of spammer/ISP relationships, they apparently vastly overshot the mark and failed to select appropriate IPs for blacklisting. (Aside: the True Positive Fraction/False Positive Fraction is one of the standard numbers used by both the military and medical communities to evaluate the usefulness of a test. It's a good standard for measuring spam blocking as well.)

The second goal (and the one I believe you are addressing) is an activist role. In this case the internet community agrees, by following the MAPS blacklist, to take direct action against certain companies with the aim of damaging them financially. This is a political tactic with a long history in different communities and locations and one that should be evaluated carefully (e.g., is this the best tactic? is MAPS the best group to be following blindly?). I certainly don't have the answer.

My concluding point is that a lot of people suggest using organizations like MAPS because they are effective at identifying sources of spam. Clearly this is not the case. Alternately, people who want to use their email servers to particiapte in political action against spammers and their associates may find MAPS useful. As long as we keep our goals straight, then I totally with your argument (being an admin dealing with the spam headache as well).