SORBS

By reuben, 26 November, 2005

Having found out on about some mails to Optus which were bouncing, I discovered that my system had been added to the SORBS Dynamic User and Host List (SORBS DUHL) along with 126 other hosts on my ISP.

Attempts to get off this f**king database list were slow and painful. I submitted a support request on Saturday 19th November to the SORBS website, heard nothing back by Tuesday 22nd, then got in touch with my ISP and got them to increase the zone file TTL, and then requested delisting via the automated web form (which previously would not delist me only because my ISP had a TTL of 1440s on the reverse DNS zonefile - yes it's low but clearly not used for dynamic DNS).

Fortunately my automatic delisting attempt worked and I was soon listed as an exception in the address range. Today (Friday) SORBS support got off their arses and responded, saying I was about to be added to an exception list. Except I had already done the work and got of it myself (they obviously didn't notice). 6 days turnaround for something that wasn't even my fault!!! I am unfortunately left with a bad feeling about SORBS.

I think it's good they are working to prevent spam and take action. But overall I hope they go take a running jump. While I agree that it's not up to them what people use the list for (Optus are a bunch of tossers in that regard, SORBS should NEVER be used to block hosts like Optus are doing), I think that SORBS have a moral responsibility if they make a database list up, to keep it very up to date. Six days to respond to a delisting request is far too long.

I am usually quite a hardline anti-spammer, but I think SORBS is just a bit too hardline to use for anything other than perhaps, spamassassin tagging.

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