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Re: [Asrg] A New Plan for No Spam / DNSBLS

2003-04-27 10:08:04
In <3EAB7124(_dot_)8040401(_at_)barberry(_dot_)com> Larry Marks 
<larry(_dot_)marks(_at_)barberry(_dot_)com> writes:

J C Lawrence wrote:

Yup, the accountability is precisely where it should be: all yours.  You
chose that ISP, you choose to remain with that ISP, and you thereby
elect to accept the service they provide, however defined.

JC,

I love your answer! It makes my point so clearly. I certainly didn't
choose the recipient's ISP, so you must be talking about my (the
sender's) ISP. My ISP's server got blocked, so they are doing
something to piss someone off somewhere.

[sad tale of how hard it would be to pick an ISP that will never be
blacklisted deleted ... ]

Well, finally, we've reached the bottom line:

If you have anything important to do, don't do it on the Internet.

That's what you wanted, isn't it?


Yes, this sux.  There is no way to guarantee that your email will get
through.  A few things to remember though:

1) It is spammers who have brought us to this situation. 

2) If no one had done anything to try and stop spammers, our inboxes
   would be totally swamped with spam by now and email would be
   useless instead of "merely" unreliable.

3) Just about everything you can do to reduce spam also has negative
   consequences.  Your tale of woe about how hard you would have to
   work to make sure your email goes through because of blacklists can
   easily be rephrased into a tale of woe about how hard it is to make
   sure you have the right e-stamp, how you better not mention your
   wife's breast cancer if you don't want some filters to /dev/null
   your post, etc.


In the case you outlined with DNSBLs, I would suggest getting a backup
email address so that if your ISP is blocked by ISP you are trying to
send to, you can still get through.  Then, both you and the person you
are trying to email can complain to the ISPs about the blocking.  It
may not do any good, but ISPs are much more willing to listen to their
customers than to other people.

If you find that your primary ISP's email is not reliable enough,
either due to flaky hardware/software, or being blocked by DNSBLs, you
can then move to your backup email address.


-wayne

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