Posted on by Olav Vitters

DSBL is not bad

Quoting from http://dsbl.org/faq:

  • list.dsbl.org single-stage relays tested by trusted testers
  • multihop.dsbl.org the outputs of multihop relays, tested by trusted testers
  • unconfirmed.dsbl.org everything else, including tests done by anonymous testers; people could potentially sign up their own ISP’s mail server to this list

After that it says the following:

Note that the multihop and unconfirmed lists are very aggressive and have the potential for a high level of false positives.

GNOME uses list.dsbl.org among others. Gmail is only listed by unconfirmed and multihop.

5 Replies to “DSBL is not bad”

  2. Sorry, but by its actions, DSBL has shown that it is bad.

    DSBL is used by Telstra Bigpond, Australia’s largest ISP, and for several months a high percentage of emails from Gmail accounts to Bigpond have been getting rejected – thanks to an absurd DSBL rule.

    To me, this smacks of political games.

    I don’t trust DSBL.

  4. You’re right in that I was too hasty in linking DSBL and Telstra Bigpond as based on various threads here >
    http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=707403&p=1
    Telstra may be using mail-abuse and not DSBL.

    However, clearly there are some problems for Gmail due to DSBL rules>
    http://tieguy.org/blog/2007/04/09/note-to-anyone-who-runs-their-own-mail-server/

    I am so absolutely frustrated in having my Gmail emails rejected due to some Blacklist that suddenly kicks in that I have to agree with the various comments at luis’ blog that the RBL solution is not really a solution since it is so easy to abuse it. Any security solution that introduces its own gaping security hole is fatally flawed and should be discarded.

  5. You seem to blame RBL in general because sometimes they are used incorrectly (e.g. unconfirmed.dsbl.org or spamcop for blocking instead of tagging). That is just the way it is. Further, RBL is not a security solution. It is a way to block mailservers from sending mail to you because they likely will send spam to you or are for another reason unwanted. No RBL guarantees there will not be any false positives. Some RBL lists have as purpose to block valid mail to pressure the sender (e.g. make an ISP remove spammers). It is up to the individual sysadmins of the various mailservers to decide what they find acceptable.

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