[PLUG] Blacklisted, what does it mean to be open relay...

Michael Robinson michael at robinson-west.com
Sat Apr 19 17:30:02 UTC 2003


> That's a really weird deal, they must be super-aggressive. How do you know
> you're being blocked? What kind of information do they give you? Do they
> have a FAQ? How does this prevent your sister from doing whatever?
>
> Start at http://relays.osirusoft.com/ for more information on testing open
> relays, and finding out who is blocking you. But the best thing is
> information specific to whoever is blocking you. I didn't find your IP
> listed anywhere.

They told me to add a rcpthosts file to my qmail server or run a patch
to only allow relaying for valid pop3 or imap users.  I think rcpthosts 
controls the domain allowed for sender or receiver of email where
all other email is dropped.  They gave me an email that said to go
to a website and recheck.  Maybe I got off the blacklist, it's a list
that is evidently updated within minutes or hours of correcting
the problem according to the faq on the web site I was referred
to.

I was sent a message like this:

This mail has been requested by 209.210.202.170.
To retest 209.210.202.170 please visit the following link(s):

http://relaytest.kundenserver.de/retest.php?id=17749489&lc=6daf6437768115aa

You don't need to reply to this mail to retest 209.210.202.170,
just visit the links above.

where the link above only works once.  I know I was being blocked because 
qmail was informing me that it couldn't send my sister's emails and I was 
being sent information about being blacklisted, the message above.

According to their faq they don't mind breaking NOKIA cell phones that are
too old to support some kind of improved smtp.  This whole anti smtp servers
that allow other sites to relay email through them policy doesn't make much 
sense to me.  Who's to stop spammers from forging their from address or 
doing other things to cause mail to go either directly or indirectly where 
they want it to go?  I've had a lot of people send email to my domain to 
an invalid user account and I know these aren't people I'm familiar with 
where the from address is an invalid yahoo account.  It's hard to see how
to stop the spam I get because the from is always changing and it would
be extreme to block all of yahoo.com.  Specifically the spam aimed at me
gets to me because of double bounce where qmail can't bounce a 
message properly sending it to the admin instead.  With forging possible
I don't see how going after open relays helps.  I guess the only reason
so many sites don't like open relays is that open relays can't be held
responsible for spam since it may be difficult to track the source.

     --  Michael C. Robinson




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