zombie anti-spammers? fabulous

[rone]

Dear dr_strych9: please supplement my arguments against real-time blackhole lists with this delightful story about a blackhole list that came back to life fifteen months after its death and caused all its subscribers' incoming mail to bounce.

Comments

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

That list has been dead for fifteen months, and anybody who still has it configured on their mailserver is simply not paying attention.

If you're going to delegate the decision of whether or not you should accept mail to a third party, you might want to make some kind of check every once in a while to make sure that they're still doing it, huh?

Don't get me wrong: I think it's an asshole thing that the ORDB guy did, but after fifteen months of no hits, anybody still asking him for answers deserves at least some of the pain they got from it.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The point is that when you delegate your ability to accept email to a third party, one with whom you have no actual contract, anything unpleasant can happen when you least expect it. It doesn't have to be after 15 months of dormancy.

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

Would it be better if I bought the service agreement with the DNSBL I'm using, which so far seems not to be too bad?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yes, better.