latest/best RBL lists

[Martin Randall <ma...@saintleo.edu>]

Hello.

As this can change quite a lot, and some RBL's can be pretty draconian, and 
therefore best avoided, what are people's preference for RBL lookups at the 
moment.

I currently use :-

sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
relays.ordb.org
bl.spamcop.net
opm.blitzed.org
cbl.abuseat.org
dnsbl.njabl.org
dnsbl.sorbs.net
query.bondedsender.org

Regards...Martin

Re: latest/best RBL lists

[Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>]

On Monday, February 21, 2005, 8:38:56 AM, Martin Randall wrote:

> As this can change quite a lot, and some RBL's can be pretty draconian, and 
> therefore best avoided, what are people's preference for RBL lookups at the 
> moment.

> I currently use :-

> sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
> relays.ordb.org
> bl.spamcop.net
> opm.blitzed.org
> cbl.abuseat.org
> dnsbl.njabl.org
> dnsbl.sorbs.net
> query.bondedsender.org

> Regards...Martin

Presumably you mean to say that you're using these at the MTA
level.  It really depends on the setting (school, ISP, business,
home, etc.), but the only one I generally recommend is
sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org. 

The only other one that catches significant spam for me is
relays.ordb.org, but it catches much less than sbl-xbl.

The Spamcop BL is probably fine for home or hobbyist use at
the MTA level, but it's probably too inclusive for use by an ISP,
for example.  Barring exclusions by SpamCop any sender that any
SpamCop user reports gets listed.  That's counting a bit too much
on SpamCop users not making mistakes in their submissions.

BTW you don't need to use cbl.abuseat.org separately since it's
included in xbl.spamhaus.org, which in turn is included in
sbl-xbl.

RBLs are also used in some SpamAssassin rules to build up scores.
That's arguably a better use for most of the RBLs, some of which
have pretty high false positive rates.   In SpamAssassin they're
typically not used to block outright, but to increase the scores
to indicate a degree of spammyness.  An advantage is that false
positives on any particular list can contribute less to blocking
a ham (a wanted message).

Jeff C.
-- 
Jeff Chan
mailto:jeffc@surbl.org
http://www.surbl.org/

Re: latest/best RBL lists

[Niek <ni...@packetstorm.nu>]

On 2/21/2005 5:38 PM +0100, Martin Randall wrote:
> I currently use :-
> 
> sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
> relays.ordb.org
> bl.spamcop.net
> opm.blitzed.org
> cbl.abuseat.org
> dnsbl.njabl.org
> dnsbl.sorbs.net
> query.bondedsender.org

sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org contains cbl.abuseat.org
so no need to do that extra lookup

Niek
--