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Posted to users@spamassassin.apache.org by Simon Byrnand <si...@igrin.co.nz> on 2004/06/10 04:14:17 UTC

Flooded by spam in German

Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in 
German ?

So far I've been unable to get SpamAssassin to block it, despite manual 
Bayes training. One of the spams had a link going to this page:

http://www.deutschland-bewegung.de/weiter/zuwanderung.html

Which when translated looks like some kind of "political" movement of some 
sort... :/

Unfortunately 99% of the spams are just plain text with no URL's and little 
or no dodgy headers, so extremely hard to block.

Anyone else having better luck ?

Regards,
Simon


Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Tim Wesemann <ti...@voicenet.com>.
> Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
> German ?

I got about 10 similar emails tonight (several with the same exact link,
others with the subject line "Medienzensur")... They originally scored
around 1...

I've been training my bayes db's and the last one scored a 7.9, mainly b/c
of bayes and RAZOR2_CHECK.

--
Tim Wesemann



Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Stephan Paukner <pa...@paukner.cc>.
Hi!

Simon Byrnand wrote:
> Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
> German ?
>
> So far I've been unable to get SpamAssassin to block it, despite manual
> Bayes training. One of the spams had a link going to this page:
>
> http://www.deutschland-bewegung.de/weiter/zuwanderung.html
>
> Which when translated looks like some kind of "political" movement of some
> sort... :/
>
> Unfortunately 99% of the spams are just plain text with no URL's and
> little
> or no dodgy headers, so extremely hard to block.
>
> Anyone else having better luck ?

This doesn't seem to be real spam, but a result of the mailworm Sober.G,
which changed behaviour yesterday, as some news sites explained. It
doesn't behave like a worm anymore, but simply sends out plain text
e-mails which contain anti-foreigner texts, referring to Germany only.

Regards
-- 
Stephan Paukner <pa...@paukner.cc>
GnuPG public key ID: 0xAC6B7700
Jabber ID: paux@cargal.org

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Dirk Bonengel <di...@bonengel.de>.
Yep, the site belongs to some rightist Movement agitating against the 
upcoming german imigration law.
Any Germans round here that received similar mails? According to

http://www.recht-im-internet.de/themen/spam/rechtslage.htm

this should be easy to take legal action against the person responsible.

Dirk Bonengel

John Fawcett wrote:

>From: "Simon Byrnand"
>  
>
>>Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
>>German ?
>>
>>So far I've been unable to get SpamAssassin to block it, despite manual
>>Bayes training. One of the spams had a link going to this page:
>>
>>http://www.deutschland-bewegung.de/weiter/zuwanderung.html
>>
>>Which when translated looks like some kind of "political" movement of some
>>sort... :/
>>
>>Unfortunately 99% of the spams are just plain text with no URL's and
>>    
>>
>little
>  
>
>>or no dodgy headers, so extremely hard to block.
>>
>>Anyone else having better luck ?
>>
>>Regards,
>>Simon
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, I'm getting hits on things like this:
>NO_REAL_NAME, PRIORITY_NO_NAME, RCVD_IN_CBL, RCVD_IN_SBL
>or  RCVD_IN_SORBS
>
>John
>
>  
>


Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Matthias Fuhrmann <Ma...@stud.uni-hannover.de>.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Matthias Fuhrmann wrote:

[...]
> in a related forum somone wrote a sa rule, capturing those subject,
> spammers are using - needs some linebreaks, or maybe done as a
> meta rule - bit too long for my taste :)
>

here is my ruleset (based one the article above). its working fine,
german shouldnt set the score too high. so you prevent poisening bayes.
(watch those linebreaks too):

# http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/48135
# political german spam

header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_01       Subject =~ /^Bankrott desGesundheitswesens durch Auslaender/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_01     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_02       Subject =~ /^Wer an ein Tabu ruehrt, muss und darf vernichtet werden/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_02     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_03       Subject =~ /^EU Beitritt der Tuerkei/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_03     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_04       Subject =~ /^Bin ich zu weltfremd? Ich glaube wohl kaum/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_04     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_05       Subject =~ /^Die Deform der sozialen Ordnung/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_05     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_06       Subject =~ /^Augen auf\! \(So sieht es aus\!\)/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_06     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_07       Subject =~ /^Paradies Bundesrepublik - Rente fuer die Welt/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_07     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_08       Subject =~ /^Libanesen in Berlin/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_08     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_09       Subject =~ /^Garather klagen ueber eskalierende Gewalt im Stadtteil/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_09     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_10       Subject =~ /^Auslaender erschleichen sich zunehmend Sozialleistungen/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_10     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_11       Subject =~ /^Auslaenderkriminalitaet steigt weiter/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_11     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_12       Subject =~ /^Das kann unmoeglich sein -Leserbrief/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_12     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_13       Subject =~ /^Nein zum Zuwanderungsgesetz/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_13     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_14       Subject =~ /^Skandalurteil in Darmstadt/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_14     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_15       Subject =~ /^Auf Kosten der deutschen Beitragszahler und Rentner/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_15     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_16       Subject =~ /^Wir haben die Auslaender doch geholt/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_16     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_17       Subject =~ /^TUERKEN-TERROR AM HIMMELFAHRTSTAG/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_17     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_18       Subject =~ /^MULTI-KULTI-BANDE TYRANNISIERTE MITSCHUELER/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_18     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_19       Subject =~ /^ASYLANTEN BEGRABSCHTEN DEUTSCHES MAEDCHEN/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_19     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_20       Subject =~ /^Was Deutschland braucht, sind deutsche Kinder/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_20     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_21       Subject =~ /^Diplomatische Zensur/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_21     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_22       Subject =~ /^EU gibt Erwerbslosen volle Freizuegigkeit/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_22     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_23       Subject =~ /^Richter unterstuetzt kriminelle Auslaenderin/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_23     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_24       Subject =~ /^Auslaenderanteile in Schweizer Gefaengnissen/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_24     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_25       Subject =~ /^Neue Voelkerwanderung droht/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_25     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_26       Subject =~ /^Bankrott des Gesundheitswesens durch Auslaender/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_26     Subject line contains political ube
header          X_POLITICAL_SPAM_27       Subject =~ /^Das kann unmoeglich sein - Leserbrief/
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_27     Subject line contains political ube


meta            X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A1     (X_POLITICAL_SPAM_01 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_02 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_03 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_04)
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A1     Subject line contains political ube
score           X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A1     3

meta            X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A2     (X_POLITICAL_SPAM_05 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_06 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_07 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_08)
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A2     Subject line contains political ube
score           X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A2     3

meta            X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A3     (X_POLITICAL_SPAM_09 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_10 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_11 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_12)
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A3     Subject line contains political ube
score           X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A3     3

meta            X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A4     (X_POLITICAL_SPAM_13 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_14 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_15 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_16)
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A4     Subject line contains political ube
score           X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A4     3

meta            X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A5     (X_POLITICAL_SPAM_17 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_18 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_19 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_20)
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A5     Subject line contains political ube
score           X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A5     3

meta            X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A6     (X_POLITICAL_SPAM_21 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_22 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_23 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_24)
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A6     Subject line contains political ube
score           X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A6     3

meta            X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A7     (X_POLITICAL_SPAM_25 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_26 || X_POLITICAL_SPAM_27)
describe        X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A7     Subject line contains political ube
score           X_POLITICAL_SPAM_A7     3


regards,
Matthias

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Matthias Fuhrmann <Ma...@stud.uni-hannover.de>.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, John Fawcett wrote:

[...]
> >
> > John
> >
> I spoke too soon, now they're starting to break through. My guess is they're
> coming from
> exploited machines that haven't made it into blocking lists.

a german internet news site has an article about it:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/48135

they think those spam is comming from infected win machines (sober.g)
since this morning those infected machines sending out those political
spam.

in a related forum somone wrote a sa rule, capturing those subject,
spammers are using - needs some linebreaks, or maybe done as a
meta rule - bit too long for my taste :)

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/go.shtml?read=1&msg_id=5832449&forum_id=57381

regards,
Matthias

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by John Fawcett <jo...@michaweb.net>.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Fawcett" <jo...@michaweb.net>
To: <sp...@incubator.apache.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 8:44 AM
Subject: Re: Flooded by spam in German


> From: "Simon Byrnand"
> > Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
> > German ?
> >
> > So far I've been unable to get SpamAssassin to block it, despite manual
> > Bayes training. One of the spams had a link going to this page:
> >
> > http://www.deutschland-bewegung.de/weiter/zuwanderung.html
> >
> > Which when translated looks like some kind of "political" movement of
some
> > sort... :/
> >
> > Unfortunately 99% of the spams are just plain text with no URL's and
> little
> > or no dodgy headers, so extremely hard to block.
> >
> > Anyone else having better luck ?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Simon
> >
>
> Yes, I'm getting hits on things like this:
> NO_REAL_NAME, PRIORITY_NO_NAME, RCVD_IN_CBL, RCVD_IN_SBL
> or  RCVD_IN_SORBS
>
> John
>
I spoke too soon, now they're starting to break through. My guess is they're
coming from
exploited machines that haven't made it into blocking lists.

John


Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by John Fawcett <jo...@michaweb.net>.
From: "Simon Byrnand"
> Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
> German ?
>
> So far I've been unable to get SpamAssassin to block it, despite manual
> Bayes training. One of the spams had a link going to this page:
>
> http://www.deutschland-bewegung.de/weiter/zuwanderung.html
>
> Which when translated looks like some kind of "political" movement of some
> sort... :/
>
> Unfortunately 99% of the spams are just plain text with no URL's and
little
> or no dodgy headers, so extremely hard to block.
>
> Anyone else having better luck ?
>
> Regards,
> Simon
>

Yes, I'm getting hits on things like this:
NO_REAL_NAME, PRIORITY_NO_NAME, RCVD_IN_CBL, RCVD_IN_SBL
or  RCVD_IN_SORBS

John


Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Ralf Hildebrandt <Ra...@charite.de>.
* Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>:

> >> These kinds of things could also be Joe Jobs, i.e. try to get
> >> someone's site shut down by sending spam referring to it.
> 
> > Nope, since many differend German sender domains were used. E.g. ours.
> 
> But the spammers could simply be using captured zombies there.

Where "there"?

-- 
Ralf Hildebrandt (Im Auftrag des Referat V a)   Ralf.Hildebrandt@charite.de
Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin            Tel.  +49 (0)30-450 570-155
Gemeinsame Einrichtung von FU- und HU-Berlin    Fax.  +49 (0)30-450 570-916
IT-Zentrum Standort Campus Mitte                          AIM.  ralfpostfix

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>.
On Friday, June 11, 2004, 4:29:46 AM, Ralf Hildebrandt wrote:
> * Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>:

>> These kinds of things could also be Joe Jobs, i.e. try to get
>> someone's site shut down by sending spam referring to it.

> Nope, since many differend German sender domains were used. E.g. ours.

But the spammers could simply be using captured zombies there.

Jeff C.


Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Ralf Hildebrandt <Ra...@charite.de>.
* Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>:

> These kinds of things could also be Joe Jobs, i.e. try to get
> someone's site shut down by sending spam referring to it.

Nope, since many differend German sender domains were used. E.g. ours.

-- 
Ralf Hildebrandt (Im Auftrag des Referat V a)   Ralf.Hildebrandt@charite.de
Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin            Tel.  +49 (0)30-450 570-155
Gemeinsame Einrichtung von FU- und HU-Berlin    Fax.  +49 (0)30-450 570-916
IT-Zentrum Standort Campus Mitte                          AIM.  ralfpostfix

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>.
On Friday, June 11, 2004, 4:09:10 AM, John Hall wrote:
> "Simon Byrnand" <si...@igrin.co.nz> wrote in message

>> Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
>> German ?

> It's far right propaganda:

These kinds of things could also be Joe Jobs, i.e. try to
get someone's site shut down by sending spam referring
to it.

Jeff C.


Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Menno van Bennekom <mv...@xs4all.nl>.
Since these spams come from dialup/DSL's they can be blocked at the MTA
with the dynablock/dul lists. Only two times we had to whitelist somebody,
but they volunteered to sent mail through the smtp-server of their
provider so at the moment it works without exceptions.
I think because of that we didn't get that spam here, only the bounces
because our domain was used as reply-to :-((

Menno van Bennekom
ABZ

> * Stefan Hornburg <ra...@linuxia.de>:
>
>> * delivered from dialup/DSL accounts in Germany or Switzerland
>
> yes
>
>> * message-id contains qmail@
>
> yes
>
>> * user agent is Mail-SMTP
>> * missing To:-Header
>
> Never checked these two
>
> --
> Ralf Hildebrandt (Im Auftrag des Referat V a)
> Ralf.Hildebrandt@charite.de
> Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin            Tel.  +49 (0)30-450
> 570-155
> Gemeinsame Einrichtung von FU- und HU-Berlin    Fax.  +49 (0)30-450
> 570-916
> IT-Zentrum Standort Campus Mitte                          AIM.
> ralfpostfix
>


Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Ralf Hildebrandt <Ra...@charite.de>.
* Stefan Hornburg <ra...@linuxia.de>:

> * delivered from dialup/DSL accounts in Germany or Switzerland

yes

> * message-id contains qmail@

yes

> * user agent is Mail-SMTP 
> * missing To:-Header

Never checked these two

-- 
Ralf Hildebrandt (Im Auftrag des Referat V a)   Ralf.Hildebrandt@charite.de
Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin            Tel.  +49 (0)30-450 570-155
Gemeinsame Einrichtung von FU- und HU-Berlin    Fax.  +49 (0)30-450 570-916
IT-Zentrum Standort Campus Mitte                          AIM.  ralfpostfix

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Paolo Cravero as2594 <pc...@as2594.net>.
Stefan Hornburg wrote:

> They appear to have 4 things in common:
> 
> * delivered from dialup/DSL accounts in Germany or Switzerland

Spam towards Italian accounts (.it) comes from hijacked modems/routers 
in Italy. Weird!

> * message-id contains qmail@

Confirmed.

> * user agent is Mail-SMTP 

No all of samples have X-Mailer header

> * missing To:-Header

  To: is present in my samples.


What is annoying is... that Bayes doesn't seem to adapt to German 
language! Still hitting BAYES_00 after several trainings.

Paolo

-- 
QRPp-I #707  + www.paolocravero.tk +  I QRP #476
   Beacon @ 28.3219 MHz + QRPp + QRSS3 + JN35TC

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by Stefan Hornburg <ra...@linuxia.de>.
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 12:09:10 +0100
"John Hall" <jo...@cambridgetechgroup.com> wrote:

> "Simon Byrnand" <si...@igrin.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:6.0.3.0.1.20040610135932.03a37738@pop3.igrin.co.nz...
> 
> > Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
> > German ?
> 
> It's far right propaganda:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/11/german_hate_mail_virus/

They appear to have 4 things in common:

* delivered from dialup/DSL accounts in Germany or Switzerland
* message-id contains qmail@
* user agent is Mail-SMTP 
* missing To:-Header

Bye
	Racke


-- 
Upcoming Talks and Presentations:
Linuxtag 2004, 25. Juni: Courier Mail Server (http://www.linuxtag.org/)
Perlworkshop 2004, 30. Juni: Entwicklung großer Perlanwendungen 
am Beispiel von Interchange (http://www.perlworkshop.de/)

Re: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by John Hall <jo...@cambridgetechgroup.com>.
"Simon Byrnand" <si...@igrin.co.nz> wrote in message
news:6.0.3.0.1.20040610135932.03a37738@pop3.igrin.co.nz...

> Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
> German ?

It's far right propaganda:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/11/german_hate_mail_virus/

John




Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Nix <ni...@esperi.org.uk>.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, jdow@earthlink.net spake:
> Because there is a more time consuming but fun approach to the Chinese
> problem. If the address for a message source or relay point happens to
> fall in China (not Taiwan or Korean) you harvest the address and send
> back to that address an official looking invoice with a thank you for
> your order of 100,000 copies if the Feng Sui Handbook.
> 
> I have heard this is remarkably effective.

Not as effective as an email reading, in part,

`Thank you for offering to provide the Falun Gong with financial
 assistance...'

;}}}

-- 
`If you believe in strong AI, then death is no longer a mystery,
 but merely a lack of adequate backups.' --- Steven McDougall

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by jdow <jd...@earthlink.net>.
From: "John Andersen" <js...@pen.homeip.net>

> On Thursday 10 June 2004 07:26, Matt Kettler wrote:
> > It's not like there's one "blackholes.us" query that you use and it just
> > lists every IP. You query "verio.blackholes.us" and it tells you if the
IP
> > belongs to verio.
> >
> > It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.
>
> After stateing that so well, you ratteled on for another dozen paragraphs
> based on the premis that the OP suggested to use blackholes.us.
>
> He suggested china.blackholes.us.
> It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.

Because there is a more time consuming but fun approach to the Chinese
problem. If the address for a message source or relay point happens to
fall in China (not Taiwan or Korean) you harvest the address and send
back to that address an official looking invoice with a thank you for
your order of 100,000 copies if the Feng Sui Handbook.

I have heard this is remarkably effective.

{^_-}


Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Greg Kopp <gk...@gregkopp.com>.
And you sir, were under the impression that I was under the impression 
of making the impression ... oh whatever.

Not being the super-detailed person some would like us all to be, I was 
merely pointing out that blackholes.us lists ENTIRE IP address ranges 
and not ONLY those of known spammers.

I'm certain I wasn't clear and may have strayed too far from what I 
meant to impress upon the impressionable people on this very impressive 
list. :-)

Greg

Matt Kettler wrote:

> At 03:38 PM 6/10/2004, John Andersen wrote:
> 
>> > It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.
>>
>> After stateing that so well, you ratteled on for another dozen paragraphs
>> based on the premis that the OP suggested to use blackholes.us.
> 
> 
> No. I rattled on under the premise that Greg Kopp, who is not the OP, 
> but the person I replied to, was under the misunderstanding that by 
> using blackholes.us, you'd wind up blocking whole ISPs at the whim of 
> the blackholes.us maintainer.
> 
> 
>> He suggested china.blackholes.us.
>> It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.
> 
> 
> I'm aware that's what the OP suggested, but that was not the context of 
> the message I replied to. I suppose it was confusing to you because you 
> didn't read the bits I was quoting from Greg closely enough, such as 
> this piece
> 
> ">The maintainer has been known to arbitrarily list every single IP 
> address belonging to some major ISPs because of past abuses."
> 
> Which is the primary point raised by Greg I was responding to.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Matt Kettler <mk...@evi-inc.com>.
At 03:38 PM 6/10/2004, John Andersen wrote:
> > It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.
>
>After stateing that so well, you ratteled on for another dozen paragraphs
>based on the premis that the OP suggested to use blackholes.us.

No. I rattled on under the premise that Greg Kopp, who is not the OP, but 
the person I replied to, was under the misunderstanding that by using 
blackholes.us, you'd wind up blocking whole ISPs at the whim of the 
blackholes.us maintainer.


>He suggested china.blackholes.us.
>It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.

I'm aware that's what the OP suggested, but that was not the context of the 
message I replied to. I suppose it was confusing to you because you didn't 
read the bits I was quoting from Greg closely enough, such as this piece

">The maintainer has been known to arbitrarily list every single IP address 
belonging to some major ISPs because of past abuses."

Which is the primary point raised by Greg I was responding to.







Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by John Andersen <js...@pen.homeip.net>.
On Thursday 10 June 2004 07:26, Matt Kettler wrote:
> It's not like there's one "blackholes.us" query that you use and it just
> lists every IP. You query "verio.blackholes.us" and it tells you if the IP
> belongs to verio.
>
> It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.

After stateing that so well, you ratteled on for another dozen paragraphs
based on the premis that the OP suggested to use blackholes.us.

He suggested china.blackholes.us.
It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone.

-- 
_____________________________________
John Andersen

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Matt Kettler <mk...@comcast.net>.
At 09:23 AM 6/10/04 -0400, Greg Kopp wrote:

>IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's for 
>your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected mail, 
>then fine.
>
>But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to 
>have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.

Hmm, I use it in a business environment every day. However, I use it with 
SpamAssassin rules to add small amounts of points. I'm also intelligent 
about which of his lists I choose to use.

I tend to agree with you in that arbitrary use of blackholes.us is unwise, 
however if you truly understand what it is, and how it works, you can use 
it properly.


>The maintainer has been known to arbitrarily list every single IP address 
>belonging to some major ISPs because of past abuses.

True, but he also lists them in their own separate blacklists. And it's 
also the purpose of those lists to have the IPs of those ISPs in them.

It's not like there's one "blackholes.us" query that you use and it just 
lists every IP. You query "verio.blackholes.us" and it tells you if the IP 
belongs to verio.

It's hard to understand why this could be confusing to anyone. 
Blackholes.us isn't a "abusers" list per se.. It's a factual information 
listing. This IP routes to country xxx or to ISP yyy. Yes, most of the ISP 
and country lists are created because of spam problems, but the nature of 
the list itself is to be a blanket.

>This is not an entirely bad practice. However, personaly experience has 
>shown me that small businesses and even some larger businesses are not 
>going to switch ISPs because they can't send YOU mail or because thier IP 
>address is listed in blackholes.us because 100 years ago a few of those 
>IPs were open relays.

True, which is why I wouldn't advise using any of these lists as block 
critera.


However, that ISP's tendency to have open relays 100 years ago resulted in 
the creation of a list for that ISP, true.

However, the IPs that ISP uses are still the IPs that the ISP uses. That 
fact doesn't change (although the exact IP blocks might). And the fact that 
the IP belongs to a given ISP is the criteria for why it's in the list.

For example, I don't see why verio hosted IP addresses should be removed 
from verio.blackholes.us. To do so would be a contradiction in fact.

However, I will agree that anyone who just arbitrarily grabs all the 
blackholes.us lists and uses them as bounce criteria on their MTA is quite 
frankly STUPID. Blackoles.us DOES blacklist entire ISPs and countries, 
because that's it' purpose, and you definitely need to understand that 
before applying their lists to your systems.

My own usage consists of giving 1.0-2.5 points for being listed in the IP 
ranges of certain countries my company has no business with and is unlikely 
to ever have business with.

This is a relatively sensible judicious use of blackholes.us in a business 
environment. I'm not using it as rejection system, nor are any of them 
sufficient to cause a message to be tagged as spam, but they are sufficient 
for my copy of SA to effectively have a lower spam threshold for emails 
coming from those countries.

And I do get some nonspam hits on the blackholes lists I'm using. 
Occasionaly someone from one of the countries posts a message to one of the 
mailing lists I subscribe to. However, I have yet to have them cause a 
false positive. They've contributed to a FP or two on this list, but the 
messages always had spam quotes which also contributed more points than any 
normal message would have.

However, they've saved me from quite a handful of emails that would have 
been FN.

>The maintainer has also been rumored to block major ISPs simply because he 
>doesn't like them.

Well, he creates lists because he doesn't like them, or there's a community 
outcry towards them. But he continues to list them because time does not 
change the fact that ISP X is still ISP X.


Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>.
On Thursday, June 10, 2004, 12:34:24 PM, John Andersen wrote:
> On Thursday 10 June 2004 05:23, Greg Kopp wrote:
>> IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's
>> for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected
>> mail, then fine.
>>
>> But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to
>> have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.

> The suggestion was (and I quote):
>   You could use an RBL like china.blackholes.us in SpamAssassin
>     or your MTA (Exim)."

To throw some saurkraut on the fire, that suggestion was mine,
not the original poster's...

Jeff C. the attributee...  LOL!
-- 
Jeff Chan
mailto:jeffc@surbl.org
http://www.surbl.org/


Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Bob Apthorpe <ap...@cynistar.net>.
Hi,

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:34:24 -0800 John Andersen <js...@pen.homeip.net> wrote:

> On Thursday 10 June 2004 05:23, Greg Kopp wrote:
> > IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's
> > for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected
> > mail, then fine.
> >
> > But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to
> > have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.
> 
> The suggestion was (and I quote):
>   You could use an RBL like china.blackholes.us in SpamAssassin
>     or your MTA (Exim)."
> 
> Presumably the china list does not contain comcast, and vise-versa.

Maybe. You'd have to sort out how blackholes.us determines what's meant
by 'chinese' or 'comcast' (e.g. are the Chinese IP addresses allocated
to CNNIC or are they physically in China? Does the comcast list include
only ARIN allocations to Comcast? Are there addresses allocated by CNNIC
to Comcast?) This can get very confusing fast. The point is, you need to
understand the listing policy before you use them.

> How, then, would sould someone running a Tax Accountancy in East
> Midlands Texax suffer from blocking all of China?  

Practically (and this is where people get offended) it might not. If
you're responsible for that mail system, and the users understand and
agree with that policy, it's nobody's business but your own what systems
you accept mail from, provided you accept mail for abuse, postmaster,
etc. per RFC2142 (see http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2142.html)

> I have most of Korea blocked.  I can't read a word of Korean. 

Conversely, I've received unsolicited but professionally useful (and
welcome) personal mail from an engineer in Poland based on a paper on
risk assessment I wrote a few years ago. I know about 12 words in
Polish, all of them related to food, courtesy of my grandmother (may she
rest in peace.) Life may surprise you.

As usual, your system, your rules. :)

-- Bob

RE: Blocking all of China

Posted by "Colin A. Bartlett" <sp...@colinabartlett.com>.
David B Funk Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 4:09 PM

> Not everything comming out of China/Korea is in Chinese/Korean.
> 
> I've seen a fair amount of spam (in English) which had domain names (both
in
> the mail headers and in URLs in the body) that are registered to US
companies
> but are being sent from Chinese ISPs.

Isn't that the point!? Since he has no legitimate business in China, he
could block all Chinese ISPs, thereby cutting back on spam. If the guy wants
to block China I say go for it. He's the only one who will take the heat for
it if some legit mail is dropped.

I would never do that here because we are a service proider and I have no
idea what business dealings my clients have. Actually, to the contrary, I
know that one of my clients does indeed use manufacturers in China.

cheers,
Colin

Colin A. Bartlett
Kinetic Web Solutions
www.kineticweb.biz 


Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by David B Funk <db...@engineering.uiowa.edu>.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, John Andersen wrote:

> How, then, would sould someone running a Tax Accountancy in East
> Midlands Texax suffer from blocking all of China?
>
> I have most of Korea blocked.  I can't read a word of Korean.

Not everything comming out of China/Korea is in Chinese/Korean.

In this globalized economy rife with outsourcing, it's not at all
impossible that the ISP that your Texas Taxman contracts to provide
him website/mailing lists hosting may actually be located in China.

I've seen a fair amount of spam (in English) which had domain names
(both in the mail headers and in URLs in the body) that are registered
to US companies but are being sent from Chinese ISPs.

Bulk hosting is now international business. I've seen Russian spam
being sent from Chinese ISPs, English spam hosted from Russia, etc.

-- 
Dave Funk                                  University of Iowa
<dbfunk (at) engineering.uiowa.edu>        College of Engineering
319/335-5751   FAX: 319/384-0549           1256 Seamans Center
Sys_admin/Postmaster/cell_admin            Iowa City, IA 52242-1527
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
Better is not better, 'standard' is better. B{

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by John Andersen <js...@pen.homeip.net>.
On Thursday 10 June 2004 05:23, Greg Kopp wrote:
> IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's
> for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected
> mail, then fine.
>
> But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to
> have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.

The suggestion was (and I quote):
  You could use an RBL like china.blackholes.us in SpamAssassin
    or your MTA (Exim)."

Presumably the china list does not contain comcast, and vise-versa.

How, then, would sould someone running a Tax Accountancy in East
Midlands Texax suffer from blocking all of China?  

I have most of Korea blocked.  I can't read a word of Korean. 

-- 
_____________________________________
John Andersen

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>.
On Thursday, June 10, 2004, 6:23:18 AM, Greg Kopp wrote:
> IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's 
> for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected 
> mail, then fine.

> But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to 
> have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.

FWIW I feel the same way.  blackholes.us may be ok for personal
use, but almost never for business use.

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


Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Dimitrios <se...@altered.com>.
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:10:59 -0400 "Greg Kopp" <gk...@gregkopp.com> wrote:

> I'm not saying he is doing anything wrong and to a certain degree 
> applaud his efforts. I just wanted the original poster to be aware.

well, this guy definetly has some attitute ;)

i haven't used his lists, but now you've raised my curiosity so i'll take a look.

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Greg Kopp <gk...@gregkopp.com>.
Bob,

Very will put. The problem comes with stated policies and the like. Here 
is an excerpt:

"If you are listed, you will not be removed from these lists. If your 
mail is being rejected, contact your ISP. If you don't understand what 
this site is or why you are listed, please contact your ISP before 
sending mail to the administrator of this site.

Legal threats will be made public. In fact, no email sent to this domain 
is confidential without prior arrangement and may be published as I see fit.

Please delete any "legaleeze" or copyright footers from your mail before 
sending it. You may not send any material to blackholes.us for which 
there is a copyright claim.

Depending on how much time I have to spare, I may not reply to you."

And

"Blackholes.us does not list spammers, spam supporters or vulnerable 
hosts at the present time. These lists are meant to contain all known 
networks assigned or allocated to the respective provider or 
organizations within the respective country. Lists are created for 
research purposes, primarily, and are made public for any use others see 
fit."

He does make good on his claim that he will make e-mails sent to him 
public. There are several on the site.

My point is, he has no real policies other than - "If you're listed, too 
bad, call your ISP." And if you read between the lines: "Change ISPs." I 
am assuming he does this on his own and there is no "organization" 
behind it. Services like MAPS and SpamCop at least go through a 
procedure BEFORE listing someone and have stated procedures to be 
removed. I personally don't agree with throwing the baby out with the 
bathwater, so to speak. If it wasn;t for the fact that we have a couple 
clients that do business in China, I would be using china.blackholes.us. :-)

I'm not saying he is doing anything wrong and to a certain degree 
applaud his efforts. I just wanted the original poster to be aware.

Bob Apthorpe wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 09:23:18 -0400 Greg Kopp <gk...@gregkopp.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's 
>>for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected 
>>mail, then fine.
> 
> 
> The .blackholes.us zones list large swaths of network space which is
> what you'd expect of a zone that listed all of, say, China.
> 
> 
>>But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to 
>>have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.
> 
> 
> At least know what you're getting into. One might be able to whitelist
> specific contacts and blackhole the rest, depending on who one intends
> to correspond with.
> 
> 
>>The maintainer has been known to arbitrarily list every single IP 
>>address belonging to some major ISPs because of past abuses.
> 
> 
> I don't believe it's arbitrary and it may have nothing to do with abuse.
> If the intent is to list all known network space of Comcast or Cogentco
> for example, it makes perfect sense. Now, why he chooses to create a
> zonefile for Comcast vs XS4ALL or Chello may be due to abuse; I don't
> know. What's more important is that the listings are accurate.
> 
> 
>>This is not an entirely bad practice. However, personaly experience has 
>>shown me that small businesses and even some larger businesses are not 
>>going to switch ISPs because they can't send YOU mail or because thier 
>>IP address is listed in blackholes.us because 100 years ago a few of 
>>those IPs were open relays.
> 
> 
> If you're trying to change people's behavior, using a DNSBL is probably
> not the way to do it. However, if enough people reject traffic such that
> a particular organization (country, ISP, etc.) finds itself isolated
> into a virtual intranet, there's a possibility they'll change, if the
> value of connecting to those that block them exceeds the cost of
> change. From a network operator's viewpoint, one has to determine if the
> benefit of accepting traffic from Cogentco, Chinanet, or Comcast (for
> example) is worth the cost (in terms of abuse and security incidents,
> etc.) That is, one should block to preserve the limited resources you're
> responsible for providing with no expecatation that anyone's behavior
> will change as a result.
> 
> 
>>The maintainer has also been rumored to block major ISPs simply because 
>>he doesn't like them.
> 
> 
> What mail he accepts or rejects is his business. Our only concern should
> be the accuracy of the zone files he publishes.
> 
> In order to use DNSBLs effectively, you need to clearly understand the
> blacklist operator's listing policy as well as your own policy, and have
> a reasonable belief that the blacklist operator will follow their stated
> policy.
> 
> I haven't heard of blackholes.us deviating from their stated policies;
> then again, I don't use their blacklists. If I did, I'd probably use
> them within SA rather than to block at the MTA or firewall level.
> 
> Caveat utilitor,
> 
> -- Bob

Re: sa-stats.pl and amavisd-new

Posted by Andy <an...@stronzo.d2g.com>.
Hello Matt,

I am using amavis-stats, which gives me some very nice graphs of spam,
non-spam, viruses, blocked etc. mails.

If you want to look:

https://stronzo.d2g.com/amavis-stats


--
Andy



Hi, I am looking for a script that will tell me the number of hams/spams and
their average scores. When I run sa-stats.pl it reports that no messages
have been scanned. It looks like the script is expecting to find "clean
message" or "identified spam" in the the maillog...

Is there a version of sa-stats.pl that works with the maillog generated by
amavisd-new/postfix?

Thanks,

-- Matt


Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Bob Apthorpe <ap...@cynistar.net>.
Hi,

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 09:23:18 -0400 Greg Kopp <gk...@gregkopp.com> wrote:

> IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's 
> for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected 
> mail, then fine.

The .blackholes.us zones list large swaths of network space which is
what you'd expect of a zone that listed all of, say, China.

> But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to 
> have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.

At least know what you're getting into. One might be able to whitelist
specific contacts and blackhole the rest, depending on who one intends
to correspond with.

> The maintainer has been known to arbitrarily list every single IP 
> address belonging to some major ISPs because of past abuses.

I don't believe it's arbitrary and it may have nothing to do with abuse.
If the intent is to list all known network space of Comcast or Cogentco
for example, it makes perfect sense. Now, why he chooses to create a
zonefile for Comcast vs XS4ALL or Chello may be due to abuse; I don't
know. What's more important is that the listings are accurate.

> This is not an entirely bad practice. However, personaly experience has 
> shown me that small businesses and even some larger businesses are not 
> going to switch ISPs because they can't send YOU mail or because thier 
> IP address is listed in blackholes.us because 100 years ago a few of 
> those IPs were open relays.

If you're trying to change people's behavior, using a DNSBL is probably
not the way to do it. However, if enough people reject traffic such that
a particular organization (country, ISP, etc.) finds itself isolated
into a virtual intranet, there's a possibility they'll change, if the
value of connecting to those that block them exceeds the cost of
change. From a network operator's viewpoint, one has to determine if the
benefit of accepting traffic from Cogentco, Chinanet, or Comcast (for
example) is worth the cost (in terms of abuse and security incidents,
etc.) That is, one should block to preserve the limited resources you're
responsible for providing with no expecatation that anyone's behavior
will change as a result.

> The maintainer has also been rumored to block major ISPs simply because 
> he doesn't like them.

What mail he accepts or rejects is his business. Our only concern should
be the accuracy of the zone files he publishes.

In order to use DNSBLs effectively, you need to clearly understand the
blacklist operator's listing policy as well as your own policy, and have
a reasonable belief that the blacklist operator will follow their stated
policy.

I haven't heard of blackholes.us deviating from their stated policies;
then again, I don't use their blacklists. If I did, I'd probably use
them within SA rather than to block at the MTA or firewall level.

Caveat utilitor,

-- Bob

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Greg Kopp <gk...@gregkopp.com>.
IMHO, I would not use blackholes.us in a business environment. If it's 
for your own use and you don't mind people you know getting rejected 
mail, then fine.

But if it is your intention to actually do business with people, and to 
have them send you e-mail, I would stay away from it.

The maintainer has been known to arbitrarily list every single IP 
address belonging to some major ISPs because of past abuses.

This is not an entirely bad practice. However, personaly experience has 
shown me that small businesses and even some larger businesses are not 
going to switch ISPs because they can't send YOU mail or because thier 
IP address is listed in blackholes.us because 100 years ago a few of 
those IPs were open relays.

The maintainer has also been rumored to block major ISPs simply because 
he doesn't like them.

Greg

Jeff Chan wrote:

> On Thursday, June 10, 2004, 5:38:25 AM, Hirotaka Fox wrote:
> 
>>/Also, apparently 70 percent of spam is sent from China by American spam
>>outfits who in turn have hosting arrangements with Chinese ISPs."/
> 
> 
>>Does anyone have a SpamAssassin related way to block all of China?  I 
>>read things like this on SpamHaus and just want to block all of China 
>>from sending my company mail.  We don't have any business dealings in China.
> 
> 
> You could use an RBL like china.blackholes.us in SpamAssassin
> or your MTA (Exim).
> 
>   http://www.blackholes.us/
> 
> If you truly want to drop them on the floor and never see them,
> doing it in the MTA is far more efficient than doing it in SA.
> However doing it in SA lets you score it rather than instantly
> discarding which the MTA does.
> 
> Jeff C.

Re: Blocking all of China

Posted by Jeff Chan <je...@surbl.org>.
On Thursday, June 10, 2004, 5:38:25 AM, Hirotaka Fox wrote:
> /Also, apparently 70 percent of spam is sent from China by American spam
> outfits who in turn have hosting arrangements with Chinese ISPs."/

> Does anyone have a SpamAssassin related way to block all of China?  I 
> read things like this on SpamHaus and just want to block all of China 
> from sending my company mail.  We don't have any business dealings in China.

You could use an RBL like china.blackholes.us in SpamAssassin
or your MTA (Exim).

  http://www.blackholes.us/

If you truly want to drop them on the floor and never see them,
doing it in the MTA is far more efficient than doing it in SA.
However doing it in SA lets you score it rather than instantly
discarding which the MTA does.

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


Blocking all of China

Posted by Hirotaka Fox <hi...@yahoo.com>.
/Also, apparently 70 percent of spam is sent from China by American spam 
outfits who in turn have hosting arrangements with Chinese ISPs."/

Does anyone have a SpamAssassin related way to block all of China?  I 
read things like this on SpamHaus and just want to block all of China 
from sending my company mail.  We don't have any business dealings in China.

Hirotaka

RE: Flooded by spam in German

Posted by David Hooton <dj...@platformhosting.com>.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Byrnand [mailto:simon@igrin.co.nz]
> Sent: Thursday, 10 June 2004 12:14 PM
> To: spamassassin-users@incubator.apache.org
> Subject: Flooded by spam in German
> 
> Anyone else suddenly (last couple of days) getting flooded with spam in
> German ?

We're marking most of it as spam now by adding the following ruleset (may
wrap):

header          __GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_01 X-Priority =~ /3 \(Normal\)/
header          __GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_02 Importance =~ /Normal/
header          __GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_03 MIME-Version =~ /1\.0/
header          __GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_04 Content-Transfer-Encoding =~ /7bit/
header          __GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_05 Content-Type =~ /text\/plain\;
charset\=\"us\-ascii\"/
meta            GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_01   (__GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_01 &&
__GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_02 && __GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_03 &&
__GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_04 && __GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_05 )
describe        GERMAN_SPAM_O_RAMA_01   German Political Spam

I have scored this moderately so that we can watch for any possible false
positives which I'm sure there may well be, but combining our bayes training
and this ruleset we're hitting them pretty well.

Once again - this has not been tested against any corpus etc so use at your
own risk..

Regards,

Dave


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