Re: ob.surbl.org FP

[Justin Mason <jm...@jmason.org>]

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Chris Santerre writes:
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Fred [mailto:spamassassin@freddyt.com]
> >Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 1:33 PM
> >To: bgodette@idcomm.com; spamassassin-users@incubator.apache.org
> >Subject: Re: ob.surbl.org FP
> >
> >
> >Brian Godette wrote:
> >> Is someone's politics showing?
> >>
> >> 2.5 OB_URI_RBL URI's domain appears in ob.surbl.org
> >> [www.KerryPicksEdwards.com is blacklisted in URI]
> >> [RBL at ob.surbl.org]
> >
> >
> >>>From the surbl.org website:
> >ob.surbl.org - OutBlaze spamvertised sites
> >OutBlaze is kindly providing a list of spamvertised sites which are now
> >going into ob.surbl.org. The list appears to be quite good, 
> >detecting about
> >70% of spams while triggering about 0.1% false positives. The 
> >list has about
> >20,000 entries.
> >
> >
> >I would contact OutBlaze and find out why they have it listed.
> 
> There was some discussion on this on the spam-l list. It is a question of
> policy and opinion. They did send out Unsolicited Bulk email. But CANSPAM
> makes it 'ok' to do this for politics. 
> The discussion seemd to point to the idea that antispam people don't agree
> that it is 'ok' to do this. And some people have been blocking it. 

Not again! :(   As http://www.spamvertized.org points out, this is a
recurrent problem.

BTW it doesn't matter what CAN-SPAM says, if recipients elsewhere in the
world are getting it.   Sending spam to countries where such mail is
illegal, is obviously something a presidential campaign should be ashamed
of.

Also, the CAN-SPAM prohibition against blocking political messages is
absurd when you consider the Sober.H worm traffic!

> IMHO I think all political unsolicited bulk email should be blocked. But I
> have a larger responsibility to more users of SURBL. So I didn't add it to
> [WS].

true.  SURBL's a case where blocking the URL itself will have FPs,
since that's something that people will be sending around in nonspam
mail.

- --j.
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Re: ob.surbl.org FP

[Kelson Vibber <ke...@speed.net>]

At 11:37 AM 7/9/2004, Justin Mason wrote:
>Also, the CAN-SPAM prohibition against blocking political messages is
>absurd when you consider the Sober.H worm traffic!

There is no prohibition in CAN-SPAM against blocking political 
messages.  What it has is an exception stating that political messages do 
not violate it - i.e. you cannot *prosecute* political spammers (at least 
not for simply sending the mail) under CAN-SPAM.  But it does not require 
you to accept that spam.  IIRC, it explicitly allows recipients to define 
their own policy.

Kind of like it's legal to walk around town barefoot, but it's also legal 
for a store to enforce a "No shirt, no shoes, no service" policy.

(20 minutes later...)

OK, after reading/searching/skimming the text of CAN-SPAM at 
http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html I cannot find an actual 
*exception* for political messages.  What it does have is a 
*loophole*.  Throughout the text, it refers specifically to "unsolicited 
commercial electronic mail."

Still, it doesn't prevent recipients or ISPs from blocking whatever they 
want, it just limits what can be prosecuted under those terms.


Kelson Vibber
SpeedGate Communications <www.speed.net>