ORDB and various blackhole databases have been the bane of my email
> existence since they were invented. Much as I hate spam (and I do) I
> hate having strangers filter my email even more.
The problem is that people DO filter their email. They either do it manually, or they do it automatically. Sometimes the automatic systems have false positives. Sometimes the manual systems have false positives too ... when I was getting a couple thousand spam messages a day and only a dozen or so legitimate messages, I was routinely missing the legitimate traffic in the flood. Now I use blocking lists that keep it down to a couple dozen spam messages a day, which I can deal with.
Many times I have had emails I sent bounced, just because someone
> else at my ISP had an open relay or was infected with something, or
> perhaps was actually evil. But why is that _my_ problem? Yet these
> lists make it my problem; I get my emails bounced back, through no
> fault of my own. I don't choose my IP address, nor do I choose my > IP neighbors.
You _do_ choose your IP address and you _do_ choose your IP neighbors, when you choose your ISP. If you get service from an ISP with a bad reputation, people will refuse to accept your traffic.
Twenty years ago, if a site had a problem, it would just get disconnected from the upstream, and the problem would either be fixed or the site would stay offline. These days the large backbone providers are not willing to do this, so the disconnection is being done in a more crude fashion.
And it breaks in the other direction, too -- emails sent to me may
> simply never arrive, just because some sanctimonious so-and-so decided
> to "fix" spam. Bleah. A pox on them all.
It's not a fix, it is a desperate measure employed because the problem is so far out of hand. I do not have a better one.
Before various ISPs decided to help me with my spam problem, I used
> to get around 300 to 400 emails daily, about 50 of them legit.
> Today, thanks to the efforts of misguided do-gooders worldwide I get
> about 50 emails daily, with maybe 6 or 10 of them spam. At first
> blush this seems to be an improvement, but in fact I'm losing a
> handful of emails _every_ _day_ which did not happen when I was
> getting all the spam.
So, if you don't LIKE the blocking lists, don't use them.
Spam? Sucks, no question about it. But let ME decide what is spam for
> myself; the rest of you keep your paws out of my mailbox.
If your ISP doesn't allow you to select how your mail is filtered, why are you using it?
--scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."