ORBS was intended to be a proactive version of the MAPS RBL (Paul Vixie's
project). ORBS has been a hot debate item on various anti-spam mailing lists
almost since it's inception. They are also blocking above.net which hosts VA
linux systems, linux.com, Ebay, etc. Dave Rand (founder of Above.net and author
of the free MRTG software) is violently anti-spam. Above.net is being blocked by
ORBS because above.net is filtering probes from ORBS. Above.net feels that ORBS
probes are network abuse (rightly so IMHO.)
Basically, ORBS is run by a megalomaniac who wants to force his views on others.
He is loosing. Nobody in their right mind that knows the story of ORBS would
use ORBS to block email. MANY systems are in ORBS database because the systems
admins disagree with the ORBS admin, NOT because they are open relays.
On Fri, Jan 14, 2000 at 10:24:39AM -0800, David Schwartz wrote:
>
> > I can see ORBS's point of view; when someone reports an abused mail
> > relay at one of roadrunner's customers, ORBS now has no way of
> > checking to see if that mail relay is in fact open.
>
> ORBS was supposed to be a list of CONFIRMED OPEN mail relays. Apparently,
> they have changed their mission without telling anyone. Their web page,
> "What is ORBS?" says:
>
> "What is ORBS?
> The short answer: ORBS is a validated database of open mail relays and open
> mail relay output points, accessable via DNS lookup.
>
> ORBS, or the Open Relay Behaviour-modification System, is a database for
> tracking SMTP servers that have been confirmed to permit third-party relay.
> These servers permit spammers to connect to them from anywhere in the world,
> usually from a modem connection, and then forward the spam to its intended
> victims.
>
> ORBS is NOT a "black hole" - we do not disseminate routing information
> causing included hosts to be unreachable from portions of the Internet.
>
> ORBS tracks these systems so that people operating mailservers subscribed to
> our database can block e-mail coming from open relays until such time as
> they are fixed to no longer permit third-party SMTP relay."
>
> DS
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jan 15 2000 - 21:00:26 EST