On 1/14/07, Gadi Evron <ge@linuxbox.org> wrote:
Your assumption is incorrect. These DNSBLs cover spam sent in email, indeed. Thing is, spam is spam and spammers are spammers. Meaning, they spam in every way they can.
How does this make his assumption incorrect? Spam is spam and DNSBLs will likely be very effective when it comes to stopping comment spam. There are, of course, some severe problems with using a DNSBL as a blocklist for comments...
I've been working on a new DNSBL for comment/etc. spam for a while, which will be reliable, generally, it doesn't exist yet for public consumption.
But there's a major problem here... A DNSBL is a source blocklist. Since the current trend in spam (comment and smtp) is to use botnets, then by blocking the bots, you also block the users who would make meaningful comments. The argument there is that those users don't deserve to comment if they can't keep their computers clean, but let's get real.. Some of this stuff is getting pretty advanced and it's getting tougher for general users to keep their computers clean. I think a far better system is something along the lines of a SURBL with word filtering. I believe that Akismet does something along these lines.
There is such a black listing service already, but again, reliability is an issue.
Reliability is always an issue with blacklists as they are run as independent entities. There is always someone who has a problem with how an individual blacklist is run...
Gadi.
-- Jason 'XenoPhage' Frisvold XenoPhage0@gmail.com http://blog.godshell.com