Re: Removal of IP

[Brian Candler <B.Candler at pobox.com>]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 04:26:15PM +0000, Mensah Komla Agbessitse wrote:
> I am currently on a Network in Nigeria whose IP block(64.86.155.4) was 
> listed in http://spews.org/ask.cgi?S1576. I read their faqs for 3 times but 
> could not find anything that will help me remove some of the IPs from their 
> database. Other site like ordb.org,relays.osirusoft.com, provide a remove 
> task schedule hence retest the machine and remove the IP if this is fine.
> Can somebody help me out? 

As far as I can see this is answered in the FAQ question 42. Basically:
1. you can just wait for your entry to expire; or
2. if you are sure you have fixed the problem, post a message to the NANAE
   newsgroup with 'SPEWS: S1576' in the header and explaining why you think
   you should be de-listed.

Note that unlike ordb.org and relays.osirusoft.com, you were not listed
because you ran an open relay; rather, you were listed because fraudulent
spams were being sent by your customers. They are saying not that your
mailserver is wrongly configured, but they think that you are not properly
controlling your customers' behaviour.

I have never come across this blacklist before, but they look to be fairly
stringent. I imagine that you would have to demonstrate, at minimum,
- that you have a strong Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) which forbids the
  sending of spam from your network (i.e. you should provide a URL where
  your AUP is published)
- that you enforce it effectively: that is, you act on reports sent to your
  'abuse at ' mailbox and you terminate accounts of people who flout your AUP,
  including the example which caused you to be listed.

Note that they will not enter into any dialogue with you (see Q42 again).
Also, they explicitly run it for their own purposes only (Q17), so if they
don't care about receiving any E-mail at all from Nigeria, they will
probably leave it that way.

That leaves you affected because presumably other ISPs have chosen to use
SPEWS to block E-mail. You may have to try educating those ISPs that
over-enthusiastic spam filtering like this means that legitimate mails will
be blocked, and so *their* customers will suffer. But with the scale of the
spam problem at the moment, you may not get much of a positive response :-(

I have to say that I have tried complaining to Nigerian ISPs in the past
about "419" scam mails, and never had any response. I don't bother any more.

Regards,

Brian.

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