Links

 

Mirroring zone files locally

• rbldnsd is highly recommended as a very fast DNS server specifically meant to serve up list zones. Use it with rsync to get the zone files from the list providers.
• rsync offers efficient, incremental, error-corrected file transfer and updating between similar and different platforms such as Posix (UNIX), Windows, etc.
• Instructions for Setting up a private name server
• Here are instructions for setting up a Windows DNS mirror. Note that there is a Windows port of rbldnsd and rsync.
• How to locally mirror list zone files when running both rbldnsd with BIND under FreeBSD. Applies to other Unix-like operating systems in general. Note that this also works under Windows, since ISC has a Windows version of BIND.
• While rbldnsd is prefered for many reasons, we present steps for Using BIND and rsync to mirror list zones.
• rbldnsd howto contains Bob Cottrell's notes on how he set up rbldnsd with rsync under Solaris. Includes information about setting up port forwarding in BIND when running both types of name servers on the same host.
• FAQ for rbldnsd and dnscache Rick Macdougall has written up how he set up rbldnsd to run on the same name server as dnscache from djbdns.
• Spamhaus' Data Feed FAQ Explains how to configure a standalone rbldnsd, and how to use it with BIND. It also describes using rsync and rbldnsd under Windows and includes a link to Windows software versions.
• To monitor rbldnsd traffic levels, see Mike Atkinson's How-To for converting rbldnsd stats to MRTG graphs. (local copy). See also Skull's Munin plugin for RBLDNSD. "This script is a plugin for munin which allows it to monitor per-zone queries as logged by RBLDNSD statistics file."
• Data feed request form

 

SpamAssassin version 3 has built-in support for our intelligence

• SpamAssassin 3 includes a plugin with lookup support enabled by default: URIDNSBL
• SpamAssassin 4 (4.0.0-rc4) has support for full domain lookups and has many advantages when using our datasets. Please upgrade to SA4 if possible
• The SpamAssassin Rule QA site has current (weekly) scores of rule hits on spam and ham corpora. Spam hits are good, but ham hits are very bad. The goal is to maximize the former while minimizing the latter. Ham hits make a given rule much less useful so it's arguably most important to minimize those as a first priority.
• If you'd like to generate local statistics for your SpamAssassin rules, there are several ways to do it. One way is to use spamd logs with Theo Van Dinter's sa-stats.pl. Many other stats programs are linked from the SpamAssassin wiki.

 

MTA filters supporting our intelligence

• milter-link for Sendmail (and postfix) checks message body URIs against our intelligence, or after domain resolution against RBLs. Written in C, milter-link does on-the-fly MIME decoding without using temporary files. milter-link now works with Postfix 2.3 via its new Sendmail 8 milter support.
• Fort Systems Limited milter-uri.pl is a basic Sendmail (and postfix) milter written in Perl using Sendmail::PMilter and SpamAssassin libraries.
• PTSMail Utilities are designed to manage sendmail under Unix. Uses a web interface to manage virus and spam filtering, quotas, etc. Now supports our intelligence.
• Using our domain intelligence with the Exim MTA provides a perl routine that can be used with "any other MTA that can call an external process to scan a message."
• uribl plugin for our domain intelligence in qpsmtpd, a perl smtpd with MTA function and plugin capability, announcement
• MailMarshal for Exchange and general SMTP servers protects enterprise mail against viruses and spam and now supports our domain intelligence. (Here's their Knowledge Base article about using our intelligence.)
• Message Partners' MPP multi-platform mail filter and archival system supports our intelligence with MTAs "Postfix, Exim, Sendmail, Qmail, Communigate Pro, Surgemail, Sun Java System Messaging Server and email platforms with a generic SMTP/LMTP filter interface."

 

Other URI blacklists

• dnsbl.invaluement.com "ivmURI is the invaluement URI DNSBL."
• URIBL.com "URIBL provides simmilar datasets"

 

Best Current Practices (BCP) for Email Marketing

• Canada's Anti-Spam Law
• Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) Senders Best Communications Practices
• The Spamhaus Project Marketing FAQs
• ISIPP: Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy
• Unspam A consulting and services company "helping governments craft effective contact control laws and assisting legitimate businesses in complying with them"
• Return Path Certification (formerly Sender Score Certified)

 

Organisations that can help with email best practices

• Word to the Wise Expert email deliverability consulting
• Data Innovation for a different view on nowdays marketing
• EmailConsul when you need quick and excellent advise
• Holistic Email Marketing next level advise on e-mail marketing
• Email Industries email deliverability consultants and analysts

 

Acknowledgements

Thanks

People (in no particular order)

Jeff Chan, Raymond Dijkxhoorn, Eric Kolve, Joe Wein, Justin Mason, Daniel Quinlan, Julian Haight, Sidney Markowitz, Kelsey Cummings, Jacob Davida, Erik O'Connor, Bill Stearns, Chris Santerre, Thomas Shaw, Emanuelle Balla, Alex Bruns, all the folks and organizations providing data and name service, and the many other people without whom this project would not be possible. You know who you are! :-) Our thanks to all!

Some comments about our domain intelligence

Catherine Hampton, spambouncer.org:

"The results have been nothing short of amazing; the only blocklists that come even close in terms of quantities of spam stopped are the SBL and CBL. Given that you don't even need to look up host IPs to check the their intelligence, it has to qualify as one of the most useful BLs I've ever tried."

 

Ben Poliakoff, Reed College:

"Your datasets have enhanced SpamAssassin's accuracy tremendously."

 

Bob Harbour, President, Harbour Communication:

"The improvements in the last 2 weeks has been amazing with the addition of the data intelligence and the SpamAssassin 3. I am beginning to get calls from customers wondering if we are having problems with our mail server because they are not getting as much junk mail as they were."

 

Matt Yackley, Network Engineer, Perkins + Will, Inc.:

"This is one of the best tools available to help SpamAssassin catch more spam than ever before."

 

Lindsay Snider, Cumberland Technologies Inc.:

"These datasets have been excellent for us. Before this existed, we continued to add and update SpamAssassin rules to try and catch spam as it changed over time. Eventually, we began to see our false positive level gradually increase, hence lowering our trust in the system. We went back to basics using a stock SpamAssassin with the safe SARE rules. We then turned up this domain intelligence service and ever since then our scores have been a good deal more accurate. Our false positive rate is zero or very near, and very little spam gets through untagged anymore."

 

Ross Carlson, Metacraft Internet Services:

"I upgraded to the latest amavisd-new and SA, enabled the DNSBL checks and now the system is tagging about 40% of the incoming mail as spam, compared to about 5% before. I've had nearly 4,000 messages come through in the last 22 hours that had URIs in this domain intelligence dataset. Love it!"

 

Partial list of organizations using our domain intelligence:

Easynet France, Tiscali Benelux, Wanadoo NL, SpamCop, XMission Internet, Excel.Net, Electric Mail Company, Sonic.net, Alice's Registry, Inc., MailGuard Pty. Limited, mail-cleaner.com, Superb Internet Corp., Pacific Internet Ltd, University of Bristol (UK), Shasta.com Internet, MailRoute, Inc., Cumberland Technologies Inc., mailbag.com, NetServices Plc, Hancock Telecom, Atlantech Online, Inc., Omnis Network, LLC, University of Colorado at Boulder, Eolas, Ruprecht-Karls-Universit?t Heidelberg, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Reed College, Michigan Integrated Solutions, Alaska Communications Systems, Inc., Martek.Net, ImproWare AG (Switzerland), Conpoint.com, Perkins + Will, Inc., Metamark Shorten? Service, SnipURL, B2B2C.ca High Speed Internet, Univerity of Klagenfurt, University of Missouri - Rolla, Yale University School of Medicine, OnlyInternet.Net, Internet Xpress (Colville, WA), GO Concepts Inc., Harbour Communication, KC Online, Utility Line Italia, MWeb (South Africa), PE.net, Voicenet.com, SoftHome.net, adfinis, free.de, Research Machines plc, Ironic Design, Inc., LogIn & Solutions AG, Mycom Group, Inc., Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Birch Telecom Inc., ena.com, CanadaEmails.com - MPRM Group Limited, SaskNow Technologies, American Home Mortgage, Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Widexs / Ionip, MORPACE International, Inc., RTC Ltd. / MOBIKOM, Plushosting B.V., Peregrine Computer Consultants Corporation, localaccess.com, InterActive Systems Designs (Pty) Ltd, Sentex Communications, BMC Software, Delmarva Online, Inc., FrogNet, Inc., Zoznam s.r.o., University of Ghent (Belgium), AxisInternet, Inc., iSupportISP LLC, San Mateo Regional Network, Inc., cetlink internetworks, Oklahoma Christian University, Cyberindo Aditama, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Grande Communications, Inc., Host -it LTD, Eze Castle Integration, Inc., Lynx Informatica, Metacraft Internet Services, ChiliTech Internet Solutions, Terra Networks (Spain), Hush Communications, CWNET - Communications world network, Riverside Internet, Argentina.Com, Best Software, Ecole des Mines de Paris, Clemson University, Spin srl, LawBase Technologies

---

links.html version 4.01 on 05/10/2024