What's New
21 March, 2007: Open Removal Ticket Status
Two of our volunteers have been unavailable for the past week; They will return by week's end. Please be assured that we are working diligently to resolve all open tickets. To that end, some tickets are being reviewed off line, the IP(s) removed and then closed without reply through the ticketing system. This situation is very temporary.
11 March, 2007: The Weekly Spam Trends graphic returns.
Due to changes in the parsing engine, we had to redesign the graph, reevaluate the parameters and eliminate data points prior to 2007. All other graphs will be updated by the end of this week. Additional images are planned as well.
22 February, 2007: Dynamic List Generation & Optimization Project Completed.
As previously mentioned, we have completed the conversion of the DHCP zone from flat file generation to MySQL tables. This has considerably reduced the number of lines in the list. While the database includes a considerable number of exclusions, only those that cut a hole in a larger range are printed to the zone file. All of the scripts that add, remove and exclude ranges have been re-coded.
22 February, 2007: Attention Rsync Users
The DHCP zone is being revamped so that it will be generated from MySQL tables rather than the current flat table. For quality control purposes, we are now fully extending CIDR in the zone. Some of the changes are already being implemented. New C ranges are currently being added as "a.b.c.0/24" rather than the short form "a.b.c". A full conversion will occur within the next 72 hours. Zone files will be slightly larger but properly indexed, as integer ranges, in MySQL. Eventually, we will eliminate many exclusions at zone generation time which will provide a smaller, more manageable list.
Our intention is to continue to provide free rsync data indefinitely. A plan is being developed to provide revenues to offset our costs that will have no impact on anyone using the service.
7 February, 2007: ChildSafeNetwork Spam Scam
7 February, 2007: Real Time Escalated Range Listings
1 February, 2007: Pending Ticket Issue
A large number of removal tickets were tagged incorrectly. To rectify this issue, these were closed. In the process, approximately 25 to 50 pending removal tickets (awaiting a response from the requester) were closed. If you have an open removal ticket without response for five or more days, please create a new ticket.
We apologize for any inconvenience. Please be assured that we have addressed the issue with improved volunteer training and a more proactive ticket review system.
26 January, 2007: The “Paper of Record” Is Now Spamming
Apparently, some misguided individual at the New York Times has hired a spammer who, in turn, runs an affiliate program to hawk NY Times subscriptions. We have now identified about 30 distinct IP addresses engaging in this activity.
Please be assured that we are making every reasonable effort to bring this to the attention of the Times.
17 January, 2007: Spam removals are ahead of ticket responses.
Simply stated, we can review and remove IPs listed for spam much faster than we can respond to the removal tickets.
16 January, 2007: Spam and Backscatter Weighting
29 December, 2006: The Spam Zone list generation process has been completely re-worked.
The dynamic zone will be coverted to the new system shortly. Ultimately, better data is produced more frequently with more verification. A side benefit is that we are now accepting delivery of almost all spam. This provides spammers with fewer clues regarding spam traps and trap domains.
26 December, 2006: Spam Zone Audit Completed
The elves dropped approximately 100,000 listings from the spam zone. These were older listings (three months plus without further spam) that met other criteria for removal. Meanwhile our new detection engine is working incredibly well.
A new Quality Control Portal is in beta test. This is intended to provide a threaded interface for issues that cannot be resolved with the ticket tracking portal. We hope to have this generally available in early January.
23 December, 2006: Significant Upgrade to our Spam Recognition Engine
17 December, 2006: Bell South Advisory Update
16 December, 2006: Adelphia Advisory
11 December, 2006: Policy Change. Biz.rr.com no longer marked as dynamic by default.
While there are dynamic ranges within biz.rr.com, it is no longer viable to exclude individual IP addresses as individuals obtain non-standard reverse pointers. It is simply not worth the consumption of time and resources. Therefore, we have removed all biz.rr.com dynamic listings.
However, we strongly recommend non-standard pointers. Additional important information is available here.
10 December, 2006: Update on Dynamic Zone Audit
8 December, 2006: If you were sent to our site to remove your email address …
We have received a report that some nitwit has sent out a large amount of spam with our site as the "unsubscribe" link. Obviously, we did not send out any such emails. We do not provide opt-out services for anyone.
In point of fact, we would discourage anyone from unsubscribing from spam. Doing so is far more likely to serve as a means of confirming your email address than to remove your address from any list.
Rule of thumb: If you didn't opt in — don't opt out!
8 December, 2006: Dynamic Zone Audit — You Can Help
Yesterday, we commenced a complete audit of dynamic ranges. This has slightly delayed requests for range removals.
Just a reminder: anyone can submit a dynamic range removal request. Simply use any IP in the range for the removal request and indicate the full range in the comments. We appreciate all the help that we can get.
27 November, 2006: Bell South Advisory
23 November, 2006: Opinion - Roadrunner Business Class
12 November, 2006: Tips On Purchasing Business Class DSL and Cable
9 November, 2006: Updated Earthlink/PeoplePC Advisory
2 November, 2006: Volunteer Conference Call, 5:00 PM EST
Expect some temporary delays in removal processing.
Scheduled Server Maintenance: Wednesday, 25 October, 06:00 to 06:45 UTC/GMT
20 October, 2006: Gmail Advisory
Take the Boulder Pledge: DON'T SUBSIDIZE CRIMINALS
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