39: I Carry A Grudge
This book won’t be in progress long. I hope.
These block lists are distributed via DNS, and are called DNS Block Lists (DNSBL). (You’ll also see Reputation Block Lists, or RBLs, but that term is trademarked.) By refusing all mail from hosts on a reliable block list, you immediately stop the overwhelming majority of spam.
That’s the catch: a reliable block list.
This is the Internet. Just as anyone can run a web site, anyone can publish a block list—and you can’t tell by the name. These projects were overwhelmingly founded by infuriated geeks, and often grew beyond their original intent…
The skinny
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