Michael P. O'Connor

This has just happened to me, too. Very annoying – have no idea what is going on (I’m just an ordinary person, not a computer expert) or how to sort it out. But I need to send email in order to work – so how to fix this?

I think these guys are some sort of internet terrorists – and I propose to write to Matthew Sullivan (SORBS founder) and to the volunteer called Dan, with whom I tried to have a rational exhange of words in the subject, to say as much. These people hate Spam so much they are prepared to make anyone suffer regardless and seem to think it is OK. Perhaps it is trivialising the recent London bombings, or the Sept 11 massacre at the Twin Towers to suggest the analogy – but on a smaller and less devastating scale it is the same thing. I have done nothing wrong (as “Dan” admitted), but he claimed that the organisation for which he ‘volunteers’ would not consider removing the IPs from their list. As it turns out, these were not my IPs but seem to be dynamic IPs through which my mail is routed. Whatever the case – the impact on my email is the same. It bounces. This would not matter if the person I was trying to email was just a friend. It would be annoying but not especially threatening. However – I am attempting to email a prospective employer – and need them to understand that I am both reliable and trustworthy. The bottom line is that we all hate Spam – but only SORBS and its converts – sorry, volunteers – have retreated into a hardline fundamentalist stance where they don’t care who they hurt so long as they fulfill their objective. With apologies for the rant!

I couldn’t agree more that Sorbes is a joke. Listing a mail server becuase it’s on a dynamic ip range is rediculous. Even worse, they think every ISP should change their rDNS records so that a reverse DNS lookup can be performed. Yeah, that’s a great way for an ISP staff to spend their time! Apparently no one else has the right to set up a webserver. Their website goes on to state that it is their belief that all mail servers on dynamic ip address ranges should be routed by a mail server on a static ip. So we should all pay to have our mail forwarded?!?! Latency, eavesdropping, and cost doesn’t matter I guess. Further, their website has been developed by a couple third graders and they are requesting donations! Here’s my dontation: A big @#$^ YOU to thier entire staff. If I ever turn to the dark side, anyone want to guess the victim of my first DDOS attack??