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[Jeff Taylor <shdwdrgn AT sourpuss.net>]

Just to clarify, spamhaus WAS interfering directly with normal server operations.  They blacklisted email servers that happened to also run DNS servers on the same IP address.  It didn't matter if the email service was working perfectly within all current accepted guidelines and had never sent a single spam, that server was still blacklisted for an incidental association with another service that was connected with malware which was completely outside of any control by the DNS operators.  Spamhaus even talks about this process on their website, saying that if they have no way of contacting the person responsible for an offense then they will expand their blacklist to include a whole subnet, and the blacklist an entire ISP, all with the goal of trying to get someone to do their bidding and without any concern for the affects this has on other innocent users.

On 06/28/2019 07:21 PM, Rouben wrote:

I thought this was about malware... maybe child porn too, although I don’t think Spamhaus has anything to do with blocking the latter.

AFAIK Spamhaus is a not for profit organization. So technically they are not an “evil” (i.e. profit making) corporation, and as was pointed out earlier, they aren’t forcing or interfering in anyone’s operations; it’s actually up to each operator/vendor to leverage their efforts/products (i.e. black/whitelists). In fact, I’d say, their aim and purpose are actually pretty close to OpenNIC, albeit they don’t operate (or strive towards) an absolute democracy like OpenNIC does.

Having said the above, I think it’s important to recognize practicality. If the Internet were 100% “unmanaged” and “uncensored” (i.e. a true “free for all” with zero restrictions) environment, it would be useless cesspool of spam, malware and other garbage... because there would be enough a-holes to abuse it for everything it’s got. This has been proven undeniably over the course of time. There are pretty obvious reasons why organizations like Spamhaus exist, and more importantly to this rant, why others *choose* to *voluntarily* use their tools of “censorship” (i.e. blacklists).

Does the idealist in me wish that the Internet could go back to the Arpanet model of absolute trust and openness where every DNS and SMTP server is wide open to “help out” the community like in the good old days? Yes. Is it ever going to happen in the foreseeable future? No way!

Just my $0.02...

Rouben

On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 18:10 Daniel Quintiliani <danq AT runbox.com> wrote:

Umm...are you talking adult content on OpenNIC TLDs, or are servers actually going to start filtering mainstream adult Internet sites via DNS?

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-Dan Q


On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 16:01:02 -0600, Jeff Taylor <shdwdrgn AT sourpuss.net> wrote:

> For example, interest has been
> expressed over the years to have an adult content listing, and this is
> something that could be produced within the blacklist API.
>

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Rouben

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