08/01/2010
RBL for Greek spam emails
It’s been some months now that I’ve started collecting some IP addresses of well known Greek spammers and I’ve put them on an DNSBL. I’ve named this list GrRBL. The software I use to run the list is rbldnsd.
The list is strictly moderated by me and only me and I try to be very selective on hosts I add to the list. The list contains hosts not only in .gr zone but also “foreign” hosts used to send spam messages either in Greek language or of Greek interest.
There’s a minimalistic guide on using it with spamassassin, exim, sendmail and postfix on GrRBL’s website. There are currently no statistics and no public listing of IPs in the blacklist. If there’s enough demand for statistics I might create some.
There’s also NO automatic deletion support, once an IP is in the list there’s no automatic way out. Since I am the only one adding IPs to the list, I am also the only one removing them, manually of course.
Even though I use GrRBL in all of the mail servers I own/manage, still I consider the service as beta. I don’t think it’s ever going to eat your emails, but you are still the only one responsible if this happens.
To submit new spam messages for inclusion please send me an email with FULL headers of the spam message to grrbl [at] void [dot] gr and I will try to take a look at it as soon as possible.
If you use it, or plan to, please leave a comment or even better, submit some spam messages so the list gets bigger and better.
P.S. In case you wonder, yes the list contains the IPs of the notorious sofokleous10 spammer.
Filed by kargig at 15:48 under Internet,Linux
Tags: antispam, blacklist, dnsbl, email, exim, grrbl, postfix, rbl, sendmail, spam, spamassassin
11 Comments | 11,096 views
I’ve been using grrbl on my laptop for several months now. I don’t remember if I’ve properly thanked you for running it, but “thanks!” 🙂
BTW, do you think it’s ok to enable grrbl in HELLUG’s mail servers? I haven’t added it there, but after running with it on my laptop for almost 6 months now and watchin what gets blocked, I think it’s pretty safe to start using it for HELLUG email too.
Thanks for your kind words.
I haven’t seen any problems with GrRBL in any mail servers I use it with. So yes, I am confident that it might help a bit to catch some more spam on HELLUG’s mail servers as well. I’d prefer to use it as an addition to other spam checks than as a mere black/white list though.
we HATE the sofokleous10 spammer god damn it, thank for the post.. :p
@Giorgos Keramidas
Maybe you can also help here make a really good and reliable Greek SPAMers list.
Lefteris: Yep, you are right.
I am semi-regularly sending UNIX mbox files to kargig@ with those spam messages that have managed to evade HELLUG’s spam-assassin filters. It’s not much help in the form of actual RBL maintenance work, but it’s the best I can do to help right now.
Giorgos Keramidas is regularly sending me Greek spam messages that I “parse” and then add the necessary entries on my RBL, so in a way he is helping…a LOT 🙂
He is helping all right a lot, nationally and internationally.
@Lefteris Instead of starting your own RBL I think it would be better to join our efforts and create a single RBL for Greek spam. This way it will be easier for administrators to add this single RBL to their anti-spam toolbox.
About mirroring GrRBL, I have no problem at all but we should get in contact through email about that. I’ll be a bit busy for the next 3-4 days so expect a mail from me at the end of this week to see what we can do about mirroring.
Btw, I guess you were the administrator of the J root of ORSN, right ? 🙂
Well, I had no other choice but to make my own RBL since there have been no other Greek RBLs and the Greek SPAM is only increasing over the past few years. I should have started it long time ago but I am really glad someone did. In any case, I agree that a single, reliable, mirrored, Greek targeted and well maintained RBL is of course much better than a few. I will be expecting you email.
Yes, I was 🙂
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I have placed grrbl to one of my servers for test
Waiting for the results