# Another email epic fail

## appetitus

Once again the much ballyhooed (but clearly stupid) email blacklist wrecks the system.

http://forums.cpanel.net/f43/spamassassin-bl-open-whois-org-152737.html

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"I've noticed scores like this:

1.1 DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS RBL: Envelope sender listed in bl.open-whois.org.

bl.open-whois.org appears to be dead and gone.

I think it's been removed in SpamAssassin 3.3.1, which is available from rpmforge."

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check emerge -s spamassassin

*  mail-filter/spamassassin

      Latest version available: 3.2.5-r2

      Latest version installed: 3.2.1-r1

No doubt the email antispam fanatics will spout 'spamassassin is so dead dude, we moved on to' someother pos.

Which completely overlooks the obvious evidence above, i.e. that when such a service breaks down (and they ALWAYS do)

the crap concept employed gives false positives and results in your email going down the /dev/null drain.

Then there is the other commonplace problem, that the blacklist service is so fubar ridden that it constantly

emits false positives by blindly accepting any sort of complaint about a source of spam (including the obvious

just put a phoney name in body and have it taken for header gag).

Wonderful, the world of crap predicted by those against antispam lists back in the early days has come true.

Sometimes it sucks to be around for so long.

---

Anyway, any plans to update the spam assassin build?  It does seem to work most of the time...

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## appetitus

check /etc/mail/spamassassin for local.cf

set

score RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET	0

---

plus

remove 

--------------

##{ DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS

ifplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::DNSEval

header          DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS  eval:check_rbl_envfrom('openwhois', 'bl.open-whois.org.')

describe        DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS  Envelope sender listed in bl.open-whois.org.

tflags          DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS  net publish

endif

##} DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS

--------------

from /usr/share/spamassassin/72_active.cf

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## platojones

 *Quote:*   

> I think it's been removed in SpamAssassin 3.3.1, which is available from rpmforge."

 

When was the last time you synced portage?  I've been running it for a few days now:

```
[I] mail-filter/spamassassin

     Available versions:  3.2.1-r2 (~)3.2.5-r2 (~)3.3.1-r1 {berkdb doc ipv6 ldap mysql postgres qmail sqlite ssl tools}

     Installed versions:  3.3.1-r1(09:15:19 AM 04/07/2010)(berkdb doc ipv6 ldap mysql ssl -postgres -qmail -sqlite)

     Homepage:            http://spamassassin.apache.org/

     Description:         SpamAssassin is an extensible email filter which is used to identify spam.

```

So yeah...it's there now.

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## appetitus

 *platojones wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   I think it's been removed in SpamAssassin 3.3.1, which is available from rpmforge." 
> 
> When was the last time you synced portage?  I've been running it for a few days now: 

 

about 10 minutes before the post of course

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## platojones

 *Quote:*   

> about 10 minutes before the post of course

 

It's been in portage for several days.  Something must be wrong with your sync.

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## appetitus

 *platojones wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   about 10 minutes before the post of course 
> 
> It's been in portage for several days.

 

Fixes etc have been out for about 6 months, nice to see how up to date things are kept.

--

But this all misses the important point, that the inherent design is flawed, i.e. reporting a positive for any failure to return an answer from a soon-to-be-awol antispam service.

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