i am subscribed to a number of lists (may be not anymore)
but i wished this guy had a decency to give a warning in major MTA lists at
least....
----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg A. Woods" <woods@???>
To: <exim-users@???>
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Exim] imputs.orbs.com
> [ On Monday, July 16, 2001 at 16:16:41 (-0400), Peter Radcliffe wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: [Exim] imputs.orbs.com
> >
> > ORBS is dead, and some of the name servers for it are returning false
> > positives for everything.
>
> Well, *one* of the nameservers.....
>
> If you look at the wildcard TXT record available from the same server I
> think you'll figure it out....
>
> But there was a pretty wide-spread announcement last week that this was
> going to happen -- I thought it had been copied to exim-users, as I
> received several copies from various mailing lists I subscribe to....
>
> I'll attach a copy....
>
> > Stop using it.
>
> Indeed!
>
> --
> Greg A. Woods
>
> +1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <gwoods@???> <woods@???>
> Planix, Inc. <woods@???>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
>
>
> ----- Begin Included Message -----
>
> From: rfg@??? (Ronald F. Guilmette)
> Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email
> Subject: IMPORTANT!!! ORBS USERS PLEASE TAKE NOTE
> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 22:30:50 -0000
> Message-ID: <tks98qske8acbd@???>
>
>
> IMPORTANT!!!
>
> IF YOU ARE CONFIGURED TO MAKE REFERENCES TO ANY ORBS.ORG `LIST' ZONE(S)
> I STRONGLY SUGGEST THAT YOU DISCONTINUE DOING SO IMMEDIATELY, IF NOT
> SOONER. FAILURE TO DO SO MAY RESULT IN SERIOUS IMPARMENT OF YOUR
> E-MAIL INFLOW.
>
> This is a public service announcement for those sites that are still
> configured to perform lookups against any or all of the following
> former (and now defunct) ORBS zones:
>
> inputs.orbs.org
> outputs.orbs.org
> relays.orbs.org
> delayed-outputs.orbs.org
> spamsources.orbs.org
> spamsource-netblocks.orbs.org
> manual.orbs.org
>
> As a courtesy to Alan Brown (owner and operator of ORBS.ORG), I agreed
> last year to allow one of my name servers (E-SCRUB.COM) to become one
> of 11 name servers for the orbs.org zone. I agree to this because the
> each of the `list' subdomains noted above was in fact a separate zone
> of its own, separate and different from the base `orbs.org' zone, which
> itself contained very few DNS records.
>
> My agreement with Alan was ONLY to act as a secondary name server (one
> of eleven) for the base orbs.org zone. Because of normal DNS client-side
> caching, and because of the small number of DNS records involved, I knew
> for certain at the time that having my name server be one of 11
secondaries
> for the base orbs.org zone would involve very little expenditure of band-
> width on my part.
>
> The situation changed dramatically however with Alan's disabling of the
> subzones mentioned above. (This occured sometime last month. I'm not
> exactly sure of the date.) When disabling the `list' subzones, Alan
> apparently just removed any mention of these subzones/subdomains from
> the base orbs.org zone file.
>
> Because of the way Alan disabled the former ORBS list zones, my name
> server is now shouldering (at least) 1/11th of the total world-wide
> DNS queries that are still being made against both the base orbs.org
> zone and also against all of the former ORBS `list' subzones. This
> may not sound like a lot, but in fact it DOES represent a substantial
> and noticable drain on the small amount of bandwidth I have. I should
> note also that when I briefly turned on query logging in my name server
> recently, I found that over 2,000 sites world wide are still making
> frequent and repeated references to the former ORBS list subzones,
> presumably as they attempt to check each e-mail message coming into
> their mail servers.
>
> I simply do not have the kind of bandwidth necessary to support all of
> this pointless and utterly wasteful traffic. I've asked Alan multiple
> times to remove my name server from the list of authoratative name servers
> for the orbs.org zone, and each time he has made up some new implausible
> excuse. Alan's dog may indeed have eaten his homework, but his excuses
> just aren't believable anymore. (He has had plenty of time to take care
> of this. I first requested him to remove my server on June 7th, 2001,
> and I have re-requested that he do that several times since. Each time
> he has either failed to respond or else had presented me with some new
> implausible excuse.)
>
> I've considered various solutions to this problem, but none of them seem
> particularly easy for me. I could certainly relocate my name server,
called
> E-SCRUB.COM, to a different IP address, but for all I know, the DNS query
> traffic might just follow the name, rather than the IP address, so then
I'd
> be right back where I started. It would also be a major pain in the ass
for
> me to get an new IP for other reasons. I have already tried setting up
> NS records in _my_ copy of the orbs.org zonefile (on my name server) for
> all of the subzones mentioned above, and pointing all of those NS records
> at 127.0.0.1 (local loopback address) but for reason I don't fully under-
> stand, that hasn't stopped the DNS query flood to my name server either.
>
> I'm sure that there are a number of other possible convoluted solutions to
> this problem, e.g. creating a new `host' record in DNS (and with NSI) and
> then re-jiggering all of the records for my many other domains so that the
> primary name servers for those are listed as being the new `host', but
this
> seems like a lot more work than I should have to go to just because Alan
> refuses to do the decent thing and because so many sites have been so
horribly
> lax in removing references to the now long defunct ORBS list zones.
>
> In light of all this, I've decided to just use a trivial and brute-force
> approach to stopping all of this DNS query traffic from being sent to my
> name server. As of 9 PM tonight (Pacific Daylight Time) my name server
> will be configured to answer ALL `A' record queries regarding ANY name
> within the orbs.org domain with an affirmative response and with the IP
> address value `127.0.0.1'. Each such response will carry an extremely
> long TTL, in order to insure that further queries regarding the same name
> will be put off as long as possible into the indefinite future.
>
> An exception will be made, of course, for `A' record queries relating to
> `www.orbs.org', which my name server will contine to identify as being
> located at 202.61.250.235.
>
> The implications of my plan for sites still attempting to use the orbs.org
> zones for e-mail filtering purposes should be evident. From 9 PM PDT
tonight
> all such sites will begin to reject (at least) an estimated 1/11th of
their
> incoming e-mail, at random. The portion of incoming e-mail given this
> treatment by these sites may in fact increase, over time, as I also intend
> to delete all other NS (name server) records from my copy of the orbs.org
> zone file, leaving only my server listed as being authoritative for this
> zone. (I'm actually not sure what effects this will have as the root
> server will still contain a completely list of all 11 current registered
> name server for the zone.)
>
> Complaints, flames, and lawsuit threats resulting from the DNS change that
> I will make to name server this evening should be directed to Alan Brown,
> whose new/current e-mail address seems to be <alanb@???>,
> and/or to your own local mail administrator.
>
> Finally, allow me to recommend to all mail administrators reading this
that
> tonight's change will provide you with what I believe will be a more than
> compelling incentive to select some new and different source of open
relays
> data. At the present time, there are at least four such services
available
> to the general public.
>
>
> Regards,
> Ron Guilmette
> <rfg@???>
>
>
> P.S. I wish that I could recommend one of the four active open relays
listing
> services above the others, but one of them refuses to accept automated
sub-
> missions, two of the others don't seem to even answer their e-mail, and
the
> final one has recently blacklisted my own non-open mail server, simply be-
> cause I made the small mistake of manually replying to one of their own
> auto-replies that was sent in response to a prior message that I had sent
> them to nominate some open relays I knew about.
>
> When and if a responsive and intelligently-run public open relays listing
> service become available, I'll certainly be among the first to use it and
to
> recommend it.
>
>
> ----- End Included Message -----
>
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