Re: [exim] Tarpit SPAM valid in this day in age.

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Author: Richard James Salts
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [exim] Tarpit SPAM valid in this day in age.


On 10 December 2018 8:42:12 pm AEDT, Brent Clark via Exim-users <exim-
users@???> wrote:
>Good day Guys
>
>Just something I thought I would like to double check with the
>community.
>
>I am part of a team that has inherited some mail servers, and going
>through the Exim config, we are seeing some very old terminologies and
>methods used to try and curb spam.
>
>One that I am seeing is
>
>https://pastebin.com/RqDkQJUD
>
>So my question is, is Exim tarpitting still a valid tool to try and tie
>
>up spammers resources in this day and age?


It's hard to say. There are certainly situations where tarpitting is a net win
for the defender still. But spammers seem to come in many shapes and sizes.
However if you are tarpitting and the spammer does adapt to sending rates
based on destination then you may avoid ever being the target of these
messages. However with the number of times you see messages coming from hosts
in a botnet that just try sending indiscriminately cuts down on this.
Thankfully these can probably be avoided earlier in the piece via ip
blacklists.

>
>I tried Googling, but the latest I could find was from 2011.
>
>Regards
>Brent