Fwd: [sorbs.net #51340] Need help with 81.169.156.174 (support form)

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Nov 06, 2005 at 05:50:18AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Eugen Leitl wrote:
> > They're RBL nazis. Not worth talking to. Anyone who uses a RBL for
> > hard blocking services it out of their fucking minds, anyway. 
> 
> People with this attitude virtually ensure that Tor will never be
> successful and doom any movement towards privacy on the Internet to failure.

There are intrinsic problems with a number of RBL services
which have nothing whatsoever to do with Tor or Wikipedia. Basically,
some operators of RBL services ban whole networks indiscriminately.
E.g. you might find your IP banned just because they ban whole
networks where once upon a time was a spammer. Because of this
using RBLs as spam score functions is a good idea, blocking services
based on RBL presence is not. At work our customers got personally bitten
by this when GMX and a few other large ISPs would up on an RBL
which our hoster has silently switched to (we were not amused).

Some RBLs indiscriminately ban Tor exit nodes as spammers despite
SMTP standard port being blocked in the exit policy. 
 
> I know I must sound like a broken record, but I believe that at least
> some people here are still simply not listening.  People who use RBLs
> for hard blocking services generally find the strategy to work quite
> well.  They are not out of their fucking minds, they are using a

Yes, RBLs can be quite useful. Operators of RBLs find themselves
in the position of some power, which some of them use classical
mobster tactic to ban services they don't think should exist.

> practical approach to a practical problem and they are being successful.
> 
> I would argue that privacy activists and coders who do not appreciate
> this point and think really hard how to deal with it are making a very
> big mistake.
> 
> This does not by any means apply to the Tor community at large.  Most
> people here have responded thoughtfully to these sorts of issues.  I
> merely want to stand up and say I *love* privacy _and_ I use RBLs for
> hard blocking services.
> 
> And you know what?  I'm not out of my fucking mind.

We've been through this before. You using RBLs to block
Tor exit nodes to Wikipedia is good. RBLs declaring Tor
exit nodes as spammers despite blocked port 25 in
their exit policy is abusive.

FWIW, this didn't happen to me yet.
 
> --Jimbo
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.leitl.org
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