DSBL.org is Gone; The Battle Against SPAM Still Rages
This morning I noticed some timeouts when checking against the DSBL.org servers for incoming SMTP traffic to my E-Mail server. So I checked the website to find the DSBL SPAM blacklilst have been taken offline. They explain that SPAMMERS have changed their targets from open relays to using "spam zombies" they can easily lure computer users into installing on their local machines.
If you are wondering what DSBL is or was, it was a volunteer run organization that would check the source of a SPAM message to see if it had some common vulnerabilities that would allow spammers to leverage the server to send massive amounts of unsolicited E-Mail. Typically these were known as open relays.
Today the common way to send SPAM is by getting computer users to install some software, like an innocent browser toolbar or something else fun and innocent looking. Inside the application is a hidden package that will install a hidden application that works for the spammer to send out their junk from your computer. I talked about this a couple of years ago.
There are still active blacklist available to check for likely sources of SPAM, these include Spamcop.net, njabl.org and SpamHaus.org. These blacklist have been the frontline of blocking SPAM on my E-Mail servers for years. Blocking the source is so much more effective than parsing the message content and scoring it, and it uses much less bandwidth and server resources. Until the SMTP protocol is modified we are always going to be fighting this war and much like the war on drugs it is almost futile I think.