Status of dul.ru: DEAD

As noted by participants of the SDLU mailing list, the Russian Dial-up User List at the domain dul.ru is no more.

The Russian Dial-up User List website is no longer to be found at dul.ru; when you visit that domain you find a simple Russian-language "this domain is for sale" page.

As of May 19, 2015, this domain seems to have been set to "wildcard" status in DNS. This means that DUL.ru is effectively "listing the world;" any site still using the DUL.ru DNSBL zone will reject all inbound mail until this DNSBL is removed from that mail server's configuration.

The Russian Dial-up User list appears to have been a dialup or dynamic blocking list. The intent of this type of anti-spam tool is usually to block SMTP connections from hosts that aren't typically expected to be running mail services.

H/T: Neil Schwartzman

Reminder: AHBL is Shutting Down

As previously reported, the AHBL DNSBL has been shut down.

Please note that the publisher of the AHBL DNSBL has indicated that she will set all of the DNS zones to "wildcard" status as of January 1st. This means that AHBL will be effectively "listing the world;" any site still using any of the AHBL DNSBL zones will reject all inbound mail until the AHBL DNSBL zones are removed from that mail server's configuration.

Brielle Bruns posted the following to the SDLU mailing list on 12/26/14: "Figured I'd give one last notice that I'm about to wildcard all of the public AHBL zones on Jan 1st, 2015.

"If you are still using them in your mail servers, or know someone who is, now would be a good time to remove them.  Most of the major packages that came with configuration options for using the AHBL have long since removed them (such as SpamAssassin), but there are still many many people out there who make no effort to maintain their services and/or don't upgrade/check configurations.

The private zones which some people know of and have access to will not be affected by this wildcarding, as they are still considered 'active' and 'maintained'."

Status of rbl.orbitrbl.com: DEAD

Today, Mark E. Jeftovic of EasyDNS warned readers of the Mailop list that it is unwise to use the DNSBL "rbl.orbitrbl.com" due to a combination of abandonment and administrative issues.

He writes: "As some of you may know, we recently took over ZoneEdit.com and it's customer base.

We've found a domain on the system: rbl.orbitrbl.com which is delegated to zoneedit nameservers, broken (it is not allowed to zone transfer from it's designated master), unresponsive (account owner is not answering email, has an address in Sri Lanka and no telephone number), is using excessive queries (~ >500M queries per day on a "free dns" domain) and attracting repeated, multiple DDoS attacks.

As such, we will be wildcarding this zone and setting a long TTL fairly soon.

If you're actually using this RBL in your MTAs, now's a good time to stop. (this RBL is broken on 5 out of it's 6 delegated nameservers across 3 separate providers)."

Status of dnsbl.ahbl.org: SHUTTING DOWN

On March 26, 2014, DNSBL administrator Brielle Bruns announced that the Abusive Hosts Blocking List DNSBLs are to be shut down.

In email to me, she explained:

"After quite a bit of thought and consideration, I've decided that it is time to wind down some of the AHBL's public DNSbl services - specifically the dnsbl, ircbl, and rhsbl. 

We've had a good 11 year run with the lists.  Times have changed -- with the deployment of IPv6 moving full speed ahead, I don't feel that the current implementation of our DNSbl services are suited to the task. 

This doesn't mean that the AHBL is going away - we'll still be around, just focusing our efforts on a mix of other anti-abuse related things and a relaunch of the RHSbl (likely in 2-3 months, possibly sooner). 

I look forward to continuing to work with the community, and appreciate and value the feedback I've received over the years."

As a result, the lists dnsbl.ahbl.org, ircbl.ahbl.org and rhsbl.ahbl.org, and associated public look up tools are being retired.

I've known Brielle for many years and my interactions with her have been universally positive. Congratulations on a long eleven year run with AHBL, and I hope whatever she works on next is something she finds fun and fulfilling.

Status of dnsblchile.org: ALIVE

DNSBL Chile, created in 2011, appears to be a Chilean homegrown effort to tackle spamblocking from a local perspective. As they explain on their website: "Existing DNSBL services aim to block spam based on the type and origin affecting certain types of user. Chilean spam is generally ignored by these DNSBLs, mainly because of the language barrier. This raises the need for a specific DNSBL for Chile, which is able to investigate cases of spam in South-American Spanish."

The DNSBL zone is just "dnsblchile.org" and they report a few different types of responses: 127.0.0.2 and 127.0.0.3 for "verified spam sources," 127.0.0.5 for "verified scam sources," and 127.0.0.10 and 127.0.0.11 for DUL/PBL-like dynamic/"should not be running an MTA" entries.

I don't know much about this list in particular but it's always nice to see somebody attempt to address a previously segment or region's spam problem.  If you have any thoughts or details around this list, don't hesitate to drop me a line.

(Crappy translation above courtesy of my high school Spanish + a little help from Google Translate.)