Internet Abuse
Tip: RBL stands for “Real-time Blackhole List”. For more information, please refer to http://www.anti-abuse.org/dns-blacklists/
Email users who find their messages blocked from mail servers that use DNSBLs often object vociferously, sometimes to the extent of attacking the existence of the lists themselves.
What is a DNS blacklist?
A DNS Blacklist (DNSBL) is a mechanism for publishing a list of IP addresses that some people may want to avoid and in a format which can be easily queried by computer programs on the Internet. The technology is built on top of the Internet Domain Name System, or DNS. DNSBLs are chiefly used to publish lists of addresses known to be involved in spam activities. All the modern mail transport agents (mail servers) can be configured to reject or flag messages which have been sent from a site listed on one or more such lists.
On January 26, 2004, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed the first lawsuit against a suspected phisher. The defendant, a Californian teenager, allegedly created and used a webpage designed to look like the America Online website, so that he could steal credit card information. Other countries have followed the lead of the U.S. by tracing and arresting phishers.
Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, which are generally undesired. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, mobile phone messaging spam, internet forum spam and junk fax transmissions.
Within these days of massive communication via e-mail, it comes to be quite important for anyone to be familiar with the following two terms: email “spamming” and email “spoofing”.
- Email spamming refers to sending email to thousands and thousands of users – similar to a chain letter. Spamming is often done deliberately to use network resources. Email spamming may be combined with email spoofing, so that it is very difficult to determine the actual originating email address of the sender. Some email systems, including our Microsoft Exchange, have the ability to block incoming mail from a specific address. However, because these individuals change their email addresses frequently, it is difficult to prevent some spam from reaching your email inbox.
- Email spoofing refers to email that appears to have originated from one source when it was actually sent from another source. Individuals, who are sending “junk” email or “spam”, typically want the email to appear to be from an email address that may not exist. This way the email cannot be traced back to the originator.
