Why Spam Blocklists Like UCEPROTECT Are Next To Useless
Author: Ken Douglas
Dated: 2021-03-09
While network admins may be using what they think are honorable spam blocking services, those services are not what they seem.
For most network admins, spam blocking services can be invaluable and can reduce the amount of spam on the Internet. But they can also be triggered to cause abuse and some can abuse their trust and through trying to promote themselves, be an inconvenient nuisance.
To begin, let's look at how they are supposed to work. Spam can be reported by subscribers and the mail server or its IP address is added to the spam service's block list. That sounds ok, doesn't it?
But what if a company's competitors are the ones making complaints and getting emailed responses to their direct email enquiries just to report them as spam? That is not hard to do.
Other ways of getting on a spam blocklists is by sending email to what they call spamtraps. A spamtrap is an email address created for the sole purpose of getting what can be considered spam because the email address has never been used to email anyone... assumably. While it is easy to legitimately create a spam trap email address these days by registering any domain name and never using the address of info@ that domain, one will get email from real spammers who get a list of domains from search and simply send spam to info@, contact@, sales@ that domain.com. Voila! We now have a spamtrap email address.
So how do mail servers that are not used for sending bulk email end up sending mail to a spam trap? For example, if the mail server can only send mail originating from a website on the same server (localhost) and can only send one email at a time and that email needs to be a subscribed user of one of the clients using the service on that server, then how can it send mail to a spamtrap when that client's subscribers have purchased online and used a legitimate email address to receive their login details?
Oh, but accidents can happen? That would only be possible by sending mail to a mistyped address. But what is more likely is that a competitor has joined online for the sole purpose of getting mail sent to a spamtrap address.
Regardless of the cause, most legitimate spam blocklists provide a means to have the block removed and a webform for submitting the details. Of course repeated offences may not get removed. But some services like UCEPROTECT are not so honourable and possibly scamming. Of some 40-50 spam block services an associate found that their mail server was blocked by UCEPROTECT. How they found out was that a software purchase delivery was rejected by the mail server at t-online.de. Just imagine the inconvenience caused… a client has purchased software online and will not get it delivered. Nor will they get any follow up emails.
Well they checked blocklists and only UCEPROTECT had them listed. But finding the UCEPROTECT website was difficult because most links were broken or could not be found. Then when a website was found at www.uceprotect.net one is presented with nothing but obnoxious messages and how they do not delist anyone on their blacklist. Even their contact form is designed to be useless and obnoxious with a warning that any delist requests made here will get you blocked for longer. As it turns out that webform cannot be submitted even if you input all of your contact info. The service is designed to be obnoxious, and soliciting for a donation in the hope of finding a solution.
So how do spam blocking services like UCEPROTECT really get their listings?
There are also spam block checking services that can be used to check an IP address. They can provide a check on 4-50 spamblock services, but they are also soliciting for a donation for you to hope that they can help with delisting.
And ISPs are blindly subscribing to these scammers?
For more info see related reference at Why Spam Blocklists Like UCEPROTECT Are Next To Useless
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