SORBS Sucks

SORBS is an anti-spam list that some email providers use. If you’re on their list, and you try send to someone behind a SORBS enabled server, your message will bounce.

Trying to get unlisted from SORBS is a very frustrating affair. Which I won’t get into.

The SORBS site has a few statements on it that will make you think. For example:

Warning:Whilst the Distributed Denial of Service attacks continue on SORBS it is impossible to retest your machines.

Note: Americans, the First Amendment does not apply outside of the USA, nor is it applicable, as it is to protect the individuals right to speak against a government's wishes. Nothing more, nothing less. SORBS has a right, and an obligation, to publish truthful information. Please take note, all information published on this site is an opinion of its owner based on reports and comments of the administrators. As this is an opinion you will find in law it is always truthful, regardless of whether the opinion is based on fact or fiction. Before offering threats of legal action try running this information past a competent lawyer who is experienced with a person's rights both in your country and internationally, it will help you save your time and money.

Note: Due to the continual selfishness or stupidity of some people, support tickets sent to the wrong queue will be deleted without being answered. Tickets submitted with the SORBS Support System are always sent into the correct queue.

Isn't what SORBS does illegal..?

I want to try my luck in the courts where do I send the papers..?

Just these last two FAQ entries alone tell me that Mr Matthew Sullivan, the creator and manager of this crazy system, is pissing off and frustrating more people than he is helping.

Note to Mr Sullivan: Don’t call me stupid. I’m not. But I am very frustrated with your Frankenstein.

This is one of those rare cases where I could support an Internet Police Force. Some people would say that the likes of AllOfMP3 and PirateBay are bad and should be terminated. But aren’t these sites ‘enablers’? They expose the technology to more people, and so ultimately create a larger market. SORBS on the other hand is a ‘preventer’. It is crippling legitimate email and other services from flowing.

There are more than a few anti-SORBS posting on the web. Just google for “sorbs sucks”. The people behind SORBS are generating negativity and need to change their model, or be terminated.

Here are a few suggestions of what they could do to become a credible organisation:

• Inform people when they get placed onto the lists. They only pick up “dubious” hosts when an email from that host passes one of their feeder servers, so they will have at least one live email address to inform of their decision to blacklist them.
  
• Re-write their support pages in simple English – no techie-speak. Even true techies may not know what they are talking about.
  
• Let themselves be bought out by a Google or a Microsoft. The ‘big-company’ lawyers would hopefully make sure the model is fair and reasonable to the general Internet population.
  
• Most importantly, they should respond to every query timeously and, where possible, politely by hand – ie: none of this automated response two weeks later crap.

If left unchecked, where will this ‘service’, or rather, similar even more obnoxious and obtrusive services that this idea will spawn, go? We don’t need this kind of stress.