Controversy
The ORBS list was controversial for a number of reasons. Many people felt that the methods ORBS employed to scan the Internet for open mail servers could be abusive. ORBS used probes to test for open relays without permission, sometimes over and over again. Some claimed that testing of their networks continued even after they asked ORBS to stop, others claimed that relayed spam didn't stop either. In some cases the tests interfered with mail servers, causing delays, especially when those servers were assigned hundreds of IP addresses.
Related to the testing regime, which was excessive in the eyes of a number of email administrators, Brown's policy of adding servers he was unable to test to the list, whether or not they were actually open relays, was also a matter of dispute. Another complaint was that open relays that had never sent spam were listed without notice. False listings on ORBS were also alleged, particularly when Brown was engaged in legal or other dispute against the listed party
A website was created in 2001 by Brad Baker called stoporbs.org, to offer assistance to other mail administrators who had been listed on the ORBS blacklist for reasons other than open relays. Many administrators felt that by listing servers for other than the reasons advertised (open relays), the list was not reliable for the supposed purpose.
Read more about this topic: Open Relay Behavior-modification System
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)