ATTENTION: DNSWL to be disabled by default.

Bill Cole <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.mail.spam.spamassassin.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Context:
	https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/show_bug.cgi?id=8193
	https://www.dnswl.org/?p=120

TL;DR: Rather than using an in-band signal of a special reply value to 
queries from blocked users, as do other DNS-Based List operators, 
DNSWL.org sends back a "listed high" response to all queries. I was 
unaware of this until bug 8193 was opened and linked to the DNSWL 
statement of that policy. As I write in a comment on that bug, no one 
should ever be using DNSBLs of any sort blindly and the onus is on the 
configuring user of SA to select them prudently as they all have limits.


I believe this is a problem that needs fixing, but it's a change that 
may surprise some users. Consider yourself warned...

Right now, there's a comment in 50_scores.cf (the file for manually-set 
scores) that I had not previously seen:

	# DNSWL is a commercial service that requires payment for servers over 
100K queries daily.
	# Unfortunately, they will return true answers for DNS servers they 
consider abusive so
	# SA Admins must enable these rules manually.

And yet, the scores following that comment *enables* the rules. Note 
that as of 2024-03-01 (as documented at the DNSWL link above) they have 
reduced the free limit to 10,000 queries per 30 days. A site feeding 350 
messages/day to SpamAssassin will exceed that limit. That is small even 
for "personal" systems.

Pending a discussion on the issue reaching some other consensus, I am 
immediately changing all those scores to zero in 50_scores.cf so that 
the rules WILL BE DISABLED by default as documented in the comment. I am 
also correcting the rate cited in that comment. This change should take 
effect in the rules distribution in the next couple of days.

Whether or not you want to use DNSWL is very much a local choice. At 10k 
queries/month, MOST sites will need to either register (and likely pay 
DNSWL) or leave the rules disabled.

-- 
Bill Cole
[email protected] or [email protected]
(AKA @[email protected] and many *@billmail.scconsult.com 
addresses)
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