The preferred way to automatically use the SPEWS list to filter email is by using a DNS
query based system (DNSBL). This works by taking the IP address of the incoming email server
(the SMTP mailserver talking to your mailserver) and checking it against a
DNS zone version of the SPEWS list. If the IP address is found, your mailserver can
either discard the email, bounce it back to the sender, or tag it as possible spam.
SPEWS does not provide a publicly available zone to query. The easiest way
to use the SPEWS list this way is to use the DNS lookup based filtering provided by
Relays.Osirusoft.com,
the SPEWS Level 1 and 2 data (see FAQ) is included
in their free to use multi-zone spam prevention database. Although we highly recommend
using every zone they offer to filter with, you can, if you wish, DNS test against the
SPEWS zone only. Access it via the "reversed IP" lookup standard (as used with all MAPS
lookups):
2.0.0.127.spews.relays.osirusoft.com
This will return a value of [127.0.0.4] if the IP number is in SPEWS. Note: [127.0.0.2] and
[127.0.0.4] are test addresses that will always return [127.0.0.4].
Other systems may soon follow and offer this zone for DNS lookups. SPEWS does welcome offers
posted to the normal email abuse forums.
The fastest way to use SPEWS is to set up ones own DNS server and mirror one of the
DNS systems that include SPEWS. This way queries can take place locally and greatly
accelerate the checking of incoming SMTP IP addresses.
Only individuals, companies, or internet service providers who run their own mailservers
are able to filter using this method. For email users who do not have this capability,
please see SpamBouncer for an
alternative method of using DNS lookups and SPEWS.
We would also recommend that all people bothered by spam contact their internet service
providers and request they add some sort of filtering to their incoming email systems.
Several spam filtering choices are listed on the SPEWS FAQ page.
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