[falter]

Originally Posted by The Finman

You know, I had the exact same concerns when I first installed this hack almost a month ago, and I have carefully examined EVERY alert.

Oh, believe me, I'm understand the full potential of this plugin, in addition to how I might use it effectively (I work in computer security, and actually make use of DNSBL's). My only problem is that the plugin enables people to blindly use DNSBL's, assuming that they are blocking just open proxies, as the title of this entails. I, as an admin, do not want to prevent people coming from IPs associated with SPAM (or other non-proxies), as I am well aware of the fact that the majority of spam in the world comes from hosts and networks that have been compromised by worms.

My suggestion is that if you are going to create a plugin that purports to block Open proxies, and, while it does block open proxies, it also blocks lots of other things, then that's a disservice. I'm erring on the side of caution, here. Upon further investigation of my user who had a problem the other day, according to the DNSBL, she was coming from an IP that had been known to be compromised by a worm. Do I care about that? Not particularly. I only really care about whether or not it's a proxy.

After looking at the link provided by "DementedMindz", I've found that SORBs actually does something right. Check out the link, http://www.us.sorbs.net/using.shtml. I've opted to enable http.dnsbl.sorbs.net, socks.dnsbl.sorbs.net, and misc.dnsbl.sorbs.net, as they are only related to proxies, and nothing else.

Here's the deal: I don't really want to babysit my messageboard by investigating every hit that comes through. If I know definitively that a particular IP is only matching because it hosts an open-proxy, I'm fine with that. I just think that if you're going to do that, you'll end up chasing a lot of wild geese, seeing as the DNSBL that come enabled by default, and have otherwise been recommended, do a lot more than just monitor for open proxies. It's a mis-use of these DNSBLs.