….one, it’s possible, however unlikely, that someone on her staff did this to get some sort of PR out of it. I say it’s unlikely because this would be ridiculously easy for any technician to scour the logs and pin down the IP address of the person reporting her site and email service as spam, and if her staff had enough sense to use blacklisting as PR then they have to know how bad the backlash would be if that were somehow exposed.

Two, if she needs any technical assistance, I think I speak for Red State’s geeks/nerds/supertechs when I say we’re standing ready to jump in and help.

WHY IS THIS NOT ON ANY NEWS?
ERICK WHERE ARE YOU?

http://www.thefoxnation.com/left-wing-protests/2010/04/07/american-flags-burn-left-wing-protest-turns-ugly-capitol

THIS IS RIDICULOUS !

What is the IP address or domain that was specifically blacklisted? I happen to manage one of the major anti-spam blacklists… and I’m personal friends with many of the people who run many of the other important anti-spam blacklists (including SpamCop, SpamHaus, SURBL, URIBL, etc)

If someone will provide the IP address, I may be able to research this further. I don’t think that Liz did anything malicious. But I’ll be surprised if the IP is on a major blacklist without actual spam-sending being involved. Not saying that the campaign spammed…, just saying that it is more likely that their server was hijacked in some way that allowed a spammer to send spam from their IP.

I highly doubt that this was caused simply by a political enemy reporting them as spammers.

Please let me know what exactly is blacklisted (IP? domain?) and I’ll look into this.

I first just want to know WHAT was blacklisted and then I can possibly see why.

I went to Liz’s web site and signed up for her mailing list and,.. one thing is for sure–she is NOT using “confirmed opt in” (COI).

That is a very bad practice and it exposes her mailing list to all sort of abuse. She did send a subscription confirmation e-mail–which is much better than nothing–but still insufficient.

Having said that, MANY political candidate web sites don’t use COI–but it is typically to their detriment, and shouldn’t be an excuse for not using COI.

HERE IS WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED:

Instead of getting an e-mail thanking me for joining her mailing list, I should have received one-time message telling me that someone claiming to be “Rob McEwen” attempted to sign up my e-mail address to Liz’s mailing list. Then it would provide a link for me to click to CONFIRM that the signup was legit and was done by me and wasn’t fraud. Next, ONLY if that link is clicked does my e-mail address get into the mailing list.

That is how it should be done! That is COI.

You have to put yourself in the shoes of an innocent third party who was fraudulently signed up. Using the current system, they’ll think that the candidate added them to the list without permission and will view this as spam. But if the e-mail explains that someone visited their site and tried to sign that person up… and gives that person a chance to confirm the signup… then the recipient (A) understands how/why that initial message isn’t the campaign’s fault–they’ll know that someone ELSE is up to no good (B) this is the ONLY unsolicited message the innocent bystander receives, (C) the innocent bystander then does NOT have the burden of having to unsubscribe to something they didn’t sign up for in the first place, and having to do that is also offensive in its own way. And some have been trained to be scared to unsubscribe so they’ll instead keep hitting the “spam” button with each message sent to the e-mail list! (D) And the proper COI described above makes it NOT worth it for enemies to waste their time putting in malicious addresses because they know that there is only a one-to-one ratio between submissions and spams. But if the e-mail addresses get on the list just by clicking the button, then that ratio improves (for the evil doer) considerably.

COI is the ONLY way this should be done. Not doing COI is a minefield.

is already paying dividends in new and pernicious ways to compromise the internet based efforts of Enemies of the Regime.

Hey – Justin Hart here – we do some work for Liz (we built her iPhone app). I just got off the phone with her. To clarify… the blacklisted IP address was her HOME IP address.

At first I was worried that they were getting blacklisted for spam issues (which is common among political candidates) but that is not the case.

The people targeted her home computer IP address. They had to reset the router and “renew” the IP lease (techie term) to clear it out.

but not for me.

Insane jealousy, thy name is democrat hack(er)…