Man, what a pain in my ass, although for the moment it’s been salved.

So, the IP address on which my domain name resides has triggered some spam traps somewhere in the universe, possibly (but not definitively) because someone within the same server space is using it for spam. The result is the IP address through which I have been sending mail from dee-rob.com has been blacklisted by Spamcop and some other anti-spam vigilante sites.

Foolishly, I went to Spamcop’s forums to get some possible advice on dealing with a situation that is just hugely difficult given that I’m about to move and have no home-base ISP. I didn’t want to have to use Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail, given that I have a perfectly good website of my own.

I say foolishly I went to the forums, because although some of the advice was good or reasonable (and, a couple of folks seemed to realize that blocklisting does create collateral damage among innocent bystanders), by and large the attitude was thickly pompous and condescending. Apparently, they feel quite righteous in what some of their threads hammer as the “war” against spam.

Frankly, I just don’t buy that attitude, any more than I buy the Patriot Act or roadblocks to stop drunk drivers or any number of things that fuck with innocent folks to snag the guilty. Yeah, spam sucks. It’s annoying. It’s pervasive. But, I happen to think my not being able to contact someone for whom I’m doing a web design or one of my oldest friends, because their ISP or hosting uses Spamcop, sucks more.

Worse than being guilty until proven innocent, I’m limited because someone in my ‘net neighborhood might be guilty. And, since I have no access at all to any of the reporting or background information or any control over whether the report is sound and whether my hosting company is responding appropriately, I just have to take it.

Maybe that would be an acceptable price to pay for some people. For me, it’s not.

But, more aggravating than any of the several conversations with my hosting company’s tech support has been the Charles Bronson smugness of the forums. My attitude and my rethinking need to be adjusted to see how Spamcop is helping, and I should be joining in on the blocklist movement to pressure ISPs and hosting companies to root out spammers.

While “helping” me, I got called stupid, my ability to research and think through the issue has been questioned, and it was suggested that since I paid my hosting company who in their eyes hosts criminals, I’m complicit in the criminal activity or at least tainted.

Problem is what constitutes spam is subjective.

Moreover, many within the Internet community disagree with Spamcop’s and others’ blocklisting approach. One of the best metaphors I saw on other websites likened Spamcop’s tactics to burning down a bakery in a mall or torching the entire mall, because the mall owners allowed a massage parlor to set up shop next door. The other one I liked was it’s like the post office in your home state stopping any mail from New Jersey, because a lot of junk mail comes from New Jersey.

At the end of the day, I have to lean heavily toward libertarianism and disagree that my losing my ability to confidently send email is a price I have to pay.

In other words, Spamcop is loaded with cocky motherfuckers who can kiss my ass with their self-congratulatory sense of right and wrong.