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SPEWS Memorial Day?


I see a very strange thing today (August 30th). APEWS, an "anonymous" anti-spam blacklist (whose listing policies are very broad and of questionable accuracy) has taken down their home page. When you go to www.apews.org, what you find today is a memorial message.

The message pays tribute to the administrator supposedly behind the previous SPEWS blacklist. It's true that SPEWS website and blacklist data stopped being updated approximately a year ago. However, here's no indication beyond this message that somebody actually passed away, or that a single person that somebody knew was actually previously maintaining the SPEWS data.

Here's a copy of the message found on the APEWS website, in case it's changed back by the time you look for yourself:

Today our website and our mailservers are not available, because it is 30. August - SPEWS MEMORY DAY

Our beloved SPEWS operator got hit by a truck and died 30. August 2006. One of his dreams was to make the world a spam free place. As long as spam exists we therefore recommend all of you to shutdown all mailservers at every 30. August for 24 hours.

Be creative to make today a black day for all spammers and spam supporters and a day without mail and spam.

It is just one day in the year so it will not hurt you nor your company, but it will set a wideley visible sign if enough people do so.

Our blacklists are online, but we will not display reasons for listings nor do any removals by today. We will be back by tomorrow. APEWS - Anonymous Postmasters Early Warning System.

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