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Friday, April 1, 2011

Http:BL Application Programming Interface (API) | Project Honey Pot

Http:BL API Specification

Overview

For many years email recipients have benefited from the use of various DNSBLs in the fight against spam. Through efficient DNS lookups, mail servers are able to check individual connecting clients against various black lists. This provides mail servers with the ability to decide to how client requests are handled from hosts based on individual black list criteria. Hosts are able to decide to block requests, allow requests, or perform extra spam filtering scrutiny to messages from hosts based on results from black lists lookups.

Http:BL is similar, but is designed for web traffic rather than mail traffic. The data provided through the service allows website administrators to choose what traffic is allowed onto their sites. This document describes how to integrate with and take advantage of the http:BL service.

If you have questions about this document, please contact us and we will do our best to answer them.

Http:BL Usage

Usage of the http:BL service is governed through the Project Honey Pot Terms of Service. By using the http:BL service you agree to abide by these terms.

To use http:BL a host need simply perform a DSN lookup of a web visitor's IP address. Http:BL's DNS system will return a value which indicates the status of the visitor. Visitors may be identified as search engines, suspicious, harvesters, comment spammers, or a combination thereof. The response to the DNS query, as outlined below, indicates what type of visitor is accessing your page.

Each user of http:BL is required to register with Project Honey Pot (www.projecthoneypot.org). Each user of http:BL must also request an Access Key to make use of the service. All Access Keys are 12-characters in length, lower case, and contain only alpha characters (no numbers). Generating non-assigned keys, not including a key in DNS queries, and sharing keys with other members or non-members are all violations of the Terms of Service.