Subject: Re: [Asrg] Let's try something different

From: Joe St Sauver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2003 09:28:51 -0800 (PST)

Chris said:

#Consider this, then, if _every_ mail system made use of open proxy
#blacklists, and every mail system utilized a reasonably sane method of
#back-notifying legit senders from these IPs of the blacklisting. [Hence,
#for example, my posting of points for a BCP on filtering.]
#
#Result?  Senders get their systems fixed ASAP, and things get delisted
#in a timely fashion.  The FPs have been resolved.  Virtually no harm
#done. The only ones left open are the ones not sending any legit email,
#just spam.  Better accuracy.  Fewer spam sources.

This is precisely what's needed, and much like the stategy that the IRC
folks adopted, except that they tend to take it a step further: rather
than just checking existing open proxy lists, they actively scan connecting
hosts for common open proxy ports at connect time, and feed positive hits
back to the blacklist.

But regardless of whether you simply consult an existing list, or actively
check each connecting host at connection time, I agree that this is a key 
step.

Regards,

Joe
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

---

From: Wes Peters <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:52:54 -0800

On Friday 07 March 2003 13:49, Jed Margolin wrote:
> Brad Davis wrote:

Hi Brad, glad to see you've joined us.  ;^)

> Why would someone leave their SMTP relay open?

a) they don't care
b) they don't know
c) they don't know how to fix it
d) internal mail to the uk office isn't working and open relaying seems 
to fix it (ouch!)
e) they've forgotten the machine is there (this happened to an 
ex-employer in a merger, the open relay was there for years until a 
spammer found it and began abusing it and someone complained about it)

etc...

> Traffic from ISPs who refuse to play by the rules will be refused by
> the Internet Community.
>
> In other words, they will be excommunicated.

No, they won't be.  The commercial world isn't willing to miss a single 
email to [email-masked]' even if they have to pay some poor slob 
to sift through all the spam, delivering the valid requests to the 
sales staff.  ISPs in the real world make their living by providing 
connectivity to these companies.

-- 
         "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"

Wes Peters                                         Sr. Software Engineer
[email-masked]                               St. Bernard Software

---

From: Matt Sergeant <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 22:14:43 +0000 (GMT)

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Wes Peters wrote:

> On Saturday 08 March 2003 08:18, Matt Sergeant wrote:
> >
> > I like DNS blacklists, I really do. I think they're the right thing
> > to do most of the time, when they are sane lists. My one big problem
> > with them is bounce messages - they suck. We need a friendlier bounce
> > message system than "MAILER-DAEMON" messages so my mum can understand
> > why her email didn't get through.
> 
> DNS blacklists suck because they punish relays, not spam or spammers.  
> Newbie admins are victims too.  Designing a protocol that allows the 
> net to return to open relays would be an admirable accomplishment.

There was a time when people thought that penet.fi was a great idea too. 
Thankfully that time has passed.

Matt.

---

From: "Clayton, Nik [IT]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 10:20:52 -0000

Hi Wes,

> sales staff.

Not necessarily true.  We tolerate false positives, because the benefits 
of aggressive anti-spam filtering outweigh the costs.

Of course, smaller organisations are likely to be less flexible in this
regard, but then again, they're probably also getting less spam.

N
-- 
1        1         2         3         4         5         6         7    7
         0         0         0         0         0         0         0    5
                                                    -- The 75 column-ometer
Global Messaging,                 A: Top posting
120 Cheapside, x83331             Q: What's the most annoying e-mail habit?
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg