Subject: Re: namedroppers, continued

From: "Doug" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 13:33:28 -0500

Hello Mr. Wood,

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lloyd Wood" <[email-masked]>
To: "Doug" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 7:05 AM
Subject: Re: namedroppers, continued

> Doug has rediscovered the idea of closing open mail relays to
prevent
> unauthorised use by outsiders sending to outsiders. This was a big
> thing in the early 90s when email became popular.

This may seem to be a bit basic for some of the people who have worked
on this problem for years. My intention was not to prove that I had
the latest and greatest solution to the spam problem. It was to get
the ball rolling in an open discussion forum and present my ideas on
the topic in the hopes that someone who knew more than me on the topic
would as well.

>
> Doug has also come up with the idea of adding the IP address of the
> originating client machine (not necessarily using SMTP) in a header
> so that an attempt can be made to identify it - e.g. Hotmail has
done
> that for years.

After examining the headers of many of the spam advertisments I get
and trying to contact the administrator of the network it came from I
find that it is usually futile because the network doesn't exist and
the IP information is incorrect. I also find that most use false
sender and reply address information (in an attempt to keep recipiants
from filtering them). This makes it hard (at least for me) to do
anything about them. I have experimented with filters for subject
wording but this unfortunately hits on some of my wanted email as
well. This reduces my ability to to block them on the receiving end.
Even if I could it doesn't help the net congestion they cause or do
anything about the processing time it is using across the net. These
things leads me to propose that a more global solution needs to be
implemented. The problem here is that when you bring this up for
discussion in a professional environment like this one people don't
want to discuss it. Instead they consider it a problem that has no
solution and just want to forget about it.

>
> L.
>
> missing mail admin experience, I think.

Very true. I have never administered anything other than my http and
ftp servers. I have thought of turning on the mailserver but I do not
know enough about administering it yet and I really have no need for
it. I certainly hope that nobody thought I actually ran my own mail
server because I was not my intention to pretend that I did.

It is nice to see someone with more knowledge and/or experience on the
topic than me taking the time to think (and talk) about it.

Thanks for the input,
Doug
Asking questions, presenting possible solutions, and learning from
mistakes is how we get solutions.
---------------snipped previous for sake of size------------------

---

From: "Dr. Jeffrey Race" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2003 16:59:46 -0500

On Tue, 07 Jan 2003 15:26:55 -0500, [email-masked] wrote:
>The trick here is to remember that except for the relative few spammers that
>are advocating a religious/political/philosophical viewpoint (a la "Uncertainty
>Principle is Untenable!"), the spammers *WANT* you to be able to contact them
>via *some* means - they can't extract money

See <www.camblab.com/nugget/extermin.htm>

If the contact data are invalid, report to RIR or to ICANN.  They
are obliged to correct the data.

Jeffrey Race