At 4:00 PM -0400 9/8/1996, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
>from the quill of jeffw@smoe.org (Jeff Wasilko) on scroll
><9609081827.AA20019@smoe.org>
>> The problem here is that the spam source can simply direct the mail via
>> an innocent third-party system, which will (most-likely) accept it and
>> then forward it to you. The TCP connection will then be from a
>> different host than the one you are blocking.
>
>Correct. But if this kind of change were to make it into stock sendmail
>and be widely deployed, spammers would not have the third-party mailer
>avenue available to them. A "third-party" we be forced into blocking known
>spammer sites or be deemed a spammer site themselves, and have their mail
>blockaided by all other sites employing the technique. Not good for
>business.
Do you know how many SunOS 4.1.x sites are still out there using
something based on sendmail 4.x? Any/all of them can easily be used
as mail relays. As well as anyone running OS/2 sendmail (ported by
IBM, lots of functionality missing because the OS can't provide the
necessary features). Or many of the other popular SMTP MTAs.
No, folded into version 8 sendmail or not, we'd still be
seriously in the minority.
>This kind of thing would certainly cause people like AOL some grief
>however. Before I go any further I would first like to say that I'm
>pleased with the response of AOL whenever I complain about a spammer. They
>are usually quite responsive and fast in terminating accounts. However
>they also provide a haven for spammers with their "free-trial" diskettes
>that go out every other week.
We have seven million users. Any large site will have more
crimnal types than smaller sites, but just think of the fun you'll
have with WebTV and all those other 89 million U.S. citizens not yet
on the 'net -- and you think AOL is bad?
>Sites like AOL would be on a quite a few black lists and mail would be
>refused because of the amount of spam which comes from them. Netcom would
>be a candidate for my black list as well. I'm sure if users of AOL and
>Netcom were changing providers because they couldn't get their mail to
>where it was supposed to go because of a few bad apples, AOL and Netcom
>would be forced to take other actions with the prevention of spam. What??
>I don't know. :-)
Nope. Unless you're a huge site like CompuServe, a few small
sites refusing to accept mail from us isn't really going to do much
damage other than have your machines pounded into oblivion by all our
very persistent connection attempts. And really large sites like
CompuServe wouldn't dream of refusing us.
I don't like AOL being used as a source of junk mail anymore than
you do, but we do have to presume innocence (this is the U.S., after
all), and we do deal with criminal types quickly (unlike certain
other providers, who I submit should be the real focus of your
connection refusals, if you really want to go that route). Now, if
there were some laws with real teeth, the whole bloody problem would
simply go away....
--
Brad Knowles, MIME/PGP: brad@his.com
comp.mail.sendmail FAQ Maintainer <http://www.his.com/~brad/>
finger brad@his.com for my PGP Public Keys and Geek Code
The comp.mail.sendmail FAQ is at <http://www.his.com/~brad/sendmail/>
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