Re: Now the idiots at ORBS are probing random dial-ups

[Barry Shein <bzs () world std com>]

If you wish to speak in the company of engineers and technical
professionals then when asked for measurables, for numbers, facts,
figures, you either attempt to present some, or acknowledge you have
little to add with your subjective impressions and speculations and
realize that the utility of such ramblings is probably quite limited.

Around 500-1,000 different relays per day pumping spam with
impunity. I can give you today's list if you like, I just sent the
list to Paul Vixie for perusal as part of a side discussion we were
having on this topic. It doesn't change in magnitude much day to day,
and I cannot see any measurement here which indicates these
self-annointed anti-spam projects which mostly focus on the honest do
any good. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

I think it was John McCarthy, the Stanford professor, who used to say
"Those who will not do arithmetic are doomed to speak nonsense".

But you can usually tell when people really haven't anything but what
they want to believe in hand, they get increasingly verbally volatile
when mere facts, numbers, would settle the matter.

       -b

On August 22, 2000 at 14:49 brett.hawn () rcn com (Brett L. Hawn) wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Barry Shein" <bzs () world std com>
> To: "John Payne" <john () sackheads org>
> Cc: "Keith Woodworth" <kwoody () citytel net>; <nanog () merit edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 2:37 PM
> Subject: Re: Now the idiots at ORBS are probing random dial-ups
>
>
> > The problem is, other than hassling the honest this approach just
> > doesn't work.
> >
> > I currently measure around 1,000 open relays PER DAY being used
> > against us by spammers.
> >
> > The problem is several orders of magnitude larger than anything like
> > MAPS' approach can hope to make a dent in. It's like trying to stop
> > the west nile virus with a flyswatter. Showing the occasional dead
> > mosquito doesn't quite prove the method is working.
>
> It does however, prove that there is one less mosquitoe that could transmit
> it. The simple fact is, MAPS (I don't count ORBS based on numerous
> complaints that have long since passed through this forum multiple times) is
> _TRYING_ to do something about it. Think about how bad it might well be if
> they weren't out there working on the problem instead of sitting on the
> sidelines bitching like some folks. Bottom line, you can piss moan and whine
> all you want, but in this particular case, the old adage of 'if you're not
> part of the solution, you're part of the problen' holds terribly true.
>
> A failure to recognize the problems created by open relays run by your
> customers (or anyone else's for that matter) is just about inconvience for a
> few people but inconvience for thousands of people. I don't measure traffic,
> I don't read statistics as a rule, and I have a tendency to disbelieve
> people spouting numbers claiming them as truth. That being said, if I were
> to use my own personal mailbox as a gauge of just how much spam transits my
> own networks on a daily basis, well, I'd guess I could cut an easy 5mb/sec
> off my usage. This in and of itself is a miniscule amount of data to my
> network, however, to individual people, this is a signficant amount, to
> small mom & pop shops, thats a LOT of data. For those who have to pay per
> minute connection charges, that equates to a lot of wasted time and money.
>
> Bitch if you will Mr. Shein, but in a long term view, I'd rather see a few
> of your customers be inconvienced because you didn't do the right thing by
> shutting down open relays which smarthost through your mail servers than
> have to filter/delete another 4 pieces of spam out of my mailbox, and that
> sir, is what it really boils down to.