Re: Paul's Mailfrom (Was: IETF SMTP Working Group Proposal at smtpng.org)

[Jim Hickstein <jxh () jxh com>]

--On Monday, August 26, 2002 10:34 PM +0200 Iljitsch van Beijnum 
<iljitsch () muada com> wrote:

> As a user, I pay my ISP to forward IP packets. If there happen to be TCP
> segments in those packets, that's something between me and the person the
> packet is addressed to, whether the destination port of those TCP segments
> is 25 or something else.

Hear, hear!  I run an email-only service provider (www.imap-partners.net), 
and we have to help certain users over the threshold at e.g. Earthlink by 
permitting them to reach us on another port.  This is logically ridiculous, 
and bound to change.

Earthlink's behavior here may have some positive social benefit, but there 
is a downside.  If it becomes impossible for my customers to reach me and 
do SMTP AUTH, I will be out of business.  The network is not the 
application, and should not be.