more on A few words in defense of AOL

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>
Date: March 20, 2006 3:44:01 PM EST
To: Richard Wiggins <richard.wiggins () gmail com>
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] A few words in defense of AOL

On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 02:49:35PM -0500, Richard Wiggins wrote:
> A fair number of our users forward their mail to an AOL account.   
> If they
> set forwarding in this manner, it bypasses our spam filtering.

Why do you allow that to happen?

I'm genuinely curious, because it seems to me that any of us who handle
any mail bound anywhere should really be making our best effort to,  
ummm,
detoxify it, before we pass it on.  I can't understand why you would  
even
*consider* allowing such traffic to bypass filtering.

        (Surely by now the spammers are well aware of the fact
        that you do this, since they track deliverability rates via
        different channels.)

> AOL's robots
> keep a running count of what percent of incoming mail from a given  
> domain
> appears to be spam.  If the number exceeds the threshold, they  
> block the IP
> address of the sender.

Actually, it's based on spam reported by AOL users, but the effect is
the same: send enough spam to AOL from 1.2.3.4 and eventually they
will stop accepting mail from 1.2.3.4.

And that's eminently sensible.  If it's coming from YOUR network,  
then it's
YOUR spam.  So make it stop.  But don't insist that anyone else is  
required
to put up with a steady spew because you can't or won't act --  
they're not.

It's not that hard to put a cork in it.  And part of "making it stop"
can include assistance from AOL itself: they provide a free service
that completes a feedback loop between their inbound SMTP servers and
your network, thus giving you a good look at what's making it past your
filters but being snagged by AOL.  They also -- again, markedly unlike
numerous other large operations -- answer their postmaster mail, so
if there's some wacky situation that needs to be dealt with as a special
case, you can talk it over with them.

I don't see an AOL problem here.  I see a problem with a network that
knowingly emits spam, has failed to fix that problem, and is blaming
an innocent third party which has finally, in desperate self-defense,
decided to partially rescind your access privileges to its network.
I would do -- I *have* done -- exactly the same thing.  Oh, it's not
my first choice -- my *first* choice would be that you fix your broken
network -- but if my first choice isn't gonna happen Real Darn Fast,
as it should, then I'm certainly not going to sit still for the abuse.

---Rsk



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