Re: Stealth Blocking

["Jeremy T. Bouse" <undrgrid () Toons UnderGrid net>]

        Okay, I don't want to perpetuate this lil battle more than it needs
to however I do have a few observations that are blindingly glaring to me
and perhaps been overlooked... 

Mitch Halmu was said to been seen saying:
> On Wed, 23 May 2001, John Payne wrote:
>
> > Umm... yes.  You run an open, abused mail relay, got listed in RSS and
> > whine about it rather than fix it.
>
> I have posted two URLs, one was to a slashdot article describing a stealth 
> assault on Macromedia. So as to clarify the provenance of the URL 
> previously given by others in full context. Don't see your comments 
> there. Why? Perhaps the ACLU and those other do-good  organizations 
> command more respect than an ISP? But they're talking about the same 
> thing!
>
> The latter was to explain our position. Let's make several things clear. 
> First, what is the difference between an open relay and a free email 
> account somewhere? None, absolutely none. You could subscribe as Michael 
> Mouse today, and the emperor of China tomorrow. Yet such service, with no 
> credit card or implant chip to validate your true identity, giving away 
> free resources to the world, is perfectly legit in your judgement.
>
> NetSide maintains its own access control list. If a particular ip or ip
> range didn't abuse our servers, we feel no need to lock them out. And 
> certainly not because you say so. Not to mention that all instances of 
> abuse can be traced from logs to someone's ip, and there is a venue of
> complaint with the abuser's provider. We have a valid reason for doing 
> so: locking our servers would prevent our customers from roaming, and we 
> would also lose a good part of our non-local client base, some of them
> subscribed since 1995, who couldn't make full use of their accounts
> anymore.
>
> Second, open relays were the norm until Paul Vixie decided you should do
> otherwise. And in many cases, he convinced thy by brute force that his 
> way is the right way is the only way. But it wasn't the legal way. Most 
> providers bent over and silently took the punishment. We won't. Do I seem 
> to whine here?
        Point blank open-relays are not a good idea, they may have when
the technology was not there to do otherwise but come on, with SMTP AUTH
and TLS capabilities in most "reputable" mail servers there is absolutely
no excuse for it. If you remove the open relays you remove a good bit of
the fscking spam that pollutes the net and annoys the hell out of most
people. And SMTP AUTH and TLS would not prevent your roaming customers 
from sending and receiving and would actually HELP you verify it is them.

<snipped what I felt didn't need further encouragement>

        Respectfully,
        Jeremy T. Bouse

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|Jeremy T. Bouse, CCNA - UnderGrid Network Services, LLC -  www.UnderGrid.net |
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