FC: Politech administrivia; John Gilmore on Well's buggy spam blockers

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[I am moving the Politech DNS from Rackspace to Rackshack tonight. The new 
IP addresses for the Politech server, in case you choose to whitelist it 
for anti-spam purposes, will be 207.218.207.219 and 207.218.206.108. Thanks 
to everyone who suggested ways to upgrade the list; I'm still reading 
through all the excellent advice. --Declan]

---

To: declan () well com, gnu () new toad com
Subject: Well's antispam censorship blocked email from me to you
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 16:38:37 -0700
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>

Hi Declan,

I think this is fixed now -- several other people complained that I
was unable to send them email -- but it's indicative of the problems I
face every day from overzealous anti-spammers.  (If it isn't fixed,
of course, you won't get this email.)

And I bet the Well "solved" the problem by putting me on a whitelist,
rather than by dumping the overzealous anti-spammer blacklist.  So
whoever else is being inappropriately blacklisted is still censored.
I can't believe I am the only one.

        John Gilmore

Return-Path: MAILER-DAEMON
Delivery-Date: Wed Sep 10 14:11:53 2003
Return-Path: <MAILER-DAEMON>
Received: from localhost (localhost)
        by new.toad.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) id h8ALBrEK012663;
        Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:11:53 -0700
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:11:53 -0700
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON>
Message-Id: <200309102111.h8ALBrEK012663 () new toad com>
To: <gnu () toad com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=delivery-status;
        boundary="h8ALBrEK012663.1063228313/new.toad.com"
Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)

This is a MIME-encapsulated message

--h8ALBrEK012663.1063228313/new.toad.com

The original message was received at Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:10:48 -0700
from localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<declan () well com>
    (reason: 550 5.7.1 <declan () well com>... mail from server 
209.237.225.253 rejected - see <http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=209.237.225.253>)

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
451 4.4.1 reply: read error from smtp.well.com.
... while talking to assassin.well.com.:
>>> RCPT To:<declan () well com>
<<< 550 5.7.1 <declan () well com>... mail from server 209.237.225.253 
rejected - see <http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=209.237.225.253>
550 5.1.1 <declan () well com>... User unknown

--h8ALBrEK012663.1063228313/new.toad.com
Content-Type: message/delivery-status

Reporting-MTA: dns; new.toad.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; localhost.localdomain
Arrival-Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:10:48 -0700

Final-Recipient: RFC822; declan () well com
Action: failed
Status: 5.7.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; assassin.well.com
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 5.7.1 <declan () well com>... mail from server 
209.237.225.253 rejected - see <http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=209.237.225.253>
Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:11:53 -0700

--h8ALBrEK012663.1063228313/new.toad.com
Content-Type: message/rfc822

Return-Path: <gnu () toad com>
Received: from toad.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
        by new.toad.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h8ALAmEK012661;
        Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:10:48 -0700
Message-Id: <200309102110.h8ALAmEK012661 () new toad com>
To: Jon Dugan <dugan () biocontact org>
cc: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>, politech () politechbot com
Subject: Re: FC: John Gilmore on Politech changes and NOT obfuscating email 
addresses
In-Reply-To: Message from Jon Dugan <dugan () biocontact org>
   of "Tue, 09 Sep 2003 08:07:56 PDT." 
<20030909080756.A24700 () bowser Stanford EDU>
References: 
<6.0.0.22.2.20030909011618.01f82908 () mail well com> 
<20030909080756.A24700 () bowser Stanford EDU>
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:10:48 -0700
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>

> >                               The anti-"spam" crowd seems to think
> > that there is a category of communications that NOBODY is interested
> > in, and that therefore should be suppressed.  That is obviously false
> > with regard to commercial spam, or the "spammers" would not persist in
> > sending it, since they wouldn't make any money from it.
>
> I would disagree, slightly.
>
> This is true only up until people start blatant DOS attacks via email.
> This type of activity uses an established channel for the simple
> purpose of clogging networks.  I would argue that nobody is interested
> in these messages.

I agree that simple denial-of-service attacks consist of messages that
nobody is interested in.  But let's not confuse today's widespread
"anti-spam" tools and laws with tools for dealing with denial of
service attacks.  My mail server is not blacklisted by thousands of
sites because I've been launching denial of service attacks.  I
haven't.  It's blacklisted because it forwards small numbers of spam
messages (and non-spam messages) each day, while preventing anyone
from forwarding large numbers of messages (of any type) through it.

Denial of service *is* actually punishable under harassment and theft
of service laws.  Sending unwanted communications is not (and there
are very strong arguments that sending some forms of unwanted
communications in the US is protected by the First Amendment).

(Just because denial of service is against the law, of course, doesn't
mean that you can necessarily stop or prosecute the people who do it,
particularly in worm-driven distributed denial of service attacks.
But people are working on ways to eliminate them.)

In past years I have found several teenagers or immature adults
abusing my (previously fully open) relay to harass a particular
individual by sending thousands of emails.  I've shut those people
down, deleted any backlog of harassing mails, and aided the sysadmins
at the receiving end in tracking down the originator.  (Usually it was
someone in the next cubicle.)

        John Gilmore

--h8ALBrEK012663.1063228313/new.toad.com--




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------