On Fri, 8 Mar 2002, at 6:57pm, Paul Iadonisi wrote: > Problem is, my ISP sysadmin runs open relays...
This reminds me of the old joke, "What time is it when your clock strikes 13?", with the answer, of course, being "Time to get a new clock." Well, it is time to get a new ISP, and for much the same reason. > Where I think Gilmore's argument breaks down is that he claims that Verio > is trying to censor him ... The biggest misconception that net.anarchists and crypto-nuts have is that the Internet is this big, open, free cyberspace without limits, infinitely accessible and available. Well, it's not. The Internet is a collection of privately owned and operated networks. Companies like AT&T, WorldCom, and Sprint connect their private networks together to create "the Internet" for the sole and express purpose of making money. They are in the business of selling connectivity. It is their network, and they can put whatever conditions they like on access to it, including disconnecting you whenever they damn well please. If your (or Gilmore's) ISP does not like what you do, they can cut your feed because they no longer want you as a customer. It can be because you use host offensive content, cause too much trouble, or just because they don't like your face. It is their right. It is their network, not yours. You are, of course, free to go to their competition. But if their competition all have similar requirements (not being a spam-source, for example), you may be out of luck. Now, addressing the concept of an open relay in particular: There is no reason what-so-ever to run one. Think about it. If you can send an SMTP message, you can nominally send it directly to the final destination. So why use an SMTP relay? Well, the most common reason is because you are using a mail client that does not have a complete SMTP implementation -- it has enough smarts to hand off a message for relay, and no more. Most Windoze mail clients do this, for example. But almost any ISP will run a local SMTP relay, and using that will be much more efficient. Another reason to use SMTP relaying might be because the SMTP relay host can reach systems you cannot. SMTP relaying might be used for reasons of efficiency. If you are a desktop PC with poor connectivity, it makes sense to hand off mail to an ISP's reliable, always-on mail server connected to a fast pipe. If you are sending bulk email for a legitimate purpose (say, you're running a busy list server), you can send a single envelope to the relay, and have it deliver to all the listed recipients. However, none of these justify running an open relay. Indeed, the efficiency argument above means you should always use your local ISP's mail relay, and that is just what you should do. About the only scenario I can think of where an open relay would be useful would be to make tracing mail more difficult. Cryto-nuts could use this, but since it is limited to one hop, ethe crypto-nuts say that specially designed anonymous re-mailers are better, so even their claim is void. And that leaves spammers. > What I'm basically trying to find out is how people here feel about open > relays, and, if there is somewhat of a consensus ... RFC-2505 recommends restricting relaying to prevent spam. RFC-2635 provides information about the damage spam causes. > ... what kind of approach you think is appropriate to get these admins who > are either irresponsible, ignorant, unskilled, or simply have a different > view to shut down their open relays. Well, there are countless public systems which implement blacklists of open relays. ORBS (the Open Relay Behavior-Modification System) is/was the best-known. Though personal experience, I can say that getting blacklisted is a good way to cut yourself off from much of the Internet. So, implement some of these blacklists, and you will accomplish two things: Reducing the amount of spam you receive, and encouraging others to do the right thing. -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
