Well, Comcast just blocked port 25 at my house and required to use port 587 for outgoing mail. I guess charging money per email is next?

port 25 is dead dropped to my non-comcast server as well.
Also comcast rep writes:
I have included the current list of blocked ports for you below:

67
68
135
137
138
139
445
512
520
1080


Al


----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <step...@xemacs.org>
To: "Bernie Cosell" <ber...@fantasyfarm.com>
Cc: <mailman-users@python.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 8:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Mailman-Users] The economics of spam


Bernie Cosell writes:

> I'm not sure these are fatal-flaw problems

They're not.

> [same as with the USPS

Aye, there's the rub.  The USPS is, even today, a state(-protected)
monopoly.  Email is not, and cannot be, unless you make the whole
Internet a state monopoly.

> > ... Email has evolved more along the lines of the TCP/IP packet
> > paradigm rather than that associated with postal hard-copy snail-mail.
> > There are aspects of email that resemble ICMP packets far more than > > they
> > resemble Christmas cards.

Why, Lindsay, I'm shocked.  I thought you didn't know the jargon!<wink>

> Actually, this is backwards.  email *started* that way [remember that
> forwarding was provided for and there was even that cute > explicit-routing
> form of email address] and has, IMO, evolved off into needing to be
> *more*like* Christmas cards.

Including a national monopoly email provider, I guess?  What I
interpret Lindsay to be saying is that for Christmas cards you can
treat the USPS as a well-behaved black box (in the systems analysis
sense; it may or may not do the job it claims to do at all well, but
you can figure out what job it reliably does).  In particular you can
determine that a piece of mail was properly paid for by the addressee
because each and every one has postage *attached*, not merely
"accounted for" somewhere.  This is not true for ICMP or for email as
currently designed; there is no way to determine the provenance of a
packet in general.

Sure, you can redesign email to require a secure, authenticated
connection.  But that's not the current design.  Nor will a secure,
authenticated connection that carries postage be acceptable in the
market.  Price competition will quickly drive postage actually paid to
zero, and all that will happen is that the email network will become
disconnected (as we are currently observing, anyway): a "backbone
cabal" of email providers will evolve, and people with Linux boxes etc
will set up wildcat SMTP networks along the lines of the old UUCP
network.
------------------------------------------------------
Mailman-Users mailing list
Mailman-Users@python.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3
Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/arogozin%40comcast.net

Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9

------------------------------------------------------
Mailman-Users mailing list
Mailman-Users@python.org
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3
Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/
Unsubscribe: 
http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org

Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9

Reply via email to