Steve,
I understand your plight. There are many things I've fought over the
years that I felt placed an undo burden on my customers (I hated the idea of
blocking *any* kind of attachment for starters), but as the bad people of
the world began to get more aggressive, the only defense was to crack down
and take counter measures to minimize the destruction of what they can do.
Adding blacklist lookups, blocking of certain attachments, and the addition
of a rather expensive duplicate anti-virus and (now) anti-spam filter
software....is all par for the course. Having served email for near 7 years
now, it is becoming clear to me that SMTP servers are going to have to do
some sort of reverse query to help validate the authenticity of sending
emails. I'm not sure reverse DNS lookups is the way of the future, but
surely, since IP addresses are the only traceable piece of information we
have (currently) on the Internet, an IP based verification mechanism is
going to be needed.
The bottom line is:
(a) anyone who willing opens up a server to do relaying for others -- under
*any* circumstances -- is waving a huge "PLEASE PUT ME ON YOUR BLACKLIST"
flag
(b) every email/IRC/FTP/etc server on the net will eventually (probably
within 12 months) need a static IP address or face the real possibility that
they won't be able to communicate with the majority of the Internet.
I would also suggest you look at 2 IPs, and/or partner with others to have,
and be, a secondary DNS server so you can manage your own primary DNS
authority. Having control of the DNS records is a necessity if you really
want to avoid all the problems that routing, verifying, etc do/will present.
DNS is not a difficult thing to do, and not that expensive (free to $70.00
depending on how automated you want the process).
--Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "svarvaro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: sambarzone.list
To: "sambar List Member" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 9:30 AM
Subject: [sambar] AOL Mail Blues
Before I spring for yet more connectivity charges in the form of a
static ip address with reverse dns lookup, I'd like explore another
route. I understand that you can change your sambar mail server to
use another smtp server for outgoing mail relay. Before I spring for
another smtp mailbox somewhere I'd like to make a request of our
sambar community. Does anyone using sambar server have a static ip
and can successfully send mail to AOL, Compuserv AND ATT-Net users?
If so, would you be willing to be a relay for some of us who do not
have this capability?
I will eventually get a static ip (maybe sooner than later). If so, I
will offer myself as a mail relay to other sambar servers in the
event this solves the AOL Hell problem. Let me know your thoughts.
You know, we small web providers need to stick together and fight
this dragon commonly called AOL.
Steve :)
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