[PLUG] cultural ethics of email and spam

[zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com>]

On 10/17/07, John Von Essen <john@essenz.com> wrote:
> Broadband users will always have difficulty sending email out to the
> internet.
>
> Either the ISP is blocking port 25 outbound - in which case it wont work at
> all, or your email does get delivered, but is blocked as spam since you are
> coming from a known dynamic IP used for broadband customers.
>
> The DUL blacklists are very widely used, and are a staple in the war against
> spam since legitimate email should not be originated from an MTA on a
> residential broadband connection. Some orgs are more aggressive then others
> with their blocking tactics for DUL email origination.

I forked this thread because I don't want to derail the useful
technical issues of the parent thread.

however, I'm still frustrated at the culture of email admins for the
following reasons:

1a.) blacklists are draconian and a form of "tiered internet".  if you
advocate for "net neutrality", start with your mail servers.
1b.) who are you (or anyone) to unilaterally decide "legitimate mail
should not originate from residential broadband"???  of course it
should!  the internet is a PEER network.  if the software didn't
happen to suck, everyone really should be hosting their own MTA on
their own home server.  centralization via concentration of hosts is
re-creating a censorable and controllable media vehicle; this is a Bad
Thing (tm).

2.) why on earth is spam being dealt with at a _network_ level???
(again, echos of tiered internet and violation of the End-to-End
Principle.)  let end-users MUAs handle spam, such as with bayesian
classification.

the hypocrisy between "net neutrality" advocates and "spam problem"
advocates (who are essentially the same people) astounds me.
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