Re: [PLUG] cultural ethics of email and spam

["Brian Stempin" <brian.stempin@gmail.com>]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you have mistakenly married the phrases "net neutrality" and "QoS".

Remember:  net neutrality isn't about making sure that QoS doesn't exist; it's about making sure that ISPs don't double-charge for internet access.  I don't see how utilizing or creating a black list is supporting a tiered network.  Creating and/or subscribing to a blacklist is a 
voluntary action.  It's kind of hard to argue that the internet is becoming tiered if every email admin is able to stop using blacklists at their sole discretion.

To address your message point by point:

> who are you (or anyone) to unilaterally decide "legitimate mail
> should not originate from residential broadband"???

A sysadmin who decided for himself.  Who are you (or anyone else) to tell me that I have to accept email that originated from servers that reside on residential networks?  I actively choose to discriminate against this type of email traffic more than I would others because statistics from my Sonicwall Spam appliance have shown that most of these types of emails tend to be spam.  I must also state, however, that all email that enters my network gets put into a bitbucket for 30 days, just in case I decide that one of these types of messages are, in fact, not spam.  The main point here is that, as a mail server admin, am able to decide for my self.

> of course it
> should!

And they do.  That doesn't mean that I want to deal with them.

 why on earth is spam being dealt with at a _network_ level???

Probably because this is a problem that affects networks.  Think of all of the spam that eats up countless bits of bandwidth.  If a message can be identified with 
99.999% certainty that it is spam, then why bother wasting the bandwidth to transfer it?  My company of 20 people gets his with just under 400,000 spam per day.  I can think of better things to do with this bandwidth.  The key here, however, is choice.  I, once again, have options.

As of right now, you reserve the right to (a) elect whether or not your (owned, whether it be personal or professional) mail servers pay any attention to black lists, and (b) whether or not you subscribe to an email service that pays attention to blacklists.  So long as you have a choice, I find it hard to believe that there is a problem.  If you don't like the industry trend, then deviate to your heart's desire.  No one's stopping you.

On 10/17/07, zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com> wrote:

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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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug