🚀 go-pugleaf

John Higdon wrote:
> 
> in article 3A4D80FC.B7F82A5@dvv.org, Dima Volodin  wrote:
> 
> > Well, if you consider ORBS to be an office of any kind, than its
> > policies are official.
> 
> But not binding on anyone.

Yep, I was writing about _your_ considering ORBS to be an office of any
kind.

> > You might really want to do that if you are an ISP doing a lot of
> > dial-up/cable/whatever retail ISP business - on some of your servers,
> > you might want to accept SMTP connections from your direct customers
> > only. Doing that at the MTA level might not be your preferred approach,
> > but blocking it at the TCP level might serve you very well. Unless, of
> > course, you want to dance to the ORBS tune.
> 
> My whole point in using email is communications. I don't see the point in
> shutting off all connections except to those whom I think I might want to
> hear from.

The current state of affairs is that there are basically two kind of
servers that use SMTP as their basic protocol - there are servers that
accept e-mail via SMTP from the whole wide world for a very well defined
set of addresses (I like to call these servers "MX" servers for a very
obvious reason); and there are servers that accept e-mail via SMTP from
a very well defined set of hosts to be forwarded to the whole wide world
out there. In the former case, you don't really want to limit the set of
hosts that are allowed to connect to your servers to send e-mail
(except, of course, some hosts listed by RBLs of your choice); in the
latter case, you really want to limit the set of hosts allowed to use
your servers to a very specific set defined by your criteria of what
your clientele is.

> That's what RBLs are for: to attempt to filter out those
> relatively few sites that are known to be associated with junk, or those
> which are simply open conduits to launder junk.

Sure. Except that ORBS doesn't necessarily filters "relatively few sites
that _are known_ to be associated with junk".

> I accept "postmaster" mail from anyone to all domains here. That's kind of
> hard to do if you turn off TCP port 25.

_Big_ mistake. "postmaster" addresses are known to be used by spammers
to fool exactly this kind of "screening".

> > Sure. After all, it's your system. And whatever you gain or lose from
> > your policies is up to you and you only. Unless, of course, you're a
> > monopoly, in which case we hate you with all our
> > government-regulated-free-market-loving guts.
> 
> Fortunately, there is no monopoly when it comes to ISPs.

Hey. Do you really read this thread in the comp.dcom.modems.cable group?

> John Higdon     | Email Address Valid | http://www.anntec.com/

Dima