Outgoing SMTP Servers

Tue Oct 25 20:14:33 UTC 2011

> From nanog-bounces+bonomi=mail.r-bonomi.com at nanog.org  Tue Oct 25 14:53:32 2011
> Subject: Re: Outgoing SMTP Servers
> From: Alex Harrowell <a.harrowell at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:52:46 +0100
> To: Ricky Beam <jfbeam at gmail.com>, Jeroen Massar <jeroen at unfix.org>
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
>
> Ricky Beam <jfbeam at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Works perfectly even in networks where a VPN doesn't and the idiot
> >hotel  
> >intercepts port 25 (not blocks, redirects to *their* server.)
> >
> >--Ricky
>
> Why do they do that?

Because some "quarter-asswit"[1] sold them that it was a good idea -- maybe
on the basis tht it was: "easy" to to rate-limit -- supposedly an anti-spam 
measure; "easy" to 'forward' all the patron traffic to a relay server of the
hotel's choice, so that, -if- it is spam, the outside world sees it coming 
from an already segregated address-space; "easy" to implement a holding 
queue, so that if they _do_ detect spam, they can drop _all_ the spam 
messages, even those sent before the spam threshold was detected.; etc., 
etc., ad nauseum.

[1] "half-assed half-wit", reduced to a single term. 