Spam Control Considered Harmful

Justin W. Newton justin at priori.net
Thu Oct 30 22:54:50 UTC 1997


At 02:37 PM 10/29/97 -0600, John A. Tamplin wrote:
>outgoing messages, block connections to third-party MTAs, etc) in the ISP,

I would like to point out, after much thought and discussion, I believe
that completely blocking outgoing SMTP to be a bad idea.  Here's the
reasoning.

I may be foo.com, a mail hosting service.  My customers send and receive
mail via me, but do not connect via me.  I set up a system whereby only my
users can send mail via me (magic elves or something, thats not important).
 In this instance, it makes sense to allow your users to send mail via me,
if they are also my users.  

By blocking outgoing SMTP you are disallowing the possibility for someone
to use my service, and not necessarily getting the gain that you wanted
anyway. 

Its that nose face thing (watch what you cut off).

Justin "No, I don't do mail" Newton

**************************************************************
Justin W. Newton                        voice: +1-650-482-2840 	
Senior Network Architect                  fax: +1-650-482-2844
PRIORI NETWORKS, INC.                    http://www.priori.net
Legislative and Policy Director, ISP/C   http://www.ispc.org
"The People You Know.  The People You Trust."
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