RBL Update (Re: Lets go vixie!! rbl)

Tue Jun 16 13:43:03 UTC 1998

In article <6m51q9$gve at gizmo.dimension.net> you write:
>Seriously Paul, I would like to have some kind of announcement made on
>Nanog before you do that again, so that people can tell you not to do it.
>Breaking a large service provider is definitely an operational issue.  How
>much do you suppose such a service interuption cost the companies who
>couldn't communictate? Spam actually costs next to nothing, but being on a
>trip and losing email contact with your company can be quite expensive.   I
>can't help but wonder if the "blockers" were only blocking email to which
>they are a party under 18 USC 2511.

	I think the operational issue is who uses RBL, not that it
exists.  When a customer purchases e-mail services from an ISP there
should be no blocking unless it was specifically part of the contract.
For instance, I believe it would be a bad thing for an "aol" or a
"hotmail" to use the RBL to filter mail.  Basically it boils down to
content filtering being bad for an ISP.

	On the other hand, businesses and private entities can and should
use this service.  They have the right to filter content any way they
see fit.  For instance, I will use RBL on my personal machines as long
as it exists, because I trust the RBL people to keep the junk out of
my mail box.

	As far as losing contact goes, that shouldn't (in the isolated case)
cost you money.  I don't know about the rest of the people on here but
I wouldn't bet any business on e-mail getting to it's destination in a
timely manor.  I've seen too many 5 day delays at CC mail gateways,
and incidents where half of the internet disappears for a day at a time
to trust my e-mail.  Losing access to e-mail temporarily should be
annoying, not life threatening.

-- 
Leo Bicknell - bicknell at dimension.net
Network Engineer - Dimension Enterprises
1-703-709-7500, fax, 1-703-709-7699