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

Steve Sobol sjsobol at shell.nacs.net
Wed Jun 17 02:45:23 UTC 1998


On Tue, Jun 16, 1998 at 01:53:55AM -0400, Dean Anderson wrote:
> Always a good sport, I will take bets in the MSN vs Vixie battle. ;-)  I
> don't think its going to be quite so easy for MSN to turn off mail
> relaying, without breaking a lot of corporate customers.

I don't know anything about how MSN runs their network, but if their
stuff runs on NT and hasn't broken yet, there ain't much that can
break it. (j/k) <duck>

> I think its facinating that Vix can take them out of the RBL, and then
> claim it was MSN who gave up. "Retreat and declare victory" I guess.
> 
> But we'll see I guess, in a few days or a few years.

Yup.

> 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?

I would agree, except that if I remember correctly, companies aren't
RBL'd unless they are unresponsive or intentionally continue to spam...

I would bet that a lot of people gave MSN a chance before it came to this.

> can't help but wonder if the "blockers" were only blocking email to which
> they are a party under 18 USC 2511.

Dean, you and I and others here on NANOG have done that dance before.
I don't know that it's necessary to waste bandwidth on that particular
argument again.

> What Vix is doing probably isn't illegal by itself, though it might
> possibly violate trademark or the new copyright law when domain names are
> used.

I can't see how.

> blocker isn't a party to the email.  Then they have to know that there is a
> federal law that prohibits that.  And finally, they have to seek
> enforcement.

We've gone over all this before. PLUS... PROVIDERS SUBSCRIBE TO THE
RBL VOLUNTARILY AND ARE REQUIRED BY THE AGREEMENT THEY SIGN BEFORE THEY
GET HOOKED UP TO IT, THAT THEY WILL MAKE THEIR CUSTOMERS AWARE OF WHAT IS
GOING ON.

>            We Make IT Fly!

Unfortunately you are not doing the same for this argument.

-- 
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