Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed?

Wed Sep 30 19:40:03 UTC 1998

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Barry Shein wrote:

> In support of this assertion I want to show you an SMTP conversation
> with what claims to be the Consulate of the Government of Tonga in San
> Francisco (This San Francisco office is listed as an official Tongan
> contact point for visas etc by the US State Dept):
> 
> world% telnet sfconsulate.gov.to 25
> Trying 209.24.51.169...
> Connected to sfconsulate.gov.to.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> 220 colo.to SMTP ready, Who are you gonna pretend to be today?
> VRFY postmaster
> 500 Bloody Amateur! Proper forging of mail requires recognizable SMTP commands!

All that proves is someone has a sense of humor.  I've seen plenty of
sites with these types of greetings, and they aren't hard to setup.  I had
a friend who setup his SMTP server to say:

220 mail.host.com SMTP If you don't know what your doing, you don't need
to be here.  And if you do know what you're doing, you really don't need
to be here.

Regards,
Joe Shaw - jshaw at insync.net
NetAdmin - Insync Internet Services
"Backhoes never sleep." - Patrick Greenwell