ARIN whois

Tue Nov 23 07:19:33 UTC 1999

You have just explained why you are a SysAdmin and not a business operator.
The issue is not that closing them is difficult. The issue is that it will
ALSO close down a legitimate business.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu]On Behalf Of
> Robert Gash
> Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 12:45 PM
> To: Dean Anderson
> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Re: ARIN whois
>
>
>
> Dean, perhaps I am not fully understanding your logic behind
> not closing
> your relays.  I have been a systems administrator for 4 years
> and I have
> not ever found an application where I needed to leave my SMTP
> relays open
> to the world.  I do not doubt that you have legitimate
> business purposes
> in mind when opening your relay, but at some point you must
> decide that
> legal action will be too slow to fix anything and that it
> might be a good
> time to close your relays to aleviate other problems.  Simply
> saying "I
> shouldn't need locks on my doors because everyone should be
> honest and never come into my house without my permission,"
> dosen't cut it
> in this world, and I am quite sure that you have
> locks on every portal to your house, so why should your SMTP
> server be any
> different?  Taking such a stance and refusing to close your
> relays is simply a foolish decision.