ARIN whois

Fri Nov 26 01:11:06 UTC 1999

On Thu, 25 Nov 1999, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> unless someone here is willing to go on-record as advocating running
> pre-beta code in a production environment (No? I didn't think so).

Show me one ISP/NSP out there who isn't running beta or alpha code
somewhere in their infrastructure. Never ran a x.0 version of IOS? Never
patched a piece of software with an "unsupported" patch to fix an issue
affecting service? Never developed such a patch yourself (or had a staff
member do so)?

> MHSC has no desire to become an access provider, we are a services provider,
> as is dean. This means that, in order to provide services to someone, with
> an IP address not in our domain, we HAVE to allow for open relays, or not
> provide the services.

Incorrect. It's a customer training issue, and a little development time
on your part. If you can't use SMTP AUTH, don't. Use POP-before-SMTP. Whip
up a custom finger daemon to accept a username/password pair in the same
manner. Create a webpage for your customers to enter a username and
password on to authenticate themselves. Use a VPN. Use magic headers or
subject lines that your MTA catches and uses as identity verification.
Provide a web-based interface for your customer's email. Use UUCP.

I could keep going for hours. What you're calling a show-stopper is merely
an inconvenience and expense for you. Instead of spending a little time
and effort working on a solution and training your customers on it's use
(or several solutions, let the customer choose one that suits their needs
best), you'd prefer to operate an attractive nuisance. The vast majority
of service providers have been faced with your exact problem, and have
solved it through development on their own, or with the assistance of free
tools and patches.

Just because you're too lazy/ill-funded to develop a solution to a problem
YOU'VE created (by CHOOSING to offer that service to your customers),
don't expect us to feel sorry for you.

> Since when did NANOG become a business censor?

Since when did NANOG become a forum for hosting issues? This will be my
only post to this thread on this list; take it to inet-access or
rbl-discuss, if you must.

-- 
Edward S. Marshall <emarshal at logic.net>          http://www.xnet.com/~emarshal/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[                  Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.                  ]