Lazy network operators - NOT

Sun Apr 18 12:23:40 UTC 2004

--On 18 April 2004 02:56 -0400 Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:

> If you don't want to accept connections from indeterminate or
> unauthenticated addresses, its your choice.

Whilst that may gave you some heuristic help, I'm not sure
about the language. HINFO used that way neither /authenticates/
the address (in any meaningful manner as the reverse DNS holder
can put in whatever they like), nor does it /authenticate/ the
user (which some might characterize as the problem). Given it
is a widely held view (IMHO correct) that using network layer
addressing for authentication is broken, I think your suggestion
would probably be better received if you described this as a
heuristic mechanism.

Speaking of which, we gets lots proposed heuristic solutions
suggested. Has anyone actually done any formal evaluation of
the statistics behind this. For instance looked at a statistical
correlation between DUL listed entries and spam, extrapolated
to determine what would be the effect if all dialup blocks were
listed, and done proper significance testing etc.? Ditto any
of the other techniques Paul's greylisting paper refer to. If not,
sounds like a useful academic research paper. Hardly like we
are short of data points.

Alex