Internet Email Services Association ( wasRE: Why do so few mail providers support Port 587?)

Suresh Ramasubramanian ops.lists at gmail.com
Fri Feb 25 20:20:28 UTC 2005


On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 16:51:31 +0000, Michael.Dillon at radianz.com
<Michael.Dillon at radianz.com> wrote:
> 
> >  I'll agree with you on one thing, though -- the whole
> > business of port 587 is a bit silly overall...why can't the same
> > authentication schemes being bandied about for 587 be applied to 25,
> > thus negating the need for another port just for mail injection?
> 
> Because that would require providers to act like professionals,
> join an Internet Mail Services Association, agree on policies
> for mail exchange, and require mail peering agreements in
> order to enable port 25 access to anyone.

You might want to check out http://www.maawg.org - at least stateside,
that's about the only operational mail admin / antispam conference I
know of that's attended by ISP mail system and abuse desk admins
rather than assorted vendors.

They've got a mtg march 1-3 in San Diego (I'll be there btw)

srs
> 
> Unfortunately, providers seem to prefer unilateral
> heavy-handed behavior rather than acting professional.
> They prefer working out solutions in isolation or in
> small closed cabals working in secret in backrooms rather
> than working open to public scrutiny in an association.
> They prefer to operate in an environment in which
> there are no agreed policies for Internet email
> exchange rather than having a viable Internet email
> system in which everyone works together to add value
> to the users. They prefer to play secret games with
> blacklists, bayesian filters, hodge-podges tacked onto
> the Internet's DNS systems, and other antisocial behaviors
> rather than openly saying that people must meet certain
> standards in order to *SEND* email.
> 
> The Internet email architecture is based on something
> called *SIMPLE* mail transport protocol which its creator
> never intended to last for so long. It is a flat architecture
> and in common with other flat architectures it does not
> scale. If flat architectures did scale on the Internet,
> then everyone with a dialup would be running BGP and
> announcing their /32 IPv4 route.
> 
> There is no good reason why the large email providers,
> most of whom are network operators, do not form an open
> Internet Mail Services Association to hammer out the
> details of a new email services architecture so that
> everyone can sing from the same hymnbook and so that
> email just works, seamlessly, everywhere. I strongly
> suspect that a new architecture will have fewer weak
> points that can be exploited by spammers but spam is
> really a secondary problem. The real problem is that
> the IETF protocol development process is not the right
> place for email service operators to work out operational
> frameworks and policies.
> 
> This is an area where the United Nations and the ITU
> can bring about *REAL* improvements to the Internet and
> I hope that the existence of the WSIS will lead to this.
> No, I do *NOT* support the ITU taking on a governance role
> over the Internet. What I do support is for the companies
> in this industry to wake up and smell the coffee. Nature
> abhors a vacuum. Currently we have collectively created
> a vacuum which the UN and ITU *WILL* fill if we don't fill
> it first.
> 
> --Michael Dillon
> 
> 


-- 
Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.lists at gmail.com)



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