Verizon is easily fooled by spamming zombies

Wed Jun 1 17:39:52 UTC 2005

On Jun 1, 2005, at 12:35 PM, Gadi Evron wrote:

>> The example given in this thread proves you wrong.  My friend had a
>> vanity domain, did not have her own mail server.
>
> Okay, and why does she need to use Verizon's servers to send email  
> from
> her own vanity domain?
> Unless I am missing something and Verizon gets paid for this?

Yes, $50/month.

>> But that's OK, we should tell people one thing (use your ISP's server
>> to send mail) and do another (block them from sending mail through
>> their ISP's server).
>
> I believe you are exaggerating, like I usually like to do. My point is
> the the vast.. vast.. clueless majority is a direct threat to Internet
> survivability (ooh, big words). The 100s of thousands of clued  
> users who
> has a vanity domains can definitely find an easy way to send mail,
> without using the provider's servers.

No, 100s of 1000s of not-so-clued users have vanity domains.  Have  
you checked how many domains are registered on a daily basis these days?

> The cost of allowing these servers to stay "open" is extremely  
> high, and
> we are paying the price every day.

Who said "open"?  There are lots of ways to keep spam from your  
network down.

If you have a mail server and allow it to send mail, it can be  
abused.  All you can do is try to make it harder to abuse.  One of  
the ways we (the collective "we" who run the Internet) have decided  
to do this is by forcing people to send outbound mail through their  
ISP's mail server, not through random open relays.

If the ISP wants to use SMTP AUTH or other mechanisms to lower abuse,  
that's fine.  But to say "only allow ISP.net from addresses - but  
allow them from anywhere on the 'Net" is kinda ... silly.

> That's the point, the clueless, vast, vast, majority is happy. They
> don't care. They don't know there are 40 Trojan horses and 400 spyware
> components installed on their quiet green desktop. All they know is  
> that
> their email account works. I know that they are threatening the
> Internet. Clear and simple.

The solution presented here is not only not a solution, it is also a  
problem.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick