Outgoing SMTP Servers
Robert Bonomi
bonomi at mail.r-bonomi.com
Thu Oct 27 17:50:22 UTC 2011
On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:53:34 -0000, Brian Johnson said:
> It is interesting that some people who fully understand that the Internet is
> composed of many networks run by people with different interests can say what
> is best for the Internet as a whole. How my organization (or yours or anybody
> else's) runs our network, is between us and our paying users.
That claim is true *ONLY* to the extent that 'how your organization runs
your network' does _not_ have an adverse effect on other peoples networks.
The fact of the matter is that you do not have a viable business without
the collective 'tolerance'/'approval' of the rest of the world.
You, and your organization, need them far more than they need you.
_How_ you pro-actively ensure spam does not exit from your network IS your
business.
That you *do* do so _is_ within the action purveiw of the 'rest of the world'.
"Doing so" requires that you _actively_ monitor the behavior of your customers
and have 'ways and means' in place to (a) detect, and (b) _stop_ immediately
upon detection, such abusive behavior by your customers.
One of the 'easiest', and most _cost-effective_ ways of doing so *is* to
force all outgoing mail from your customers through a 'choke point' for
examination/filtering/blckcing.
The simplest way of doing that, *without* running afoul of 'wiretapping'
statutes. is to require, by policy and by blocking direct external access,
that customer out-bound email traffic go through your servers, and doing
the necessary 'inspection' there.
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