On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Mitch Halmu wrote:
Whatever. If you find the service valuable, then you'll pay for it, if you don't, then don't use it and go away.
Valuable? Hehe. FYI, NetSide is on the MAPS RSS blackhole list:
Mitch, some of us would say that anyone who is there because of operating an open relay is a good thing.
http://www.dotcomeon.com A detailed account of our "crimes"...
And enough paranoid rambling about giving up control of your network to Vixie and the government to make even me think you're a loon. You also talk about how things have always been. Lord knows that The Internet has not evolved over the past 6 years, right Mitch? The argument that sendmail has by default traditionally been implemented in an open relay configuration or that sysadmins are too lazy to change the default config are not strong arguments for your cause as there are technological improvements to the existing standards that make it possible to relay messages for remote users without running an open relay. Cry all you want, but the times have changed, and you either evolve or you die. And on a related note, I'm assuming that since you're unwilling to support things like SMTP auth that you're also not willing to implement such privacy ensuring technologies like TLS or POP w/ SSL. And if you are willing to support those new technologies, why not SMTP auth? Hell, you're not even protecting your customer's privacy and account information by allowing people to expn and vrfy accounts via your mail server. And even if you turned that off, since you allow mail relaying from anyone, a person looking to harvest accounts or just get account data could send an e-mail posing as that person to himself and you'd never be the wiser. You want to run an open relay, and that's your right to do so. It's your hardware, your software, and your time. But because you run a mail server does not mean that The Internet at-large has to accept mail from you if every goon thinking we need ink jet refills or the latest porn can send mail through your server that ultimately reaches our inboxes. We have the right to use a service that promises to stop that from happening. If you don't like that, then do something constructive about it other than whining on NANOG. Every time you post to NANOG it's either on this subject directly or you move the topic to talk about it. Regards, -- Joseph W. Shaw II Network Security Specialist/CCNA Unemployed. Will hack for food. God Bless. Apparently I'm overqualified but undereducated to be employed.