On Sat, 13 Mar 2004, Paul Vixie wrote:
every time i tell somebody that they shouldn't bother trying to send e-mail from their dsl or cablemodem ip address due to the unlikelihood of a well staffed and well trained and empowered abuse desk defending the reputation of that address space, i also say "buy a 1U and put it someplace with a real abuse desk, and use your dsl or cablemodem to tunnel to that place."
Why the assumption that a server connected via a patch cord will be better administered than a server connected by a dsl or cable modem or T1 line? What you seem to actually be looking for is a connection with a fixed IP address which doesn't share "address reputation" with others. Old timers who were able to obtain small IP address blocks for free don't have as much of a problem. They can arrange for any ISP to announce those IP addresses from any location, including their home basement colo over a DSL line. Their "address reputation" less dependent on third-parties. But with address conservation measures, new IP addresses are much more tightly packed with all sorts of address assignments very close to each other. Unlike "provider independent" IP addresses, some operators of block lists will block large numbers of provider assigned addresses even if any particular address has never done anything "wrong." Even if an ISP had a perfect abuse response desk, some people pre-emptively block all so-called "dialup" address ranges. Why shouldn't an individual be able to operated a server on their DSL or cable modem connection? Wasn't the original end-to-end nature of the Internet based on that? Why prevent people from running servers on DSL and cable modem connections, yet say they could run an identical server in a colo? Why is one unsafe, and the other is considered Ok?