On Wed, Jun 17, 1998 at 07:12:23PM -0400, Dean Anderson wrote:
Vix and I have been in agreement that we need a test case. I volunteered to try and find such evidence last year, but I can't. What I've found is that ***no major NSP's block spammers***, or least none actually admit to doing so. One that boasted of such filtering on Nanog last winter, backed down on providing evidence of blocking, and I couldn't find any without some cooperation from them, from my remote point.
If you are an NSP, and you are blocking a spammer from transiting your network, where you have no relationship with the parties to the email (the sender or the recipient), and you and your attorney are completely convinced of the legality of your actions, then tell me who you are blocking. And we'll have our test case.
Dean, you keep changing your tune. First you said *any* spamblocking was illegal. Now you're looking for someone who is spamblocking IN TRANSIT (ie: not to or from an end customer). How would THAT come about, pray tell? Do you know how modern SMTP based email actually *works*? Spam blocking happens at the point of delivery or origin. Email is a point-to-point media in fact, at least in the case where there is no forgery, fraud, or theft (ie: relay rape) going on. That is, the transaction looks like: SENDER >>>>>> Relay ---------- Internet -------- MX of Recipient | | | RECIPIENT In the middle, the "Internet", you only have a packet flow. You can't block "SPAM" in the middle, because you don't know what is and is not spam since none of the machines in the middle do anything other than route a packet flow from one place to another. The Relay (originator host) and MX (target host) both have contractual relationships of some kind with one of the parties. You've conceded that at THOSE TWO POINTS, there is no "legal recourse" available to the parties involved, since there is a contractual set of conditions (and perhaps even a DUTY to block disruptive traffic in some cases) You keep changing your tune. You've been shown to be wrong in every situation you have tried to postulate, and now you've devolved into demanding a "test case" which simply doesn't exist. Give it up Dean. You lost this argument six months ago. -- -- Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin http://www.mcs.net/ | T1's from $600 monthly / All Lines K56Flex/DOV | NEW! Corporate ISDN Prices dropped by up to 50%! Voice: [+1 312 803-MCS1 x219]| EXCLUSIVE NEW FEATURE ON ALL PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Fax: [+1 312 803-4929] | *SPAMBLOCK* Technology now included at no cost