2000-09-23-21:39:37 Patrick Greenwell:
Can someone explain to me why it is ok to blindly scan other peoples networks without their permission for smurf amplifiers and post the results, while doing the same for SMTP servers has met with heavy criticism?
How about, allowing IP Directed Broadcast may let your machines help to shut down connectivity somewhere, but it doesn't show up in peoples' mailboxes. Spammers have collected such a rabid hatred that allowing your company to be associated with them in any way, even aiding and abetting, gets you shunned something fierce, it can generate ill-will enough to push a company over the edge and out of business. Being a smurf amplifier will never be known to customers of most organizations; and even if they heard, they wouldn't understand what it meant. So it doesn't generate the rabid hatred. Getting listed with ORBS not only means your email gets blocked, it also raises a fear that your site is likely to be featured in a major spam torrent, and you are likely to catch a lot of the flak and ill-will that follows; the pain inflicted on you is great, so you whine loudly and try to blame ORBS for your neglect. Being listed as a smurf-amplifier may get your site used to take out other nets, but it won't earn you customers leaving and staying away in droves. Does anybody have any evidence one way or another on whether spammers do or don't use ORBS to find relays? -Bennett