> > Spamming could be counteracted more
> > efficiently using other methods than this.
> And these methods are what exactly? If there's something more effective than
> open relay blocking I'd like to hear what it is.
Relay blocking certainly is not effective. Spamming just increases
every year.
Actually, it is effective in the sense that it makes spammers easier to track
down.
But this is beside the point. You claimed to have a better alternative and
I asked what it was. You haven't answered my question.
Of course, you might claim that without relay
blocking, spamming would have increased even more.
Quite likely, but who's to know? The point is that reasonable actions to
counteract spam relay have led to the loss of open relay functionality. You may
quibble about the details, but unless you're prepared to suggest an viable
alternative it isn't going to matter.
Relay blocking was in reality not meant to counteract spamming,
but to reduce the load of spammers taking over MTAs to forward
their spams. Thus, it was not meant to make life more bearable
to users, but to make life more bearable to MTA owners. But
those who introduced relay blocking wrongly claimed that it stop
spamming.
Nonsense. Try being a user on a system whose management doesn't care and that's
overwhelmed by spam as a result. It isn't a pleasant experience, let me tell
you -- dozens of attempts needed to send mail, incoming messages delayed for
hours or days, etc.
MTA owners provide a service. In most cases they care very little about the
details of that service as long as it works. But spam relay can and does
compromise that service, that impacts users, and that makes it a problem for
users. This isn't a hack performed by lazy MTA owners at the expense of their
users, it is an essential configuration detail MTA owners perform that directly
benefits their users far more than it harms them.
Ned