At 6:57 PM -0400 2003/09/10, waltdnes(_at_)waltdnes(_dot_)org wrote:
"The 'net was designed for..."
- a clientel consisting of white, male, middle-class military types
and civilians doing reasearch for the military. These people needed
security clearance simply to get on the net, which is why smtp had
no security designed in. This clientel would have no incentive to
spam; doing so would risk their security clearance.
The original ARPAnet was unclassified. Granted, getting access
to ARPAnet was extremely difficult, and therefore things like
inter/intra protocol security were not priorities. However, this has
nothing to do with security clearance.
- administration by BOFH admins who knew what they were doing
Indeed, most the the users were the admins. Everybody was on a
first-name basis. You could look at the way the washer-size disk
drives were moving around and tell what jobs were running. You could
listen to the printers and tell what was being printed. From half a
building away, you could recognize the dimming of the lights and the
sound of a crash dump being printed. Knowing that it would take at
least thirty minutes to complete, you could be safe in the knowledge
that you'd have enough time to eat a leisurely lunch before you had
to be back at the office.
Today, every fourteen-year-old 133t-hax0r-dude can get on. The vast
majority of residential customers have problems finding the "ANY" key,
and are easy targets for evil people who want to take over their
machines.
Indeed. But many "cures" being proposed seem no better than the
disease, and some of them would even seem to be worse. We have to be
careful in what we recommend.
What it all comes down to is that the vast majority of emails sent
direct-to-mx from residential/dynamic IP addresses is spam. If you're
going to accept smtp traffic from another ISP's dynamic IP addresses,
you need some form of authentication. This can be the POP-before-SMTP
hack, or ssh-tunneling, or SSL, or whatever.
Some of us don't have effective alternatives for access. There
is only one dominant carrier available, and while their service may
just be sufficient to get our bits onto the 'net, they couldn't find
their backside if they were stuck into a room with mirrors on all
sides and the world's most powerful lighting. We wouldn't route our
mail through their servers if our lives depended on it. They are
Access Providers, no more.
Indeed, in some countries, the only access available is from
providers who explicitly refuse to provide anything more than just
bare access, requiring you to get all your service somewhere else.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out --
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out --
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me --
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
--
Brad Knowles, <brad(_dot_)knowles(_at_)skynet(_dot_)be>
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E-(---) W+++(--) N+
!w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++)
tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++)
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