Larry Seltzer wrote:
A zombie can do everything it's former owner can do. Hijack
I think not many people understand what a Zombie is.. I think I will
write on this soon.
<snip>
Out of this list only two are really mail spamming activities. Port 587 is
inherently authenticated, so a bot that uses it will be quickly shut down.
It's just not much of a substitute for the freedom port 25 presents. "Create
Web mail accounts in the name of its former owner and spam" - why would you
need a bot to do this? What value does a bot add? In any event, it's still
not a reason to keep port 25 open.
Basically, you're right that there's a lot that bots can do besides spam on
port 25, but blocking port 25 would make it much, much harder for bots to be
a significant source of spam. Consequently the value of botnets would
decrease substantially.
Larry, I can honestly say I couldn't have put it better myself.
This is a never-ending game of cat and mouse. Once we block one route,
the mouse opens another which we hurry to try and block, and so on and
so forth to the end of time.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't block, or more to the point, kill the
mouse or cut off one of its legs.. or even better, prevent it from
creating new lil mices.
Port 25 blocking is advancing spam in the direction we want it to take,
which I believe will be more manageable, rather than letting the
scUmmers lead us on their own evolutionary ride, reacting to our
reactions and getting better while they're at it.
[Nothing personal, der Mouse. :) ]
Gadi.
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