wayne <wayne(_at_)midwestcs(_dot_)com> wrote:
Nothing proposed on this WG is going to stop spam.
No one is claiming it will. Anyone claiming that MARID will stop
spam should be educated as to how it works.
I find it amusing that Alan and Dave are discussing such issues and
Alan hasn't even pointed out that even doing ICMP port unreachable
responses to SMTP connections won't stop spammers. See:
http://www.striker.ottawa.on.ca/
I have never claimed that ICMP port unreachables would stop
spammers, so I don't see why you're bringing it up, or how it's
relevant to MARID. See the ASRG archives, where multiple people
re-establish a dormant domain after 3 years, and instantly receive
spam. Spammers are sending to everyone, always, whether or not anyone
is listening.
And the problem behind the situation on my page about ICMP port
unreachables is *not* about spam, believe it or not. It's about theft
of services. The spammers were "owning" someone's machine, and they
therefore didn't care what the cost of spam was, as those costs were
borne by the administrators of the "owned" machine. No SMTP-based
anti-spam solution can prevent these situations.
Let me repeat that, in case I was unclear: Some spam is sent through
otherwise legitimate "owned" MTA's, and nothing we do in SMTP, or to
SMTP, will have ANY effect on that kind of spam (except turning off
SMTP for that MTA). The ONLY solution to such theft is a combination
of legal & non-SMTP technical approaches.
If even as an immediate and absolute response as an ICMP port
unreachable won't stop spammers from attempting to send spam to
striker, such things as SPF, Sender-ID, CSV, MTAmark, etc. don't have
a chance.
I don't care about people sending spam to striker, as I have other
methods to deal with that. I care about people forging mail FROM
striker, as it's difficult for me to deal with those messages via
local configuration or policy.
I'm now starting to see spam forged FROM people I exchange email
with, TO me. This says to me that spammers are not only forging
messages, they're trolling list archives for pairs of addresses which
will probably make it through content filters. Forgery prevention
systems are therefore even more relevant.
If this thread continues, please continue it only on ASRG. It's
getting off-topic for MARID.
Alan DeKok.