On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 07:49:15PM -0800, ietf1(_at_)ka9q(_dot_)net wrote:
Other widely deployed but similarly misguided anti-spam mechanisms
include blanket blocks on incoming or outgoing TCP connections to port
25. I've even encountered on ISP that transparently and silently
redirected my outbound SMTP connections to their own mail servers!
Yup, some 802.11 wireless "hotspot" networks block port 25 as well.
Very annoying. My personal workaround to this is to have a personal
server tucked away at a colo facility, which among other things, runs
a SMTP server listening on port 2025 (to get around the port 25
blocking insanity). This SMTP server will relay e-mail on my behalf,
no matter when I am in the Internet, after my laptop uses STARTTLS and
AUTH to authenticate myself to my SMTP server.
As currently implemented, however, end users rarely (if ever) have
such control. They are the "collateral damage" of the spam war, and
are shrugged off just like foreign civilian casualties in most
wars. But a formal policy statement by the IAB or IETF just might give
them something to defend themselves.
Well as we know, in war, everything is justified, including bombing a
village to save it.... :-(
In any case, if friends/colleagues in the IETF needs a point-defense
against being cannon fodder in the war against SPAM, I can set up
something so they use my forwarding SMTP server when they find
themselves on a subnet being blocked by a silly ISP or on the MAPS DUL
list. Just let me know so I can set you up with a username/password
pair that will be accepted by my SMTP server.
Of course, this won't help the "little people", but I suppose I'm less
optimistic than you that a recommendation from the IAB will be
effective. After all, if represenatives from nearly every single
organized religion has signed petitions urging against the war in the
Iraq can be ignored by the George Bush, what makes you think that
anything the IETF or IAB might say will dissuade misguided sysadmins
who hates SPAM more than Bush hates Saddam Hussein....
- Ted