Paul Vixie said:
a long time ago i warned that the real victim of spam would be "openness"
and that when closed communities with gates started appearing, then we would
all know that we had lost the battle. what i failed to predict was how long
the "losing" would last before "lost" was generally considered obvious.
it seems that comcast has determined that it costs them a lot more support
expense for a customer who can initiate SMTP than for a customer who can't.
they may also have discovered that such customers are willing to pay more.
and they have certainly discovered that maps's dul is a voluntary method
by which they can reduce or limit their support expenses on customers who
are not paying extra for the "initiate SMTP" service.
if you don't believe that comcast ought to have the ability to control how
its services are used, then your recourse is the local PUC, and the FCC.
Dan Kolis says:
Well, without a voluntary and widely deployed careful, specific, fair
policy, eventually opening any socket will be (obviously) be a civil right,
That is, if you have been enabled for a TCP session; (paid ISP, in school,
etc) being denied any service on the basis of its content will be illegal;
(at least in countries with civil rights policies). A like freedom of speech
thing.
This is why companies with differentiated services; (mail relay, MTA's, WWW)
should charge less for basic service, have no support, and add QoS etc. And
charge a little for everything beyond the basics. (UDP, TCP)
This is clumsy but is exactly the dotted line between "Value added" and
"basic services" the FCC used to regulate AT&T. Clumsy, but if the legal
system understood technology better, it need not be arbetrary.
But, you know, since SPAM kicks this all off as a visible problem... just
like direct mail (paper); if no one ever buys anything, or falls for a scam,
etc the incentive to create it ceases.
Too bad people are well, not too smart.
Regs to all,
Dan K
Dan Kolis - Lindsay Electronics Ltd dank(_at_)hq(_dot_)lindsayelec(_dot_)com
50 Mary Street West, Lindsay Ontario Canada K9V 2S7
(705) 324-2196 X272 (705) 324-5474 Fax
An ISO 9001 Company; SCTE Member ISM-127194
/Document end