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Re: SMTP Minimum Retry Period - Proposal To Modify Mx

2004-01-10 09:56:11
At 10:32 PM 1/9/2004, Ken Raeburn wrote...

Not in any mail I've seen so far, but the other traffic since implies I've 
missed something.  Investigating that... my apologies.

18 U.S.C. 1030


In any case, the quotations I've seen suggest you believe that the blocking is 
done without authorization. 

That is correct. Understand that I am NOT referring to UCE/spam. In the case of 
UCE/Spam, I will stipulate that the intended recipient may indeed have 
authorized upstream blocking/filtering. It is, however, irrational and 
incorrect to argue that the recipient has authorized blocking/filtering of 
email replies sent in direct response to queries they have sent. RBL/DUL makes 
no distinction between these types of email, and indiscriminately causes both 
types to be blocked. One cannot argue that general "best effort" or "no 
guarantees" terms of service cover this situation, since the blocking is known 
and deliberate.

As I said in my previous mail, I suspect the service agreement is likely to 
provide for it;

I can only speak for the ISP agreements I've been a party to, and they do NOT 
authorize any upstream filtering or blocking.

And I suspect the receiving computer to which "damage" would be done would be 
the ISP's mail server; presumably none of this is interfering with the 
transmission between the ISP's mail server and the customer's machine.

It is interfering with communications between sender and recipient, which is 
exactly what the cited law prohibits. The maintainer of the MX has publicly 
agreed to accept mail destined for the domain (by publishing an MX record). 
Blocking/refusing/filtering email bound for a protected system is a violation 
of U.S. law, unless specific authorization has been granted to do so, which has 
not occurred (see above).  




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