[129533] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: ISP port blocking practice
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Levine)
Thu Sep 9 14:33:45 2010
Date: 9 Sep 2010 18:33:26 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <20100906132205.GA21165@panix.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
>That's really the question at hand here -- whether or not there's any
>benefit to continuing the "never ending arms race" game. Some people
>think there is. Others question whether anything is really being
>accomplished. Certainly we're playing it out like an arms race -- ISPs
>block something, spammers find a new way to inject spam, and so on.
>The end result of lots of time spend on blocking thins, less
>functionality for customers ... but no decrease in spam.
I take it you've never run a mail system other than perhaps a tiny one
for your friends. The alternative to the arms race is to abandon
e-mail altogether.
>The theory behind closing open relays, blocking port 25, etc., seems to
>be:
>(a) That will make it harder on spammers, and that will reduce spam --
>some of the spammers will find other other ways to inject spam, but
>some will just stop, OR
>(b) Eventually, we'll find technical solutions to *all* the ways spam
>is injected, and then there will be no more spam.
Interesting guesses, but wrong.
R's,
John
