[69233] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: the value of reverse address lookups?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen J. Wilcox)
Wed Mar 31 19:59:56 2004
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 00:59:13 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Stephen J. Wilcox" <steve@telecomplete.co.uk>
To: "Douglas F. Calvert" <douglist@anize.org>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <1080778903.833.57.camel@liberate>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Douglas F. Calvert wrote:
> I am interested in finding out what the motivation is for requiring
> valid reverse address lookups before connecting to a daemon. I have
> heard a number of different explanations, the majority of the responses
> point to history/tradition and tcpwrappers. Is there a commonly accepted
> justification for this practice? In my opinion it does not appear to
> increase the validity of the connection. But I may be missing something
> obvious.
> Thanks in advance...
Well, my understanding is that whilst its easy to get a domain name and some dns
its usually quite difficult to put in a ptr record, these are usually controlled
by the ISP. If they dont exist or dont match then the address is a dialup or
hijacked or something not legitimate.. I think this is mainly an smtp antispam
thing tho altho I see your point is for any connection is general, I guess the
same appliers to hackers as to spammers.. ?
Steve
