[89933] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Spam filtering bcps [was Re: Open Letter to D-Link about
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matthew Black)
Wed Apr 12 16:36:01 2006
From: "Matthew Black" <black@csulb.edu>
To: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, Steve Thomas <nanog2@sthomas.net>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 13:35:33 -0700
In-Reply-To: <200604121818.k3CIIOgp008355@turing-police.cc.vt.edu>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:18:24 -0400
Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 10:16:53 PDT, Steve Thomas said:
>>
>> > I haven't seen any succinct justification for providing a
>> > 550 message rejection for positively-identified spam versus
>> > silently dropping the message. Lots of how-to instructions
>> > but no whys.
>>
>> RFC 2821?
>>
>> ...the protocol requires that a server accept responsibility
>> for either delivering a message or properly reporting the
>> failure to do so.
Your statement is open to multiple interpretations. I argue that
anytime our system identifies a message as spam that it gets
delivered to the system bit bucket.
RFC-821 and netiquette also "mandate" e-mail be properly addressed.
System manufacturers and administrators make compromises because
strict adherence to the rules is not always possible from an
operational perspective.
> Elsewhere in 2821 (6.1, to be specific):
>
> When the receiver-SMTP accepts a piece of mail (by sending a "250 OK"
> message in response to DATA), it is accepting responsibility for
> delivering or relaying the message. It must take this responsibility
> seriously. It MUST NOT lose the message for frivolous reasons, such
> as because the host later crashes or because of a predictable
> resource shortage.
Lost me on that part about crashes being frivolous reasons.
This is a political statement not an indisputable matter of fact.
> OK? Got that? You '250 OK' it, you got a *serious* responsibility. Losing
>the
> message because the whole damned machine crashes is considered a frivolous
>reason.
>
> And throwing it away because you don't like the way it looks is OK? Man,
...............................***
> you're in for some severe karmic protocol payback down the road... ;)
I'm not the one throwing them away and never look at them; watch
the finger wagging. And thanks for the karma heads up, Bhudda.
matthew black
california state university, long beach
