[2628] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: MIT Mailhubs Linux-Athena mail from outside net-18
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Y. Ts'o)
Sun Feb 14 18:53:03 1999
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 18:52:49 -0500 (EST)
From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU>
To: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Karl Ramm <kcr@MIT.EDU>, linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Derek Atkins's message of 14 Feb 1999 13:42:22 -0500,
<sjmhfso6d4h.fsf@datkins.ihtfp.org>
From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Date: 14 Feb 1999 13:42:22 -0500
I claim that it is a bug because it is a radical change in (long-term)
behavior with little to no warning. I personally have successfully
been using the MIT mailhubs to send mail "from MIT" for a number of
years, and only in the last week+ have I seen this problem. Moreover,
I am not the only person to notice the problem.
The problem is that the Internet is changing rapidly with little
warning. We got very little warning when PCA and SSA got added to the
ORBS blacklist.....
So I don't think it's fair to complain about the postmasters acting too
quickly. In fact, the main reason why ORBS has blacked listed us and
Paul Vixie has been threatening to black list us is that in their view,
the MIT postmasters have been moving too slowly to block open relays,
where their definition of open relays mean IP address checks, since they
claim (probably correctly) that SPAMmers have learned how to fake the
recipient address to get around simple recipient address checks.
In the mean time the mailhubs are getting increasing overloaded,
partially due to spammers actually using us as relays, and partially due
to increasing use of Sloanies sending multi-megabyte files through the
mailhubs routinely. They didn't give us much warning before doing that,
either.
The bottom line is that the mail infrastructure is being forced to
migrate quickly, and it's going to be hard to keep everybody happy.
That being said, on machines which I run, I've been simply allowing my
machine to do direct delivery. The only trick is that I then have to be
careful about making sure that mail doesn't get left stuck in the mail
spool. That's why Athena machines don't queue their own mail --- it was
that users tended to not notice when mail got trapped in their mail
spool, possibly for months, due to stale lock files. I figure that I'm
smarter than the average bear, so I simply configured my machine to do
direct delivery. This also has the advantage that I don't lose when
trying to send mail to the machines subscribing to the ORBS blackmail
service. It might be useful to hack together a special sendmail
configuration for clueful people that want to do direct delivery; I'm
not convinced it's should be the default installation for your typical
clueless user, though.
Yes, I realize that SPAM is an issue. I understand the concept of
'open relays'. However, I also believe that 'open' means sending mail
from anywhere to anywhere through that host. I'm not asking for that.
I'm asking for mail to be sent 'from MIT' (although connecting from
anywhere) to anywhere. This is different than an open relay.
The problem is that to the anti-SPAM nazi's, they consider that to be an
open relay, and they are prepared to blackmail MIT with the threat of
blacklisting our mail hubs if we don't make changes to meet their
convenience, and they don't care about the convenience of our users.
Welcome to brave new world of the Internet.....
- Ted
