Re: And so it begins...

On 4/12/2005 9:45 AM, David Gibbs wrote:

>Ryan Ware wrote:
>  
>
>>It has been like this for quite awhile with most major domains.  You
>>would need to get your own email server with a domain and reverse
>>lookup.  Even that is no guarantee if you are sitting on an address
>>block that is designated as home users you could still be blocked. 
>>    
>>
>
>Actually, that's not really the problem.
>
>No individual mail user (using a mail program) should *EVER* send mail
>directly to a foreign mail server.  It should always send to a local or
>authenticated mail server which has been configured to relay the mail
>for that user.
>
>The problem Joe encountered is a mail server is rejecting mail from
>*HIS* mail server because it's IP address is normally allocated to
>consumer grade DSL service.
>
>david
>
>  
>

Sorry David, but I have to disagree here.

The are at least a couple of situations.

One is where someone (like me) has their own domain and their ISP wants
triple $$$ to host it as compared to one of the major hosting providers.
If the user's home ISP blocks port 25, as I have heard Cox and Comcast
have, then they wouldn't be able to send email from their domain since
it would be via a "foreign mail server." Yes, the ISP could allow all
"from domains" through their servers but then the reverse lookup
wouldn't match and it would get marked as spam. Also, if they let
everything through what stops spammers, except #2 below? BTW, while
Sprint was in the pre-paid dial up business they also blocked port 25 so
badly that you could only send mail via a web client which meant only
from your Sprint address.

Second is a business that has people work at home occasionally. It is
not often enough to justify a VPN but they need to respond to customers
and need to use the company's SMTP because the return address is their
company address. The company exists on another ISP. Home workers are a
growing portion of the workforce.

Instead of funneling everything through the ISP's servers it would be
better to:
1) Educate about preventing open relay.
2) Make the ISP have better tracking of customers/times/IPs for
backtracking.
3) Backup the education with major consequences.
4) Make all SMTP server software providers set the initial/default
configuration as closed with the administrator required to open items if
they really need it. The "ease of setup" as justification for  having
the setup start as wide open is pure nonsense.

Roger Vicker, CCP

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