Re: [cobalt-developers] SMTP Email

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joel Holtzman wrote:

> earthlink = bleh
> 
> that's what I get out of this. Time to install a web based mail,

Web mail is nice, but I can't imagine any customer would want to use
web-based outgoing email.

> or just let
> them enjoy mail forwarding, what a shame.

No shame.  This is the way the Internet works.  If I (as an ISP) can't
restrict outgoing email to my own server there's no way I can keep
spammers from using my connection.

> In short, raq 3 + earthlink = headaches

Nope.  Not at all.  You can be as prejudiced as you want, but every
responsible ISP does now, or will eventually, block outgoing email from
all their dialup accounts, except through their own ports.  I did, on my
ISPs, and if I ever run another one (I've been asked to become a partner
in Socalix), I'll do it to.

Here's what'll happen before long if I don't:

Spammers will figure out they can use my outgoing dialup accounts to
send spam that I won't see in my logs.  They'll buy accounts with me and
tell their friends to do the same.

The outgoing spam will have so many bad addresses (most email lists
spammers use are better than 50% invalid addresses; they just don't
care; it's cheaper to send out more and to buy more lists than it is to
clean them, and they don't care about the messes they leave behind) that
my server will be inundated with literally millions of bounced emails
daily.  You've never seen millions of emails hit a server, have you?  I
have.

The millions of bounces will completely bury my mailserver.  It'll shut
down and my upstream provider will start seeing all the traffic bouncing
back and forth on his network, so he'll shut me off the net to keep from
closing down all his customers systems.

All responsible ISPs will block my IP# address blocks so no one can
reach my machines.

I'll end up spending tens of thousands of dollars to fix everything if I
want to stay in business, and the spammers won't care, they'll just
start using someone else.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it <wry grin>.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Linux and Cobalt/Sun/RaQ Consulting
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 778-9980  *  fax: (702) 548-9484