Re: [cobalt-users] Email relaying

[Larry Smith <lesmith@xxxxxxxxx>]

INRE RE: [cobalt-users] Email relaying:
> > A lot of "providers" have tried similar schemes - but I get "probed"
> > regularly from AOL ip addresses so they must not do it very well.
>
> http://postmaster.info.aol.com/
> I believe they probe systems that send them email.

Possible, but here is just a "sample" of what I see regularly (at-relay means 
they connected to a "non-sendmail" system on port 25 and attempted to start a 
connection - yes all my servers report all non-authorized connections):

172.141.134.25  ## at-relay - Sat Feb  2 10:33:52 CST 2002
172.147.167.76  ## at-relay - Mon Feb 11 07:24:44 CST 2002
172.149.151.22  ## at-relay - Sat Feb  9 09:01:42 CST 2002
172.151.160.79  ## at-relay - Sun Feb 10 01:32:22 CST 2002
172.153.84.15   ## at-relay - Wed Feb 27 07:42:06 CST 2002
172.156.88.84   ## at-relay - Tue Feb  5 08:49:36 CST 2002
172.157.171.154 ## at-relay - Sun Feb 10 01:32:37 CST 2002
172.158.243.186 ## at-relay - Wed Feb  6 09:35:09 CST 2002
172.167.143.34  ## at-relay - Wed Feb 20 06:16:37 CST 2002
172.170.172.228 ## at-relay - Wed Feb 13 07:53:33 CST 2002

These are all "XXXX.ipt.aol.com IP addresses which are the dialups.....
And yes, it just happened to be Februarys file I grabbed first....


> > What they are trying to do is clamp down on "spammers", but
> > spammers don't
> > use their own ISP mail server because it has all the records
> > of who logged on
> > when, where, for how long, etc....  Instead they use open
> > relay or open proxy
> > systems all over the world and unless you can get the system
> > logs for "that"
> > system, you have no way to tie it back to them...
>
> If AOL actually did something about spam and viri leaving AOL instead of
> just entering it, things would be a lot better.

So very true.  Interesting that most spam originates from within the United 
States, goes via remote (proxy/relay) somewhere else; then back to the United 
States.  (No, I don't have figures to back up that assumption, but my own 
experience does)...


-- 
Larry Smith
SysAd ECSIS.NET
sysad@xxxxxxxxx