[PLUG] How dangerous is handling my own mail?

[Jeme A Brelin]

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Ian Burrell wrote:
> Back when I reported spam, I saw lots of them that came through open
> relays.  That may have changed with spammers doing more direct sending
> and using zombies to send it out.  Nearly all relays are open because
> they were misconfigured.

That's a relatively new development.  Used to be that ALL mail relays were
open... that's what "relay" means.

Is it "misconfiguration" or just default behavior not boarded up with
extra administrative work that inconveniences everyone equally, spammer or
otherwise?

> > I can point you to a couple of people that leave their relays open so
> > that they can send mail from anywhere with any client or even
> > hand-inject it if need be.
>
> Are they public where they can be scanned?

Yeah.  Here's one:  mail.bikearmy.org

> An open relay on a non-standard port should be pretty safe from being
> found.

Port 25.

> Same for one that gets started when needed.

Always running.

> I don't see much point to a public relay when a private one works just
> well.

The point is that a public one can be used by everyone and a private one
can't be.  I don't do it for MY benefit, but for the benefit of others.

> > This idea of making the network less generally useful to fight some
> > particular use is ass-backward.
>
> Except that spam makes the network less generally useful by breaking how
> mail should work.

Mail should work by picking a mail server and saying "deliver this for
me".

> For example, I had to take down our secondary MX at work because it was
> feeding in spam and generating lots of worthless bounce messages.

What does "feeding in spam" mean?

I don't understand why you had to shut down the service.

J.
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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