[PLUG] How dangerous is handling my own mail?

John Meissen john at meissen.org
Wed Mar 31 11:12:02 UTC 2004


This thread has gone on too long, and strayed too far. It really belongs
in 'talk'. This is my final response.

Jeme A Brelin <jeme at brelin.net> said:
> No, it proves that you can do whatever it is you have done and live. 

<sigh> No, you really know nothing about logic. It only proves that
I can do whatever I've done and that I've lived so far. It says nothing
about the future.

I said:
> > No, this was back when most of the mail systems were configured as
> > open relays.

Then Jeme A Brelin said:
> How long ago?  I didn't see anything like massively injected relayed
> mail until well after the closed relay movement started.  After all,
> if you've got pipe enough to inject millions of messages, you got pipe
> enough to run your own server or just bounce through a few hundred
> others.  You're just shooting yourself in the foot trying to pump it
> all through one that probably can't take the load. 

Around 1998. And you're still not grokking. If I'm a spammer who's
relaying through someone else, I'm not injecting a million messages - 
I'm injecting a single message with a million addresses. This expands
to a million messages on the server that has to do final delivery, i.e.,
the relay server. That's one of the major reasons they do it - it
offloads the processing onto some else's system. 

> If we provide an easy way for them to send their mail, they won't be
> looking for malicious ways to do it (e.g., planting trojans) and we
> can focus on eliminating the real problem -- unwanted email in
> people's inboxes. 

The easiest way for them to do it is to pay for and use their own
servers and connections. What's wrong with that? Now that we're
forcing them to do that instead of relaying, we ARE concentrating on
the unwanted email problem. That's why they use infected systems,
target secondary MX hosts and play word games to bypass heuristic tests
in spam filters.

> So you don't filter spam coming into your system?

I never said that. I do three levels of spam blocking/filtering. I have
certain default tests configured in sendmail along with my own blacklist,
I use Spasm (www.nspasm.org) as a milter with aggressive settings, and
I use spamassassin.

> Theft of services?  We're talking about a few megabytes a day per
> server tops. 

This whole discussion is pointless because you don't pay attention. First
of all, if we assume 2K per message and a million messages that's more
like 2GB. Per relayed spam. Plus it kills your mail server. Mail is
generally queued in FIFO order. Your server won't process anything else
until it's dealt with those million SMTP handshakes. Hopefully your
server is configured to limit the number of simultaneous processes, or
your system would trip over itself and die. With DNS lookups, ident
processing, connection filtering on the other end, etc., etc., it takes
finite time to process each message. Then there's the bounces, the flames,
etc. I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my time.

> For you, it's all about making life tough for other people and staking a
> claim that "what's mine is mine!"

Right. That's why I pay for this out of my own pocket, and provide free
and unfettered access to my friends, all my relatives and my neighbors.
It's about being responsible.

> So you're implying that billions of spam messages go across the
> internet very hour?  I think you need to reassess the scale, there.

You think so? In Taiwan they estimate that 2/3 of all email is spam.
I've heard estimates of US spam being 50% or more of all email messages.
One estimate was that spam accounted for over 1/3 of all Internet traffic
(TCP/IP packets, not email messages).

> That one "problem" isn't spam, though... it's a product of your greed and
> selfishness.

My greed and selfishness. I see. Preventing someone from hijacking my system
for their own profit is an indication of MY greed.

Years ago I operated a UUCP node. I provided feeds to anyone who wanted
one. I relayed whatever came through. I do what I can now, within limits.
Communal resources are great, until someone starts abusing them. Then
those few ruin it for everyone else.

> We don't vaccinate for measles and tell people that it's going to cut down
> on colds.

OK, fine. We vaccinate for flu. But because people can get the flu from
other strains we don't throw away the vaccines we do have. Sheesh.

> It might be a good reason for YOU to leave YOUR server alone, but your
> whole argument revolves around a selfish idea of withholding services for
> your own potential personal use.

You know, you seem to have this notion that what I pay for and maintain I
should freely share with you and anyone else who wants to use it. So tell
me, do you have a car? Why don't you leave the keys in it in case someone
else has car problems and needs to use it to make a quick run to the store?
I share pretty much everything. But because of abuse, people have to ask
first.

I have to wonder about your real motivation for encouraging open relays.
Given that anyone with an Internet connection has access to a server that's
more reliable than their physical connection there just isn't any valid
justification for having open relays.

john-






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