[PLUG] Webmail server suggestions

[Paul Johnson]

AthlonRob <AthlonRob at axpr.net> writes:

> On Thu, 2004-05-06 at 13:44, Michael Robinson wrote:
>
>> I've tried qmail, Postfix seems easier, Sendmail is a headache and
>> insecure, don't know about Exim.

Exim is pretty hard to mis-configure into an open relay.  The default
config is secure.

> Sendmail isn't insecure if it is configured properly.

There's critical warnings about sendmail security more often than
Windows, and was a principal cause of the Great Worm of 1988.  I don't
consider sendmail secure.

> I'm somehow reminded of a dude who told me, several years ago, he got a
> virus on his computer when somebody put an infected floppy disk in his
> floppy drive *with the computer powered down.*  The computer was never
> on with the floppy disk in there.
>
> You see, his computer virus was smart enough it was actually able to
> jump off the disk and infect the computer.  All by itself.

This guy voted for Bush, eh?
http://ursine.ca/article.pl?sid=04/05/06/2325230

> I don't think I know anybody who could come up with a whitelist of every
> email address they communicate with.  My 89-year-old grandfather
> couldn't, and he's on AOL's 5-hour-a-month billing plan.

Friends don't let friends use AOL.

>> Concerning point 3, the advantage of this is that space on the
>> relay isn't being lost to junk mail intended for a protected
>> account.  This approach is really good if a user knows his/her
>> audience and/or can get people to switch the email address that
>> they send to. So as long as the sender understands that they have
>> to use the trusted source address having an adequate procedure to
>> follow if their email address has to change, this shouldn't be a
>> problem.
>
> Sounds almost like as much of a PITA for the sender as CR spam systems.
>
> Yeah.  Nice.

No kidding...that's just more trouble than it's worth.  For the sake
of sanity, one email per user, and for system roles, one email per
role.  Nobody really needs more than that, just needs to get better at
email management.  Don't punish your correspondents just because
you're a lazy bastard uninterested in solving your own problems.

-- 
Paul Johnson
<baloo at ursine.ca>
Linux.  You can find a worse OS, but it costs more.
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