[PLUG] Spam, SMTP, and 'net censorship (was Sudden drop in spam recently?)

[Heath Morrison]

Verizon is not blocking outgoing port 25 to protect you or to control
you, they're blocking outgoing port 25 because of the abuse it exposes
them to. It obviously has no direct benefit to the end user, but it
does remove a common source of spam. This should lead to a net
reduction in spam.

I've run lots of mail servers, web servers, and all sorts of other fun
servers. I don't run them on my consumer internet service. I also
don't think Verizon has an obligation to enable you to do that. This
is not Verizon attacking your freedom or privacy, this is  Verizon
protecting their profits. They will sell you a business grade service
that lets you run all this stuff, have a static IP, QoS, whatever else
you want.

I'm not saying we shouldn't fix the system, I'm just saying it's a lot
more work than you might realize. There is no crazy spam filter
conspiracy. It's a massive problem that people and companies have
spent a decade and millions of dollars to try and fix.

-Heath

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 9:28 PM, Tim <tim-pdxlug at sentinelchicken.org> wrote:
>> Verizon isn't restricting users unreasonably. Verizon is requiring
>> authentication for to relay outgoing mail, which most people would
>> consider a fairly reasonable thing to do.
>
> Ever tried running your own mail server?  Been doing it from years at
> home.  Works great if my ISP doesn't get in the way.  I find relaying
> through an ISPs mail server invariably creates serious delays and
> problems.  This is asside from the fact that now I can't encrypt my
> mail to trusted mail servers via things like STARTTLS.
>
> Will Verizon next decide to protect the rest of the Internet from me
> by checking to see if my mail looks like spam?  Perhaps start
> collecting email addresses I send to so they can sell them to
> "legitimate" marketing lists?  Seems far fetched, but what's to stop
> them?
>
> >From Verizon's point of view, it may very well make sense, but maybe
> the bigger problem is the lack of options for users.  You can't use
> alternative ISPs with FIOS and Cable.  Slow Qwest DSL or colo is all
> that's left.  It's becoming an increasingly restricted market place.
>
>
>> I do think IM2000 is interesting, but that replacing the current email
>> system with it or something else is actually a much bigger problem
>> than the technical design of such a system.
>>
>> These sort of internet conversations often wind up with somebody
>> pasting the cynical form describing why so and so's proposal for
>> fighting spam or change to our email architecture will fail. It has an
>> uncanny truth to it.
>
> "It's hard, so we shouldn't try."  Is that a fair summary?  If one
> could reduce the volume of spam by an order of magnitude, would that
> not be worth it?
>
> Oh but think of all of those poor spam filtering companies that would
> be out of work...
>
> tim
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