AOL now rejecting mail from Comcast residential IPs.

[Jeff Kinz]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 12:37:49AM -0600, Thomas Charron wrote:
Hi Tom, thanks for your reply - I enjoy the discourse.

> uoting Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org>:
> > Hi Ben, et al....
> > Let me see if I understand your proposition correctly:
> > as I understand your logic above you are saying that its OK to punish anyone 
> > who is in close proximity to lawbreakers as long as your doing it to punish
> > lawbreakers?
> 
> Since when is forcing an SMTP server to accept your mail a punishment?
It isn't.  Whats happening here is that hundreds, possibly thousands
of people who do NOT have open relays cannot use a standard internet
protocol in the standard, approved fashion. Twenty years of internet
policy are thrown away because AOL/comcast are lazy.


> What you are saying is basically that the use of an SMTP server is now a god 
> given right, along side freedom?  

No - but proper cooperative behavior - which includes freely exchanging
email, is part of the basic nature of the internet and has been for over twenty
years.  It is a fundamental characteristic which makes the internet
so valuable and useful. If it is abridged the entire Internet is damaged.

And this is not some vague, theoretical damage.  Take a look at 
"at Home in the Universe" by Stuart Kauffman or "The collapse of chaos" by
Cohen and Stewart.  The specific emergent characteristics of the internet are
completely dependent on the uncensored nature of the flow of information on
the internet.  An entity as large as AOL can actually damage that flow 
and in so doing will lessen the internet, eventually causing great harm.

Further more - AOL's decision doesn't fix the spam problem.  It just pushes
it somewhere else.   Lets really fix the problem.  Lets implement an SMTP
protocol that contains embedded PGP Authentication.  No more casual anonymity.

(Real anonymity has a purpose and will still need to be available through
anonymous email gateways which are PGP authenticated)


> > For lawbreakers you can say spammers if that makes you more
> > comfortable.

> It's not the spammers here.  It's the open relays that spammers USE.  It's the 
> people who relay.

So is comcast scanning for Open Relays and shutting them down/getting them
fixed?   No - they are implementing a policy that harms more innocent 
parties than guilty parties

Do we take away everyone's car because drunk drivers use them too?

...........
> Again, you're not being put in jail.  They're saying, "I don't want you 
> calling me".  Tell me..  Anyone here have a caller ID block on unknown numbers?

But I am not an unknown number - all my mail comes from kinz.org.  I am
available to be held accountable for my emails. 
(And I have been, believe me :-)  )

At the very least AOL should accept SMTP from registered domains.  I can
understand not accepting it from semi-anonymous dynamically assigned IP's.

> 
> I'M BEING REPRESSED!  I'M BEING REPRESSED!
(Come see the violence inherent in the sys-admin!  :-)
(http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99mar/uf000427.gif)


> > Yes it works for companies, but then companies are entities that make 
> > conscious, well informed decisions to let people die because the
> > cost of the lawsuits is calculated to cost less than changing a design
> > defect that left the gas tank filler neck of the Ford Pinto just a 
> > wee bit too short.  I don't think we want to follow that kind of lead
> > as an example of principled behavior.

> 
> Oh my GOD man.  They rejected your SMTP email.  Shesh.  Since the protocol has 

  :-)  I'm not comparing the magnitude of immorality in the Pinto decision to
AOL decision to block residential IP's.  I'm saying its the same KIND of 
thinking,  "We don't care who gets hurt, we are maximizing profit". 


> .... Since the protocol has 
> no built in method of authentication, this is the best they can do.  You can 
> either eat spam, or do something like this.  Period.

Hmmm - I don't eat spam - I use Bogofilter.

So lets change the protocol!  

> 
> > The reason AOL is blocking 
> > those IP's is its easier than actually blocking the spammers.
> > But its wrong.  Its breaks the internet, a little bit and begins 
> > the whole kit and kaboodle sliding toward the day when all email
> > and web services MUST go through an AOL/ISP approved node.  
> 
> They are blacklisting addresses of known open relays.  They are refusing to 
> deliver pizza to an area where people are known to allow attack dogs to freely 
> roam the streets.

Again - that doesn't fix the problem.  It allows it to grow and get worse.

> 
> > That must never happen but all the large ISP's would like it to.
> > Does anyone think that AOl would never try to act like some of the other
> > large monopolistic companies?
> 
> Could very well be.  But this is one move that, while being annoying as all 
> hell, is a viable attempt to securing something.

It "secures" a huge block of innocent peoples internet nodes.  Just to get 
relatively few poorly secured systems.  How about we sue the hell out the
people who have open relays and get it well publicized?  

"Gee - if I don't take care to make sure my system can't relay mail it could
cost me thousands of dollars?  I'd better do something!"  I wonder if Norton
has a $35 tool for this? (from the brain of a Wintel PC owner)"

> 
> You know..  The same reason why some here always include their PGP signature 
> to validate identiy?

Or some don't because its not yet widely enough participated in to be
worthwhile.  It needs to become a mandatory part of the mail transport 
protocol.

> 
> --
> Thomas Charron
> -={ Is beadarrach an ni an onair }=-
> _______________________________________________
> gnhlug-discuss mailing list
> gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
> 

-- 
Jeff Kinz, Open-PC, Emergent Research,  Hudson, MA.  jkinz at kinz.org
copyright 2003.  Use is restricted. Any use is an 
acceptance of the offer at http://www.kinz.org/policy.html.
Don't forget to change your password often.

-- 
Jeff Kinz, Open-PC, Emergent Research,  Hudson, MA.  jkinz at kinz.org
copyright 2003.  Use is restricted. Any use is an 
acceptance of the offer at http://www.kinz.org/policy.html.
Don't forget to change your password often.