Spam war gags Gilmore

Spam war gags Gilmore
Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus 2001-03-15

Verio cuts off EFF co-founder John Gilmore over open mail server.

Spam, or not... 2001-03-15
dirge (2 replies)

Really I think Gilmore has identified the issue. Censorship is not the ISP's hand to play. Otherwise internet pornography may not have been as successful as it was. (in fact I happen to know of a few ISP's in LA that grew out of funding supplied by porn) Those persons morally opposed to spam/porn/{m...

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Spam, or not... 2001-03-16
Kidd Kasper

And you have missed the point. ISPs who employ filters are not doing so to limit the packets going through their system. Frankly, ISPs like it when they have more packets traveling their structure. In the end, it means more money for them due to their system being utilized more. What the issue is, i...

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Spam, or not... 2001-03-16
Someone Who Writes Mail Servers For A Living

Let's remember one thing: All Gilmore has to do is add SMTP authentication and his friends can still send their mail from anywhere without spammers being able to abuse his server.

The right of free speech here is balanced against the fact that -- unlike traditional junkmail -- the *recipient* of...

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How hard IS THIS REALLY? 2001-03-16
xrayspx

These people are the "digerati", the "elite", the "31337", and so forth. The EFF, Gilmore, Barlow, all play a very important role in protecting our freedoms, and I'm glad they're around. BUT, they're evidently boneheads.

If John Barlow connects to an ISP in Africa to send an email to his girlfr...

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Wake up 2001-03-16
Al Huger (1 replies)

Gilmore needs to come around to life on the Internet as it

is now, not in the halcyon days of yore when the Well was

a hotspot and spam did not pose the endemic problem it

does now.

It's pretty simple really, he could apply access lists to

his server so his friends could use it and others i...

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Wake up 2001-03-20
Rob Hughes

Even more simply, he could just create accounts on the box and let anyone who can authenticate relay mail through the server. Then his friends can send mail and the spammers can't.

I strongly agree that he needs to stop thinking its 1990, and realize that its 2001....

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ISP's should be emulating the telcos that came before them. 2001-03-16
someone247356_AT_yahoo.com (2 replies)

I understand John Gilmore's frustration with his ISP.

SPAM is bad, I'll give you that, but so is getting an unsolicited fax or a pushy telemarketer calling over dinner. If an ISP wants to be considered a "common carrier" with all of the legal protection that entails it should start acting like...

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Re: ISP's should be emulating the telcos that came before them. 2001-03-17
op

Many telcos filter certain frequencies (which can be used to manipulate switches still using

in-band signalling) although they belong to the speech bandwidth. Is that censorship?

Defining what you should be able and what you shouldn't be able to do with your connection

is not as easy as it migh...

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ISP's should be emulating the telcos that came before them. 2001-03-17
NoSpammer (1 replies)

ISP's should have the right to do what they wish with their bandwidth...Within the Acceptable Use policy that they agreed to when they purchased their bandwidth from their upstream. If John doesn't like it, he can find another provider that will allow him to use an open relay.

If I own an ISP ...

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ISP's should be emulating the telcos that came before them. 2001-03-19
someone247356_AT_yahoo.com (2 replies)

I think you are missing the point. The fact that you can currently define AUP's doesn't mean you should be able to. Currently ISP's under the CDA and the DMCA are considered "common carriers" and as such are granted certain immunities under the law. Just like the telephone company can't be brough...

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ISP's should be emulating the telcos that came before them. 2001-03-19
Alun Jones

Even common carriers are entitled to expect payment and service agreements from people that intend to use their network. Open relays step around that concept, essentially providing service to non-paying guests. Should an ISP desire to do so, of course, that's its own affair, but should they decide...

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ISP's should be emulating the telcos that came before them. 2001-03-19
someonesomewhere

What censorship is there? The mail server wasnt filtered because of email content, or anything that it said or who it was said too. It was filtered because of potentional network problems, security issues, and abusive behavior. If a Telco knows of potentional problems, i.e. a customer abusing the...

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Spam 2001-03-16
Concerned Patron

What a lot of people probably don't realize is that sending all that SPAM does in fact affect the ISPs. IT uses their bandwidth and their server time to send mail. When you have a spammer trying to send thousands of emails across a server at once this can creat serious troubles for an ISP. As a c...

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Users are the problem, so are software designers that don't understand that 2001-03-16
Tirade

Users are the problem, so are software designers that don't understand that.

Forget the notion that most of us in the security world have never met an mail server that wasn't wide open to be exploited, and forget that spam has to be one of the worst business models ever (a left over from many oth...

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People who don't want spam should filter it out themselves 2001-03-16
slymir (2 replies)

It's very simple - only accept messages from certain e-mail addresses. If you are using micro$oft, then have everyone include a passphrase in the subject line. Imposing viewpoints on people is far worse to a democratic system than a load of junk mail....

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People who don't want spam should filter it out themselves 2001-03-18
Bungie

Thats a good point.On my servers I have procmail check the headers for well known spamming programs and source addresses. Our users have never heard of spam because they never have to see it. It all goes straight down /dev/null....

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People who don't want spam should filter it out themselves 2001-03-19
Alun Jones

Apparently you're new to the network.

Whitelists, as you have described them, protect you only if you are an individual that gives out your email address to each person that needs to contact you, and gets an email address in return prior to that contact.

It doesn't work that way if you are try...

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John has a good point: 2001-03-16
A non-delusional Spam-hater (3 replies)

Whenever ISP's filter content, that spells censorship. I hate spam alot, but let's not forget who's responsible for it - the spammer! Let us not completely forget the open spirit of the Internet and its history.

If John feels he has a legitimate reason for maintaining an open mail-relay, he shoul...

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John has a good point: 2001-03-17
Steve Cohen

You say - "let's not forget who's responsible - the spammer".

Fine, show me a way to punish him alone and I'll agree with your position.

Until then, I say the ISPs do have a right to filter out open-relay servers. And the censorship/1st Amendment analogy does not hold here. This is not based...

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John has a good point: 2001-03-18
Stephen J. Friedl

> If John feels he has a legitimate reason for maintaining an open mail-relay, he

> should have that freedom without interference from his ISP.

Freedom?

Apparently John believes that Verio should not have the freedom to offer internet service at whatever terms they can acquire customers, or t...

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John has a good point: 2001-03-19
Alun Jones

Sadly, you've been suckered by the hype. Verio have not filtered on the content. They've filtered on the lack of authenticated access - that they've contractually prevented their users from being used as the source for the most common type of DDoS attack - spam. Godwin wants his friends to commun...

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ISPs are doing what the majority want 2001-03-16
someonesomewhere (1 replies)

A ISP is a business. They are not telling someone "you can never say this or do that no matter what, we control your life", they are saying "you cant do this on our network". That simply isnt censorship.

If that doesnt satisfy people who still object, every major ISP has policies that must be a...

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RE:ISPs are doing what the majority want 2001-03-19
someone247356_AT_yahoo.com (2 replies)

Protecting us from the majority is what the Bill of Rights is all about. I'm sure that the majority of people in the south before the civil war (more US specific points) wanted colored people to be considered property that they could use or abuse. Most of the people in Germany (during World War II...

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RE:ISPs are doing what the majority want 2001-03-19
someonesomewhere

Telco companies got greedy, thats why they have constantly talked to the FCC to try and allow them to charge more money for data connections.

That would not only affect dialup net users, but all other data type connections such as credit card charges, faxes, etc. That would be pretty damaging to...

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RE:ISPs are doing what the majority want 2001-03-19
Alun Jones

I find it somewhat ironic that in trying to defend Gilmore, you automatically seek to invoke Godwin....

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Search for a better solition 2001-03-17
Gerrie (1 replies)

Spam can never be stopped by filtering a connection.

Each day thousands of new Linux or other OSes with mail send and receive capabilities are installed, if ISP's have to filter each of those connections, they would have a full time job doing this.

The question what is next?

Is the BSA asks ISP...

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Search for a better solition 2001-03-19
Alun Jones

Maybe you're right - maybe the ISP should allow anything and everything to travel unfettered. Maybe DDoS attacks should be the normal behaviour on the Internet, and they should all be shrouded in the mystery of multiple unadministered relays. And when you make that the state of affairs on the Inte...

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open relay irresponsible 2001-03-18
bob niederman

I'm an EFF member and I'm glad Gilmore is here, but in this case he's wrong. If he wants to give his firends email, he can give them shell accounts and let them ssh in. He doesn't have to provide a apsm amplifier....

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Spam is wrong & open relays don't help BUT...! 2001-03-19
0160 Founder of The Foundation for Peace and Opportunity Seekers since 1987 & Admin of Small ISP in California USA (2 replies)

No, I do not like spam, and while open relays do not help the situation I believe Gilmore and anyone else who wants to run an open relay should be allowed to. open relays would not be the problem if there were more of an enforcement to a would be law prohibiting the use of open relays for spamming a...

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Spam is wrong & open relays don't help BUT...! 2001-03-19
someonesomewhere

<open relays would not be the problem if there were more of <an enforcement to a would be law prohibiting the use of

<open relays for spamming and spamming period.

What? When ISPs try to enforce closing relays to try and make the net more bareable for everyone, its wrong, but *IF* goverment pa...

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Spam is wrong & open relays don't help BUT...! 2001-03-19
Alun Jones

I'm sorry to tell you this, but "Gilmore's Rights" have not been infringed. Gilmore signed up with an ISP, Verio. Verio states in its conditions of service that open SMTP relays are prohibited. It's rather like complaining that your bank is infringing on your rights because it won't let you open ...

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Foolish thing for an ISP to do 2001-03-20
Net Citizen (1 replies)

Certainly SPAM is a waste of time, and also a waste of resources (bandwidth and time). But I agree with the analogy to telemarketers. Very similarly, they waste your time and attention, but the regulations need to penalize and legislate those responsible for the SPAM. Whether you deem SPAM a major o...

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Foolish thing for an ISP to do 2001-03-22
Alun Jones <alun (at) texis (dot) com [email concealed]>

Uh - it's not about content. Verio didn't say "you can't send mail that features X, Y or Z in it", Verio said "you can't run an unsecured email relay". In other words, if you're running an email relay, then it either has to deliver mail _to_ you, or _from_ you, or use some form of authentication t...

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Good! Yet another open relay closed! 2001-03-21
Jeroen Wijnands

Good to hear that closing a relay has gotten some attention. Maybe this will help gain attention for the problem.

About 70% of all spam I recieve comes via an open relay. Sometimes these relay servers are located in countries like Norway, Jordan, Israel, a lot of them are in the far east which i...

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What the heck does rights and freedoms have to do with this? 2001-03-21
someonesomewhere

Where do you people make up this 'freedoms' denied stuff? His mail server wasnt filtered because of the content, what he said, or did, or threatened, or ANYthing. It was filtered because he didnt care if someone abused something that he does NOT own (the connection) by sending tens of thousands of...

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