RE: How's this for fun?

["Discini, Sonny" <Sonny.Discini () montgomerycountymd gov>]

>  did they give any reason for this?  It seems odd that they 
> would only block Microsoft's e-mail services.  If I was 
> Microsoft, I'd have my army of lawyers looking into this.
>
>   ISP's really piss me off when they do crap like this.  
> Whether it's blocking port 25 outbound, blocking ANY other 
> ports, blocking newsgroup access, blocking of any kind.  They 
> are supposed to be a pipe, that is all, just a pipe out to 
> the internet.  I don't want to be protected from myself, I 
> don't need nor do I want their help.
>
>   
Actually, this debate rages all the time. Some people need protection
from themselves and rightly so. These people are usually the ones
propagating nice collections of bots, viruses and other online sludge. 

Larry Seltzer wrote an interesting article about this and I also
remember the intense "discussion" on the DA list not long ago. 

Personally, I agree with you however, there currently is no way to
qualify those who understand how to use a wide open pipe from those who
can barely find the power button. From an ISP's standpoint, they have to
base their decision on what will make their bottom line the fattest.
Typically, that means cutting down on support calls and the easiest and
fastest way to do that is to throw some egress filtering up on the usual
suspects, NetBIOS crap and SMTP.

Did I hear someone yell, "Granny X!!"?

;-)

Sonny Discini, Senior Network Security Engineer
Department of Technology Services
Enterprise Infrastructure Division
Montgomery County Government



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