Re: Fw: Administrivia: ORBS

[woods () most weird com (Greg A. Woods)]

[ On Wednesday, January 26, 2000 at 12:48:07 (-0500), Barry Shein wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Fw: Administrivia: ORBS
>
> It's with the general concept: Its lack of reviewability, its lack of
> funding (so if you're unfairly or accidentally blocked there's no
> front desk per se or staff, you have to accept that it's all a
> haphazard volunteer effort), and most of all that I really, really
> believe that the cost/benefit is negative. For the few spams it may
> block it causes far more trouble and distraction than it's worth.

But Barry ORBS is not directly about stopping spam (though if it's used
that way it still does stop a *lot* of spam!) -- it's about raising
awareness to the issues surrounding SMTP theft-of-service attacks.  Of
course I speak only as a third-hand minor supporter of ORBS and my
comments are my opinion only and not to be construed as anything
official to to with ORBS.

To use your analogy ORBS is not a volunteer police (or fire fighting)
effort -- it's a volunteer theft prevention awareness campaign.

Obviously the volunteers running the campaign can benefit the most since
they'll be the most "aware", but hopefully they will not be totally
unsuccessful at spreading their knowledge so that others can also
benefit even if they do not directly employ all of the techniques being
advocated.

Lastly please try to remember that ORBS does not block anyone's e-mail
-- it is only postmasters, like myself, who can do that *iff* they use
the knowledge base accumulated by the project for that explicit purpose.
If your outgoing mail is blocked by *my* server because your host is
listed as an open relay by ORBS then your complaint is with *me*, and
*only* me.  The fact that I obtained the listing for your server from
ORBS is irrelevant -- I could just as easily bought it from a little old
merchant in Timbuktu.

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods () acm org>      <robohack!woods>
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