RE: Paul's Mailfrom (Was: IETF SMTP Working Group Proposal at smtpng.org)

["Jeroen Massar" <jeroen () unfix org>]

John Kristoff wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Aug 2002 00:59:49 +0200
> "Jeroen Massar" <jeroen () unfix org> wrote:
> > Nice rant Randy, but if you even ever wondered why the wording "Mail
> > Relay" exists you might see that if an
> > ISP simply forwards all outgoing tcp port 25 traffic to one of their
> > relays and protects that from weird spam
>
> The point is that 25 is just a number.  You'll eventually be blocking
> all numbers sooner or later (and re-inventing dumb terminals).

Another person who can't read.

SMTP is a protocol which is based on relaying messages from one
mailserver to another.
An endnode (especially workstations) don't need to run SMTP.
ISP/Company's already have SMTP servers which are setup to relay for
their clients.

So what's so bad about forwarding all tcp/25 traffic over that relay and
letting that relay decide if the MAIL FROM: is allowed to be relayed?
And if a client wants to mail from another domain which isn't relayed by
it's upstream ISP, he/she could ask it's ISP to do so.
Yes this will add an administrative hassle, but doesn't spam imply that
also?

The whole problem is yet again that a small amount of people (this time
spammers) make a whole lot of problems for a lot of people (we).

Also this setup is somewhat the same as checking from an smtp-server
whether the sending server is also actually running an smtp...

Fortunatly we got SpamAssasin/Razor nowadays so the spam that does get
through gets filtered out without bothering me or anybody else using
these tools.

Greets,
 Jeroen