Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 14:22:30 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Szilveszter Adam" <sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: misc/26744: Unable to send mail to FreeBSD.org from home and from work Message-ID: <000201c0cb72$56b6ba60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20010422164203.H21216@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Szilveszter Adam >talking about this. A mailserver, even that of an ISP is not the same as a >mailing list server. Why? Because the mail server takes over mail as that >of its own, while a listserver only hands it out again. The fact that most >ISP mail server do the same (eg via POP3) is immaterial, it is their >function to deliver the mail to the recipients that they serve (they take >mail on their own behalf) a list server, however, takes it on others' >behalves. While this may sound very dense, it is this way legal >distinctions are made. But this still doesen't have anything to do with whether or not the admin must accept mail. If I set a mailserver up with the express intent of relaying mail for free, then I still have the right to discriminate against anyone I want to - because it's _my_ mailserver, I'm paying for the network access for it, and I don't have a contractual relationship with any arbitrary person that transmits mail to me. It makes no difference if I say my server is "public" or not, by default when I put it on the Internet it's public. It is some governing principle and not the actual >mode of operation that counts. Why is this important? Because otherwise, if >you say that all mail servers are equal, then someone may well say that >you, as a list admin or the admin of a maillist server, are responsible for >the content that passes through your list. While in other case, you can >defend that you are a mere conduit. No, they can't because the people that are passing mail through your mailserver have not assigned you copyright rights - you do not own the material that is passing through your conduit. It's one thing if you announce that anyone sending mail through your listserver automatically assigns copyright to you - in that case when you redistribute the mail you become a publisher and thus responsible. An analogy is a public street. The public law officers have the right to deny any arbitrary person access to the street with any reasonable cause, but just because they have this right, if I get into a car crash on the street, it doesen't make the government responsible for paying the victim because the government has somehow become responsible for my driving. (because of it's power to deny me access to the street) > >Yes, see above for a possible solution, with a reasoning. Mere conduits >should not in any way interfere with the contents, so they can very >effectively protect themselves from liability. > Correct. But having the power to make a "decision at the door" to block someone does not confer the right to anyone else's contents that you have already let in. >Let's hope we can use the remaining time to our advantage; after all if >they see there are experts in the area doing the legwork, even >decision-makers tend to say: OK let it be then, they have obviously thought >it over... This is true until the general public gets involved. This is one of my biggest concerns with spam. It used to be that everyone on the Internet (espically people who had used e-mail for years before anyone ever thought up the idea of spam) were violently opposed to spammers and would complain to everyone if they got a piece of spam. Today, because the Internet has moved into the public realm, there's a lot of people that don't care if they get spam or not they just delete it. They have come to expect that spam is normal. In another generation we may, if things keep going, start seeing people that believe that spammers have a _right_ to send junk e-mail, just as regular companies have the right to send junk postal mail. Most of the professional spammers today have recognized that the first attempt to win spamming rights - claiming that their circuit contracts and such didn't give the backbone networks permission to shut them down - has been a total failure. The bankruptcy of AGIS sent the message loud and clear, and today all backbones will shut down spam factories when they find them. The next attempt in the battle, which we are seeing today, is typified by legislation such as US Congress HR 718, which is basically arguments over the legal definition of whether or not your allowed to filter spam or not. The spammers have figured that they cannot get legislation passed that bans filtering software, so they are settling for the next best thing - attempting to get legislation passed that says that if you _aren't_ implementing spam filtering then they have the right to spam you. Basically, if HR 718 gets passed by both houses and signed into law, then in effect under US law, if freebsd.org were to disable the reverse address check, then doing this would mean that spammers have the right to spam freebsd.org Pretty amazing, but this is the mentality of the people we are dealing with. >strongly about the "mere conduit" stuff. Just imagine, what if you start >filter at the maillist server. They may say: OK, if you can do this then, >say, you could just as well filter for Naci propaganda or child porn. But, if you accept that admins have the right to filter, you must also accept that they have the right to _not_ filter. Otherwise they really don't have the right to filter, and filtering becomes governmentally-mandated. So, as an admin I choose to filter spam and I choose to NOT filter child porn or Nazi propaganda. This is perfectly consistent. >Whereas if you don't do anything, you may effectively claim that it is not >your job... In effect - your claiming that you have the right to NOT filter if you choose. See above. >OK, this is tricky. I admit this situation is not very common but pisses me >off nevertheless:-) So. They basically say: No servers on any machine, >please. They don't care if it's win or FreeBSD or what. Instead there are a >couple of mail servers that you are supposed to use (that's what I am doing >ATM) but with shell access. So in theory, no other machine would be allowed >to use SMTP. So, like I was saying relay off a friendly mailserver on the Internet. >They even have a firewall with a mail relay that blocks port >25 in both directions and only passes mail through itself in any direction, >but only to/from the allowed hosts (mail servers) Quite effective anti-spam >measure, of course, but I feel it very limiting at times... > Then even if freebsd.org was open it still wouldn't help you because you couldn't send to it directly, because they won't let you relay and they won't let you transmit directly. >using shell access is OK with me. I wonder however, when will the >anti-spam organizations start filtering the free web-based emailers as >well... after all, quite a lot of spam originates from the hotmail.com and >the other big providers' domains. (Yes, I have already met a free web space >provider that did not let me sign on with a hotmail.com address because >they said it was unreliable!:-) I hope you informed hotmail of this, so that hotmail realizes that they are losing customers because of this. >(Although the real kicker was filtering the >whole real.com domain because of the immense amount of spam they send >out... bleh.) The anti spam organizations like ORBS and MAPS have very clear definitions of what they accept for their database and what they don't. In short, if your a professional spammer with a subnet, or your running an open relay, then your going to get blacklisted. But, they don't list people who take all precautions to deny spamming, but still get used by spammers with fake accounts. It ought to be said that when a spammer uses a hotmail account, it costs hotmail money to answer all the complaints and to close the account, plus it costs money for their network to handle complaint mails at all, even if they just delete them unread. They thus have a strong financial incentive to attack spammers. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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