[aklug] Re: SMTP: Why the middle-man?

From: Shane R. Spencer <shane@bogomip.com>
Date: Tue Dec 06 2011 - 08:31:57 AKST

On 12/05/2011 08:56 PM, Christopher Howard wrote:
> On 12/05/2011 07:39 PM, Shane Spencer wrote:
>>> Penny for your thoughts. (Actually, I don't have a penny...)
>>
>> Get a job hippie. Also.. run a mail server that handles a few
>> thousand emails a day at least and this will all sink in real fast.
> Aren't they called Yippies now? Or did that movement die off as well? I
> actually just found a penny, a dime, and one quarter.
>
> I didn't want to draw attention to my own ignorance, but the truth is
> after I sent out the first e-mail for this thread my opinions reversed
> on this subject. In particular, it seems like it would put a pretty
> heavy burden on clients if their machines had to keep track of
> delivering the e-mail (repeat attempts, network down, etc.) Also, after
> looking through my Postfix book again, I see that spam-fighting is a
> more complicated matter than I thought: for example, there is not only
> PBL lists, but also several other useful lists, like the spamhous XBL
> that keeps track of IP addresses for PCs that have been hijacked and
> turned zombie. Plus sender-address verification is pretty effective.
> Most of those resources wouldn't be of much use if every PC in the world
> was a mail relay.
>

Not to mention the use of DNS SPF (Most effective and open method of combating non-valid
senders).

You're right to question all of this. If there were colleges that said "And this is how
802.3 works.. anybody have a better way to do it? That's not actually a question -
everybody needs to theorize in 10 pages or more how they would implement 802.3 on their
own" then we'd have some killer colleges.

Spam/Ham filtering has become incredibly complex. We have amazing tools to handle our
mail as transparently as possible. I'm very much interested in making a less transparent
solution that would lay down some more groundwork for a global web of trust solution.
Unfortunately I'm still pimping the socket layer into an area of optimal bragging rights.

If you're hip to Python let me know. I have a fun project revolving around this topic
that needs more attention.

- Shane
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Received on Tue Dec 6 08:32:10 2011

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