What are your thoughts on.....

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 03:19:24 GMT, Bob Noel
wrote:

In article , Roger Halstead
wrote:

I find it surprising that a dial-up would even bother trying to be
their own server except for strictly educational means. For that
matter, why would a cable user bother to do so when they can use the
provider and it's so much simpler.

some reasons:

because the provider has proven to be unreliable.

If the provider has proven unreliable it is highly unlikely their dial
up service used as a server is going to be more so.


because it is really to change email addresses.

I can change e-mail addresses on my ISPs server in a matter of
seconds. I log in, go to the proper URL, create and or delete
addresses. It doesn't take much longer than that.


because I'm a geek.

That's legit.



I can think of no reason not to block mail from dynamic IP hosts.

that doesn't mean there are any valid reasons to block all
email from dynamic IP hosts.

The reason for blocking dynamic IPs is they keep changing. Some one
spamming, logs out, and back in. Instant new address. When you have
hundreds of thousands of users, let alone just a few thousand it takes
a whole staff to keep users in line. Sure they can be traced using
the logs (if the ISP keeps good longs), but a dynamic IP would make
them easily traceable.

Let one of those dynamic IPs get infected with a trojan and become a
slave server and it's instant mayhem.



Yet, I do know of one person who insists on using his own server and
mail server on cable. Never have figured out why.

see above.

Nah, it's gotta be more than that. His server is less reliable, he
moved to cable and although he claims it's static, the IP changes
every time he reboots. He has to feed all his machines through one on
a different NIC so he can get away with using a server on the cable.

Yes, the cable is cheaper and faster than DSL. OTOH, I use web
hosting, I pay about $40 a month more than he does, I don't have to
service the equipment, I don't have to keep backups, I don't have to
do the many things the ISP does to deal with the whole wide world, and
my server is legal. Still I have firewalls, virus checkers, spam
bots, and the like.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

In article , Roger Halstead wrote:
because I'm a geek.

That's legit.

It's also legit for private networks to not accept mail from dynamic IP
ranges. For every geek who runs a legitimate mail server on a dynamic
range, there are probably a thousand more machines spewing trojans and
spam. The reality of the situation is if the geek wants to run a mail
server, they need to do it on a static IP range using a provider who
doesn't harbour spammers.

I run a small email/webhosting service. It's only got a dozen
users. In the last 24 hours, Exim rejected 676 emails for containing
either Microsoft executables or being in the SBL-XBL, and SpamAssassin
flagged 1660 emails as being spam. For a dozen users! Whilst the risk of
false positives is highly undesirable, it's the lesser evil of having to
collectively go through the 2336 spam message haystack by hand to find the
few 'ham' needles - every day! You should have seen the rejectlog when
Swen was at its height. If that server had been on my home DSL
connection, it would have been saturated by Swen alone. My own personal
mailbox of Swen alone would have tied up my DSL connection for a long
time had I not been able to filter it at the server.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

In article , Dylan Smith
wrote:

because I'm a geek.

That's legit.

It's also legit for private networks to not accept mail from dynamic IP
ranges.

nope. That approach is just "shoot em all, sort em later." The
"effectiveness" of it doesn't make it legit.

iow - since so much email is spam/uce, just delete them all.

--
Bob Noel

In article ,
Bob Noel wrote:
In article , Dylan Smith
wrote:

because I'm a geek.

That's legit.

It's also legit for private networks to not accept mail from dynamic IP
ranges.

nope. That approach is just "shoot em all, sort em later." The
"effectiveness" of it doesn't make it legit.

iow - since so much email is spam/uce, just delete them all.

That's disingenious and you know it. My spam filter can be thought as
the INS of my computer: just like people from countries where the most
illegal immigration come from don't get to be in the visa waiver
program, email from where most the spam comes from has to go through the
proper channels. The vast majority of the spam comes from dynamic IP
address ranges that are listed in the SBL's Exploit Blacklist. If you
happen to live in those places, and you want your email to be accepted
by my private network, you must go through the proper channels - your
ISP's smart host. Or stop being a skinflint and get a proper business
DSL connection that supports servers (or host your mailserver elsewhere,
a suitable VPS starts at a very good price).

Or are you suggesting it's feasable and worthwhile for 12 users to sort
through over 2500 pieces of spam to find on average 10 legitimate emails
a day each? Why should we spend hours filter by hand just to allow a
handful of geeks to run servers on a consumer dialup connection?

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:08:02 -0000, Dylan Smith wrote:

email from where most the spam comes from has to go through the
proper channels.

Most of the spam originates in the US.

#m

--
A far-reaching proposal from the FBI (...) would require all broadband
Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire
their networks to support easy wiretapping by police.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5172948.html

In article , Dylan Smith
wrote:

Or stop being a skinflint and get a proper business
DSL connection that supports servers

Your assumption regarding whether or not I'm being cheap is incorrect.

Your assumption that only business accounts can properly run servers is
incorrect.

--
Bob Noel

In article , Bob
Noel wrote:
In article , Dylan Smith
wrote:

Or stop being a skinflint and get a proper business
DSL connection that supports servers

Your assumption regarding whether or not I'm being cheap is incorrect.

Your assumption that only business accounts can properly run servers is
incorrect.

But my assumption that 99.9% of mail directly from a dynamic IP address
is spam/malware is entirely correct. I'm not going through all that crap
just because one geek refuses to get a static IP address for their
mail server. Just like if you come from North Korea, you need a visa to
visit the US, if you want your mail to be delivered to my users, you
must use an IP address which is not strongly identified with machines
running malware.

If you're not being cheap, what exactly are your reasons to send mail
directly from your dynamic IP address instead of ponying up for a VPS or
a static IP address?

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 15:44:06 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote:

In article , Bob
Noel wrote:
In article , Dylan Smith
wrote:

Or stop being a skinflint and get a proper business
DSL connection that supports servers

Your assumption regarding whether or not I'm being cheap is incorrect.

Your assumption that only business accounts can properly run servers is
incorrect.

But my assumption that 99.9% of mail directly from a dynamic IP address
is spam/malware is entirely correct. I'm not going through all that crap

I'm not sure if it is quite that high, but the figure is staggering.
Given a cable network with thousands of users, it only takes a few
infected machines, and or a few actual spammers to really tie things
up.

I've said it before, but not just the average user, but most are
absolutely clueless. They do not know how to, or care to bother
practice safe computing. They enable HTML e-mail instead of setting
it to plain text. They have their address books set to automatically
take any new addresses to which they send e-mail. They open
attachments as they know "their" friends would never send them a
virus. They have their systems set to automatically run macros. and
on and on and on... They do not use fire walls or virus checkers and
then when something happens they blame the operating system. Never
mind that had all the defaults been turned off they would have turned
them back on.

The spammers have discovered that the best way to get addresses now is
to infect the machine so it sends out the contents of their address
book. This has given them a whole new set of addresses that are never
put up on the net.

just because one geek refuses to get a static IP address for their
mail server. Just like if you come from North Korea, you need a visa to
visit the US, if you want your mail to be delivered to my users, you
must use an IP address which is not strongly identified with machines
running malware.

And the static IP for the mail server is easy to get. All you do is
use your ISPs mail service rather than creating your own server on a
dial up. Or sign up for one of the free ones.


If you're not being cheap, what exactly are your reasons to send mail
directly from your dynamic IP address instead of ponying up for a VPS or
a static IP address?

It doesn't cost me a cent extra to use my IPSs mail server (static
IP), or in this case, my own (which is static) although the host is
located at the ISPs rather than here. It's much faster.

The point is there is no real reason for the end user to use dynamic
e-mail addressing.

I will make a prediction. It won't be long and ALL e-mail will have
to have a valid return address. There will be no more legal anonymous
addressing, or posting.

Even with the "do not call" list, I still receive more telemarketing
calls than spam. (political campaigns, special interest groups,
charities, religious organizations... they are by definition exempt
from that law)

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

In article , Roger Halstead
wrote:

some reasons:

because the provider has proven to be unreliable.

If the provider has proven unreliable it is highly unlikely their dial
up service used as a server is going to be more so.

it turns out that my ISP was able to provide the connectivity
but didn't know much about keeping email (and usenet) servers
up and running.

because it is really to change email addresses.

I can change e-mail addresses on my ISPs server in a matter of
seconds. I log in, go to the proper URL, create and or delete
addresses. It doesn't take much longer than that.

When I first starting running my tiny email server, my ISP
didn't allow email name changes, never mind have multiple
email accounts.


[snip]
Yet, I do know of one person who insists on using his own server and
mail server on cable. Never have figured out why.

see above.

Nah, it's gotta be more than that.

it really is as simple as that in my case. My use of
of a home email server is classic geek.


His server is less reliable, he
moved to cable and although he claims it's static, the IP changes
every time he reboots.

My ISP's DHCP attempts to give out the same IP. My "dynamic IP"
changes only when the ISP needs to move folks to a new subnet
(or the DHCP burps bigtime). In the past 6 or 7 years, I might
have had 6 or 7 IP changes (and almost that many hostname changes,
highway1 to roadrunner to mediaone to attbi...)


He has to feed all his machines through one on
a different NIC so he can get away with using a server on the cable.

Yes, the cable is cheaper and faster than DSL. OTOH, I use web
hosting, I pay about $40 a month more than he does, I don't have to
service the equipment, I don't have to keep backups, I don't have to
do the many things the ISP does to deal with the whole wide world, and
my server is legal. Still I have firewalls, virus checkers, spam
bots, and the like.

--
Bob Noel

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 13:10:18 GMT, Bob Noel
wrote:

In article , Roger Halstead
wrote:

snip

My ISP's DHCP attempts to give out the same IP. My "dynamic IP"
changes only when the ISP needs to move folks to a new subnet
(or the DHCP burps bigtime). In the past 6 or 7 years, I might
have had 6 or 7 IP changes (and almost that many hostname changes,
highway1 to roadrunner to mediaone to attbi...)



Thing is, a reverse look up will show a valid IP so you are still for
all effective purposes using a static IP.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com