On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 10:11:52AM -0600, Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:
So it is much easier for ISPs to have lists of other trusted &/or untrusted ISPs that they will accept email from.
Any internet user needs to be able to send mail to any other internet user. Which means the default has to be open (blacklists rather than whitelists). Then you have the blackhole lists like ORBs etc, which block domains used predominantly by spammers. But the problem is spammers don't stay in one place, they buy service from ISPs and spam flat-out until the ISP notices and cancels the account. Some ISPs are more grey -- they want to make money from spammers by providing them service, and some ISPs just don't notice or respond that quickly. The ISP can't distinguish spammers from non-spammers when they receive customer orders. The blackhole people are arbitrary vigilantes by and large, so the overall effect you might argue does reduce spam, but it also results in lost mail. My experience was I couldn't get mail from my brother who was using btinternet, one of the largest ISPs in the UK because some idiot blackholer blackholed their dynamic IPs. Not doubt there were at some time some spammers using BTinternet as with just about any other ISP. Recently I couldn't receive mail from John Gilmore, and so it goes. So I don't see how this is a "solution", rather it is just a broken countermeasure with scatter gun fall-out of false positives for all the other people who find themselves sharing the same ISP as spammers long enough for the blackhole people to add them. Adam