Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Emilio Perea wrote: > On Mon, Sep 09, 2002 at 12:50:21PM -0400, B. D. Colen wrote: > > God, if they're going to do all this blocking, why can't they block > > Macys.com, WANT A CHEAP MORTGAGE, and Look At These Photos of My Sister and > > leave the rest of us alone?!! > > They can't. SMTP does not support authentication, so I could send > millions of messages pretending to be bdcolen@earthlink.net, so he would > get all the bounces (and probably have his account suspended by his > ISP). Some mail server administrators would block mail from his > account, but my next batch of spam would "come" from another address, so > that wouldn't bother me in the least. > > It is possible to block mail based on the sender's envelope address, but > that works only for the tiny percentage of spammers who don't fake that > address. It is also possible to block SMTP connections from a server or > network used by spammers, but I suspect that most of them are relaying > spam due to the administrator's stupidity rather than malice. I am now > blocking mail from about 1500 servers and 50 networks plus more than > 1100 domains. But I can do that because I run what is now my own mail > server. I couldn't do that a few months ago when it was still a company > server, since I could not be certain that I was not blocking legitimate > mail. > > I hate to say it, but I don't think a solution to the spam problem is > possible until SMTP is replaced -- and I don't think that is possible. > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > You might have a look at http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html John Nebel - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html