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Date:      Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:05:56 -0700 (PDT)
From:      "W. Reilly Cooley" <wcooley@nakedape.navi.net>
To:        Stuart Henderson <stuart@eclipse.net.uk>
Cc:        Veaceslav Revutchi <sl@zeus.dnt.md>, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: please advice how to solve a spam problem
Message-ID:  <Pine.LNX.4.10.9904281001260.13101-100000@rheingold>
In-Reply-To: <37273DE7.14D1BE87@eclipse.net.uk>

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On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Stuart Henderson wrote:

> Trouble is, it's fundamentally flawed. You can't tell whether that was
> a real address or whether it was because someone is connecting through
> an open proxy (in which case you might be able to use headers added by
> the proxy for better tracking), or an obfuscating proxy (for example
> anonymizer or a crowds proxy), or even someone who left a personal
> proxy (wingate, webwasher, or whatever) open to public use. If you
> rely on that you could well put the blame onto someone who is
> innocent.

Sure you can tell; you contact the admins who admin that block of IPs and
ask them, or you probe yourself.

> (Of course some proxies would even let you connect to a mail server
> directly and hide your address, or you could be telnetted in through a
> chain of shell accounts, etc... Basically: if someone really doesn't
> want to be tracked you will have a very difficult job to find them).

Yes, but you've left something out: if someone really doesn't want to be
tracked *and* has a clue about how to hide themselves, then what you say
applies.  For example, some nut got pissed with me once and started
sending me ugly messages through HotMail.  In this case, he was going
through his ISP's proxy, which made it easier to figure out whom the
message was from (as if I couldn't guess).

Wil
-- 
W. Reilly Cooley                          wcooley@nakedape.navi.net
Naked Ape Consulting                        http://nakedape.navi.net

   Internet Meta-Resources: http://nakedape.navi.net/meta-res/
            "All the Net you need to be a geek"




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