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Date:      Fri, 5 Jan 2001 19:55:17 +0530
From:      Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@oyeindia.com>
To:        Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: If you come only once, you've been cheated.
Message-ID:  <20010105195517.A17343@oyeindia.com>
In-Reply-To: <14933.55350.153640.240058@guru.mired.org>; from mwm@mired.org on Fri, Jan 05, 2001 at 08:20:38AM -0600
References:  <89755985@toto.iv> <14933.53998.525817.580272@guru.mired.org> <20010105193526.A12997@oyeindia.com> <14933.55350.153640.240058@guru.mired.org>

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Mike Meyer [Fri, Jan 05, 2001 at 08:20:38AM -0600]:

> Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@oyeindia.com> types:

> > Mike Meyer [Fri, Jan 05, 2001 at 07:58:06AM -0600]:

> > > Maybe right - maybe not. Why should I add yet another layer to the
> > > path my mail travels? Especially given the technical expertise shown
> > > by most cable companies? What if they won't let me use my own domain
> > > name (which some ISPs do)?

> > you pay your money and take your chances - and the DUL lists dynamic IPs (and
> > several admins / ISPs use it) because of direct to MX spam far outweighing
> > mail from clued people running sendmail on linux boxes.
 
> You made a pretty silly assumption given the list this is on.
 
Does _all_ mail to my domain come from the freebsd list (most of my incoming
mail is freebsd-questions now, but still, I handle mail for ~ 50 domains, and I
think there are just one or two people from these 50 domains on the freebsd
list.

Using the DUL means that I use it across all my domains - and it does stop a
lot of direct to MX

> > > DUL doesn't stop spam, it just makes it look like an ISP is trying to
> > > stop spam. It also annoys people - but those it annoys are a fringe

> > d'uh, I guess I've been imagnining all the direct to MX spam I've been bouncing
> > with the DUL (one particular run got me 6.5 megs of reject logs over several
> > hours ...)
 
> Are you claiming your users don't get any spam at all? If so, a lot of
> people would like to know how you did it. If not - you haven't stopped
> spam, you've just stopped some of it.
 
I'm stating (as a fact, not "claiming") that the DUL (and the rbl) stop a
_lot_ of spam which would otherwise be in my user's mailboxes.  Whenever some
spam slips through this, I just drop that address into my local blacklist (and
perhaps file an rbl nomination).

> DUL and RBL are simple-minded solutions to a complex problem. There
> are solutions that stop more spam and don't annoy competent users, but
> they require real work to implement.
 
This is a variant of Occam's razor - the simplest solution is often the best.
"Real Work" more often than not produces some totally rube goldberg solution
which doesn't scale too well (take a look at http://razor.sourceforge.net for
example ...)

Look ... this is becoming way OT for freebsd-questions, so would you mind
taking this to news.admin.net-abuse.email please?  I'll answer further
questions there.

	--suresh

-- 
Suresh Ramasubramanian + suresh@oyeindia.com
Sysadmin, OyeIndia.Com + http://oyeindia.com
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