On Friday 27 August 2004 14:25, Niels Voll wrote: > I'm glad, that I'm using "a large competitor of Telus" > > And I agree with a couple of other posters, there are 2 entirely > separate issues:_ inbound_ traffic vs. blocking _outbound_ traffic; > > Blocking _inbound_ traffic can be argued to uphold the service level > agreement (SLA); To be honest, I think the SLAs blocking servers are > antiquated and unrealistic. All kinds of P2P technologies including > BitTorrent, NetMeeting and a number of multi-player games, pretty much > everyone has a server. My email server and web server produces less > "server" traffic, than many of those other servers. So if there's a > bandwidth issue, let's have SLAs, which talk about bandwidth, not about > servers. > > Blocking _outbound_ traffic has nothing to do with preventing servers. > Telus blocking outbound port 25 impacts everyone using an email server > outside of the Telus network, which includes people using their work > email servers from home, or using other email service providers. So this > is clearly impacting people, who are NOT running servers. The reason for > this is clearly spam fighting. Scott, who works for "a large competitor > of Telus" has hit the nail on the head. Any self respecting network > traffic manager, and any intelligent ISP, should be able to figure out > the difference between a spam flood spewing out of port 25 of a customer > machine and the odd port 25 legitimate email message. So, selective > temporary blocking is not nuclear physics, rocket science or brain > surgery. Another approach might be port 25 throttling, essentially > slowing port 25 traffic from customer machines down, so spam floods > become spam trickles, but regular emails stay the trickles that they are. > > So, I find the Telus behavior quite indefensible.</rant>
Agreed. Even Corporately, we've had problems with Telus. > Anyone wanting to use ADSL rather cable based ISP connections, should > check out other ADSL service provider(s) in Calgary. They typically use > the Telus last mile for cabling, but I'm not sure, if they use the Telus > IP network, or if they have the same or other port blocking issues. > According to their web site, nucleus.com seems to have a "no web or ftp > server" policy, but I don't know, if they enforce it. I believe some of > the CLUG executive work for nucleus, and they are probably biting their > email tongue, so as not to appear, that they are using CLUG to promote > their employer. I'd like to head Nucleus' position on both of these things. To be honest, Telus' DSL (or rather PPPoE) has colored me against DSL generally, but I'd like to know Nucleus' position. I am a Nucleus customer (dialup though, so it doesn't really matter.) Strangely, I'd be far more interested in hearing it in one of these forums than on their support page, or over a phone. At least in this forum, I can see that they are listening to their (potential) customers. Having said that, didn't Telus buy Nucleus? Or am I on glue. > I'm NOT working for nucleus, and I'm not using them at the moment, but > if I was hunting for ADSL service, I would give them a good look. I do > NOT know, if their policies are any better than the one's from Telus, > but if they are, they deserve to be considered as another option for > broadband services. Three cheers for Shaw on getting this right. They might not care as much as I'd like for privacy, but Shaw rules aside from that. Ironically, Telus wins that battle. > I sure would be interested if anyone knows more about the Nucleus > approach to this. It would be interesting to have a rep from the various ISPs show up for a bitc^H^H^H^Hdiscussion about the benefits of their various solutions. Personally, I'd even be interested in what's coming, and such. (Wireless, VoIP, IP6, etc) We'd certainly be a prime market. I'm sure all of us have referred at least 10 people to a given ISP, and in many cases several businesses too. > ...Niels > > Scott wrote: > > First of all, full disclosure: I work for a large competitor of Telus. :) > > > > None the less it should be known in order to be fair to Telus that > > blocking 25/TCP outbound is something that pretty much every ISP has > > to do to some degree at one time or another, in order to deal with > > outbreaks of worms that propagate themselves via email from the > > machines they infect. Of course, various other ISPs have often been > > more accurate with their filtering rules to only block infected hosts > > and only so long as to weather the storm. The down side to this is it > > is always a reactionary measure and you don't get to control the > > initial spread of the worm. How bad can it be? Recent outbreaks in the > > last 2 years have seen upwards of 25% of entire customer bases > > infected. I would venture to guess that this decision by Telus is to > > try to get the jump on the next worm outbreak. It's not necessarily > > the best approach but it's important to recognize when judging the > > actions of an ISP in this regard that (a) 95% of the high speed > > customer base is too uninformed to protect itself and (b) there is no > > good solution that scales to a large ISP yet found. > > > > That having been said, in my subjective opinion permanently blocking > > 25 outbound is overkill and too intrusive (particularly on an ISP > > famous for their poor mail servers). Furthermore, there's really no > > good explanation for the inbound blocks, and I don't know why anyone > > would tolerate that sort of thing. But it's a free market and you have > > a choice, so in the end if you're not happy with your ISP, the ball is > > in your court. > > > > - Scott _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca
