Bob Jonkman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > People who are afraid Sympatico is trying to help the spooks trace
> > their mail really have their head in the wrong place.
>
> Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. But it's one of those (potentially)
> incrementally, nefarious things. Imagine that the next thing they
> want to do is filter out your incoming spam. Good for them, you say.
> Next they want to filter out pornography. Good for them, you say.
> Next, hate mail or mail intended to incite hate. Good for them, you
> say. Where does it stop? At some point, they'll cross the threshold
> between providing a valuable service and interfering with your
> ability to send and receive the e-mail you want. For me, that
> threshold is crossed the moment they select my mail server for me.
The thing is, they haven't chosen your mail server for you. This is a
decision tuned to achieve a bureaucratic end, which is avoidance of
responsibility (SMTP troublemakers) or of financial costs (tech
support).
I think the incrementally nefarious scenario you outlined is a red
herring on a slippery slope. Here's why: there is no suggestion of
incoming content filtering anywhere here. It's not even being discussed.
We're talking about outgoing SMTP.
The point I tried to make (but perhaps didn't) was that there are many,
many other ways that people who are interested in seeing who you are in
contact with can do it. And they don't need to route your mail through
Sympatico's SMTP services to do it.
> > Just as with the "no running servers on our network" policy, or "no
> > support for Linux" policy, this is a stick for them to hit you with if
> > you become a problem. Why, besides dissatisfaction with their
> > service, and perhaps telecommuting, would you use a different SMTP
> > port? Probably to make someone's life somewhere difficult, whether
> > through spam or [D]DoS.
>
> And maybe not. Maybe there is some other value-added service (like
> retraction, status tracking, anonymity, encryption &c.) provided by
> alternative mail service providers that I want to use.
>
> Also, I don't think it's only a matter of trying to send SMTP mail on
> a different port, it's blocking all other SMTP services on port 25...
I've done some poking around. Their help page at
http://www1.sympatico.ca/help/local/bell/mailsettings.bell.html
suggests that port 25 filtering is, in fact, what they intend to do. I
wonder if they will. I'll be amazed if they do.
Perhaps I'm missing something. Have you considered switching ISPs?
-Steve
