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There is an announcement about Sympatico's mail blocking at 
<http://www1.sympatico.ca/help/local/bell/mailsettings.bell.html>.  
For sure, it indicates that they'll prevent their customers from 
using SMTP port 25 for any servers except their own.


I want to tell you what Darleen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said
about "RE: [KWIUG] Fwd: Important! Check y" on 25 May 2001, at 4:13

> It already is almost all ISPs that do NOT allow mail relays.

This isn't a relaying issue.  Relaying is allowing someone from 
outside of your network to use your mail server to send mail to 
someone outside of your network. Anti-relaying simply ensures that 
any mail processed by your mail server either originates inside your 
network, or has a destination inside your network.

What Bell is proposing would force me to use their mail server for 
all outgoing mail.  I can no longer purchase mail services from a 
third-party provider.  For example, both Yahoo! and Hotmail allow me 
to use their mail server to send mail (ie. I would set my SMTP mail 
server to "smtp.mail.yahoo.com").  Bell's proposal would block that 
mail.

> Example if I am connected to @home I cannot route my mail through
> golden.net In order to route through golden I have to be connected to
> Golden.

This is anti-relaying behaviour.  You can still route mail through 
the Golden server if the destination is in the "golden.net" domain.  

Neither Golden nor AtHome prevent you from using the Yahoo! Mail SMTP 
server, but that's what Sympatico wants to do. The way the Yahoo! 
Mail and Hotmail servers are set up they do not block relaying, but 
require the user to authenticate to the SMTP server by making a POP 
connection immediately before sending mail.

> This is standard. However I am not so sure about hotmail or any of
> the other web mailers. I don't believe that they use the smtp
> server of the individual's ISP...??? I know that I have tried to
> track where a hotmail message originated and hit a dead end.
> Although you can find the X-Originating-IP: in a hotmail or other
> web mail message. I don't think that they can block you sending
> from these web mail ..??? 

Creating a Hotmail message from their Web interface will give the 
message an originating IP address of their Web (or CGI) server.  
Using Outlook to connect to Hotmail and sending mail through their 
server will give the message the IP address of your computer.  It's 
this second method that Bell will block, not the Web-based mail 
creation.

> My sendamil isa little rusty - but I recall that there are mehods to
> prevent incoming mail from being routed to members on an ISP's service
> that doens' meet certain criteria. There are anti-spam tactics.
> 
> I assume that they are trying to prevent Sympatico users from
> partaking in spam, while attached to them. Surely those that find this
> necessary will find a way to do still.

That's right!  And, in trying to prevent spam they're also denying 
their customers the ability to get their mail services from another 
provider.  

> If you are not spamming then is there really an issue??

Most definitely! There are mail services that have integrated 
calendaring and scheduling, or message status tracking, or document 
management, or encryption, or anonymous remailing.  When Bell blocks 
the SMTP port 25, Sympatico customers will no longer be able to make 
use of these services, since the mail servers providing those 
services will no longer be visible.

Bob Wakfer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> To being with there are 2 sides to email. One is the send side which
> is the SMTP server side. The Small Mail Transport Protocol server
> looks after sending your mail. This is the server service that anyone
> sending spam would like to get control of. 

And preventing open relays at the Bell mail servers will block spam 
originating and addressed outside of their network.  It doesn't 
require blocking port 25 for their own customers.  As Darleen 
mentioned, blocking port 25 will still allow spam addressed to their 
customers, and customers will still  be able to create spam to send 
outside their network.  

> The second side -- and in my thinking the more important side -- is
> the POP3 or IMAP server. This is the server that handles your incoming
> mail. I don't believe that there is anyway an ISP can block a user
> from using somebody elses POP3 server. 

They can block other providers POP mail (port 110) or IMAP mail (port 
143) just as easily, but fortunately, they're not planning that.

> So lets look at the security issue. Maybe I'm wrong but I would feel
> more threaten or violated by someone reading my incoming mail than
> someone reading my out going mail.

There is no indication that Bell wants to monitor their customers' 
outgoing mail, but by forcing all the mail through their servers it 
will sure be easier for them to do so in the future.  Why make it 
easy for them to snoop?

> I also think it is much easier for an ISP to read incoming mail,
> because it sits on the income mail server's harddisk in a
> subdirectry with your name on it until you download it with your
> mail client. In fact it may even be available on the mail server
> after you download it depending on how you have the server services
> set up. But for outgoing mail, as far as I know, there is no copy
> on the SMTP server. The SMTP server sends it out to recepient as
> soon as you click send. 

True enough.  The exception is when the destination server is 
temporarity unavailable, then the sending SMTP server will queue the 
mail for later delivery.

> Now I'm sure someone could make a copy as it passed through the
> SMTP server. But I think Sympatico probably has better things to do
> with their time. Also remember, if we do not control outgoing mail
> we can never control spam. 

Not true.  For spam to exist there must be both a sender and a 
receiver.  I take care of received spam myself (through the use of 
filters).  Although I'm doing this with my mail client software, I 
could just as easily set up procmail on my provider's mail server to 
block incoming spam before it even gets to my mail client.  In fact, 
mail providers like Yahoo! and Hotmail offer just such a service.

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=====
Bob Jonkman                               Voice: +1-519-669-0388
SOBAC Microcomputer Services              E-Fax: +1-603-308-6118
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