There is no contradiction. Port blocks and filters have not fixed the spam problem because freedom is not the root cause of spam, a monoculture of insecure computers is.
Bandwith that you pay for but can't use as you please is a waste of the network you support. I don't want something for nothing, I want the freedom to use what I pay for. There's nothing paranoid about saying a non free internet will soon look like broadcast TV. If I condem Microsoft and Yahoo censorship in China, I'm going condem it here where I'm the victim. Calling me "paranoid" and "wild" won't change my mind about these things. On Thursday 20 September 2007 10:39 am, Tim Fournet wrote: > Wait a minute. At one point you say that blocking outbound SMTP > connections from home PCs does nothing to block SPAM, and then you say > that the majority of SPAM comes from home PCs on broadband connections > that are part of botnets (which use SMTP to send spam). Which is it? > > As for the rest of your spiel, it really doesn't make sense. The > internet isn't free, it costs money to run all those lines, keep those > servers running and cool, etc. Anyone who provides a service of hosting > email accounts for someone is doing it with the expectation of providing > some value to its users in return for some value to themselves. In the > case of Yahoo, MSN, etc, it's mostly about offering a free, reliable, > reasonably-spam-free, email account in return for brand loyalty and > maybe some advertising revenue. If users don't like it, there is nothing > at all stopping them from going to a domain registrar, registering their > own domain, and then going to an ISP and buying an account that allows > inbound SMTP; or going to a hosting provider and provisioning their own > mail server, or paying someone else to do above for them. If you think > there is censorship or collusion going on, you're wildly mistaken, and > perhaps excessively paranoid.
