But if an admin runs a known buggy version (which many do for a variety of reasons; pride, money, time,...), is it the responsibility of other mail admins to know which ones I have to send "special" messages to b/c they can't accept "normal" mail messages? That is why we have internet standards. Also the reason why the "X1" debate was so heated, b/c it did not conform to the standards.
I really think we have two different discussions going here and I would like to seperate them. 1. Should mail senders be responsible for damage caused by a mail message when it inadvertantly or intentionally exploits a bug and caused the receivers server to behave badly/unexpectedly/etc? 2. Should anonymous mail senders have the right to send mail to any mail server on the public internet? My opinion on #1: - A message that is malformed or does not adhere to the standards could be considered malicious. But I don't know how to seperate the SPAMmers from the ASP pages that have the same broken headers. Any message that is well-formed should not be considered malicious, even if your server failed to handle it correctly. - SPAMmers are not hackers. They don't try to infect your computer (if they do, I call them hackers). They send annoying, unwanted messages. They hijack other servers for their own gain. I don't think that I should have to receive anything from them. But its up to me to stop their messages! By putting myself on the public internet, I accept to receive a certain number of messages that I didn't ask for. Have you ever received a joke from a friend of a friend that you never heard of? Did you turn them in for trespassing on your mail server? - Open Relay tests messages on not hacking attempts. They are housekeeping messages that keep the house (internet) clean for everyones benefit. - If the tests messages are the same for all servers, then how can the be accused of singling out a specific server? Even if ORBZ knew their tests would cause problems for unpatched Dominoe servers, as long as the test message is consistent for all servers. My opinion on #2: - My first reaction is yes. Its a free country! - My second reaction is I'm tired of paying for capacity to support the "free country" of the internet for others monetary gain. - I feel that the difference is when the entity making money is making someone else pay for them to do business. - Example: I have an Aunt that sends me garbage emails constantly (get rich, chain letters, no virus hoax, septic ads,...), but I don't consider that SPAM b/c she is not making money on it! Although I would probably pay her to stop!! :-) - When someone is costing me money for their own gain, I would like laws against that! At the very least, let me motivate other entities (ie. ORBZ) to help me keep them at bay. Wrap up: - I like the new idea coming from DSBL: If you connect to my server, you give me the right to connect to your server. When you send a message to me, my server will send a message to DSBL through your server. If your not an open relay, then no harm, no foul. If you are an open relay, then the message reaches DSBL and you get listed. Don't complain about me connecting to you because you connected to me first!! And as long as my test message is consistent, then I'm not singling you out for DoS attack. Todd -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Roger Alumbaugh Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 8:41 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] ORBZ shut down Hey todd.. Glad to hear from you again :) I definitely think the problem of spam needs to be addressed... Otherwise I wouldn't have plunked down the bucks to buy declude.. But it needs to be done responsibly. How many bugs have been uncovered in imail over the last couple years? How many users do we have that still run the old "buggy versions"? LOTS!! I guess all these people fall into the irresponsible system administrators and deserve any damage or problems you may cause.... Everybody still running v.6 or v.5 of imail has serious bugs in the security of the program.. I still see too many bugs with v.7 to trust it yet and others can't afford the upgrades and imail won't patch the older versions. Therefore a blanket statement that "any responsible administrator would install" the upgrades and patches doesn't go too far in my view. Would it be acceptable to mess with v.6's security issues with list and alias administration assuming a responsible administrator would have upgraded and patched it? No... Would it be acceptable to probe for v7.04 and below usernames to determine valid email accounts on somebodys server... No... Would it be acceptable to probe for buffer overflow problems in pre7.04 web calendaring cause you know the admin should have fixed it.. No.. My guess would be that if Ipswitch hadn't adressed the issue of bounce messages on 127.0.0.1 a lot of people on here would be a little more concerned.. And with the response I see from ipswitch normally I could see it happening.. Just look at the X1 debate. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Todd Holt Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 6:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] ORBZ shut down Hi Rog. Me again!! :-)) You obviously haven't figured out yet that your in the wrong discussion forum for the pro-SPAMmer opinion. Everyone else on this list is anti-SPAMmer!! As I said before: Your either a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Which are you Rog? Todd -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Roger Alumbaugh Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 3:35 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] ORBZ shut down Todd... Get a grip on it... Sheesh... Sounds like you are the one with a problem listening to other opinions.... And by the way.. If you did send spam through our system it would immediately get referred to the attorney generals office for prosecution. We have a zero tolerance policy towards spamming. I simply pointed out the hypocracy of sending spam through someones system to prevent spam. If one were to take that a step further and presume spamming through somebody elses server is theft of services orbz stole service from thousands of isp's daily, it wasn't an opt in test. This is a fact.. Not something debatable. Never said it was good bad or indifferent... Just a fact. And to add to that they KNEW their test could damage some systems... That is irresponsible. If they had dropped that test they would still be viable today. If they threw in some oddball test that threw my 6.0 imail into a loop does that mean that I now must pay to upgrade to 7.0 so that they can send out random unrequested tests and not lock me up because ipswitch won't come out with any more fixes for 6.0. What they should have done when they had momentum going was to move towards an opt-in testing model. Now their tests will be so worthless that they will be unsuable for any public isp. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Todd Holt Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 6:41 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] ORBZ shut down To make sure that no one on this list gets accused of SPAMming, I suggest that none of us communicate directly with Roger, because it may be considered illegal entry into his system!! In that vain, I'll just use the list to tell him how short-sided and small-minded he is. And Roger could use a good SPAM attack to wake him up!! I would think that most admins would welcome a dozen SPAM messages relayed through their server to test if they are an open relay, than a 100,000 messages relayed through their server to find out for sure that they are an open relay!! The ORBZ (and other SPAM tests) are standardized messages sent to mail servers of all kinds. If a server cannot handle a specific kind of message (a correctly formed message, at that), then that server should be patched. The bottom line: Your either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution. Roger, you need to decide which you want to be. And quite frankly, if your the problem, then I don't need you on this list anymore! Todd Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
