On Saturday, December 14, 2002, at 02:44  PM, Mike Lewinski wrote:
> http://multiversity.net/rfc-ignorant-opinions.html

Let me say a couple things on the conversation there. :)

<carol> Remember that if your postmaster address has _any_ 
spam-filtering on it at all, you're eligible for listing. If you don't 
have a human being readin every klez sent to postmaster@ - you're 
eligible for listing.

You can have spam-filtering on postmaster, you just have to have the be 
something clear as to WHY you were rejected. There was a long 
discussion on the RFCI mailing list about "filtering mail to 
postmaster" because the RFC says, explicitly, that you cannot do it, no 
way, no how, *except* in a minimal fashion during an active attack. 
There was a long discussion centering around the principle that "spam" 
is an active attack, but to different between folks who just don't 
allow ANYONE to mail to postmaster@, and sites who are doing filtering, 
that if you're contacting mail to postmaster, and can't get through, 
you deserve to know WHY you can't get through, so saying something like 
"Mail from [x.x.x.x] rejected - Listed in MAPS RBL" or whatever would 
not be a "listable" criteria.

<alice> and even derek said that if abuse@$munged_rbl was directed to 
/dev/null that the listing would be removed.

That's not entirely what I said, what I'd said was that if he had set 
it to /dev/null in the first place, it would never have gotten 
listed... Our "removal" policy involves sending a removal URL to the 
address in question, and the recipient removes the network/domain. This 
is why UUNet is having so much trouble at the moment.

In other words, we saw this as a flaw in our removal process and fixed 
it. :)

<carol> rfc-ignorant.org didn't have any abuse address for the longest 
time.

No, that's not true at all to my recollection. I'd like to see the 
bounce that claims such. I know we had a brief period where "MAIL TO: 
<postmaster>" would bounce because I'd put entries in each virtual 
domain, but forgotten to create a standalone entry in aliases, but it 
was resolved within an hour or two of someone mentioning it to me.

<alice> But derek only enforces *some* RFCs and is incredibly selective 
about which ones.

There are, at present, something like 3000 RFC's. It is beyond the 
scope of one person to enforce them all. I've always claimed the RFCI 
project was "Scratching an itch", and that if someone wanted to enforce 
some other RFC that was annoying them, I'd happily delegate a dnsbl 
subdomain to their NS and let them manage it as they saw fit.

<carol> And follow the RFCs to the *letter* and still be listed.

I'd like to know which RFC could be followed to the letter and still 
result in listing, as I saw this claim, but nothing was stated to back 
it up.

<alice> He is very defensive about it.
<alice> So much so, that no rational discussion can be had about it it.

I'd like to think the discussion we're having here is rational about 
it. I suspect I know who Alice is, though, and the forum she and I have 
discussed it in, where I have just gotten sick of having people 
complain about it every other week. ;)

<carol> Of course, there are no valid @$munged_website addresses, so 
postmaster isn't required.

A common fallacy. If $munged_website, as a host, sends mail, then 
postmaster@$munged_website needs to work.  So if "foo.bar.com" is the 
outbound MTA for "bar.com", then [EMAIL PROTECTED] needs to work.

Cheers,
D

PS - *this* is very very funny.
<me> one of my NOC monkeys recently realized that his real job descript 
is:
<me> "stand at the edge of the cliff and try to stop the lemmings"


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