>I have a permanent link to the Internet. However, I don't control the
>reverse lookup of my IP address, which is something that will probably
be
>considered a "dialup pool IP" by some anti-spam zealot. I receive
several
>hundred messages a day to this IP, delivered directly to my Unix
>workstation. My machine also sends outgoing mail directly via SMTP, and
>is certainly more reliable than whatever SMTP servers my ISP has. I
>wouldn't consider that "playing".
Find another ISP. I have no sympathy for you. You are choosing to stay
with an ISP who is providing you with less service than you want (by not
providing a reverse lookup). Choose with your dollars.
>Seems like the only folks who think it's OK to ban SMTP from dialups are
>those who don't need to use such a setup themselves. Are you going to
>consider ADSL/cablemodem IP pools "dialups" as well? In that case you
are
>going to block mail from lots of small business/SOHO LANs running their
>own mail servers...
DSL connections are (at least in our case) more or less "nailed up."
Just like our T1 customers, we aren't worried about these people spamming
through our network, and we allow them direct outside access. They have
a financial incentive not to spam since it would void their contractual
agreements.
Dialup customers have no such incentive and no such contracts (nothing as
practically enforcable anwyay). In fact, they have an incentive to abuse
our service during the free trial period. The free trial period is
unfortunately something we have to offer to remain competitive, so we
have to restrict outbound mail for it.
If there were a real need for people to send outbound email directly to
their recipients, I'm sure we would offer such a service, and I'm sure
we'd have a contract restricting use appropriately. The simple fact is
that there is no such need, beyond people wanting to "play" with their
mail setup. Oddly enough, these people who "play" whine that they can
handle mail better than their ISP. This seems to be a contradiction in
terms, and of course ignores the fact that we don't make our money
selling services to people who want to "play" on the Internet.
shag
