>Of course there is. Blocking port 25 for all their dialup lines is a
>simple router configuration. Re-enabling it on a customer-by-customer
>basis on dynamic dialups requires software to interact with the terminal
>authentication server that they'd probably have to write themselves.
Wrong. It simply requires you to use Radius and network equipment that
allows you to send back filters in your Radius authentication. Neither
of these are esoteric or hard to do, and are the rule, not the exception,
at any ISP with more than a handful of users.
>Lots of people scream loudly at an overworked ISP about spam from their
>dialups. ISP could (a) improve their tracking and reporting measures
and
>their abuse staff and cancel spammer accounts faster,
What exactly did you have in mind to "improve tracking and reporting
measures?" Tracking and reporting is not the problem. Tracking is
trivial for anyone who keeps dialup logs; rest assured that people who
get spammed will report it to you. The point is not to cancel spam
accounts "faster;" the point is to keep the crap from going out in the
first place.
>(b) spend lots of
>time implementing a scheme where they can give their good customers the
>same service as they had before,
You've lost me here.
>or (c) just do something fast and quick
>that reduces service for everyone in a way that 95% of their customers
>won't care about and that will get the anti-spam folks off their backs.
Over 99% of typical dialup customers have no need to use anything but
the ISP's mail server. I'm basing this number on my 4 years of
experience doing contract and full-time work for 5 ISP's in 3 major
metropolitan areas. I'm willing to admit that the number might be lower
for other areas or other ISP's but I think 99% is a safe bet.
The 1% that do care can either be provided with the service they need or
(usually) talked out of it by simply explaining the nature of the service
they're looking for. Some people have concerns for privacy but fail to
realize that merely avoiding our mail server wouldn't keep us from
snooping anyway. Others run Linux or something with sendmail and just
don't know how to set up their machine properly. It's worth an hour of
my time to keep a customer happy and educate them on how to better run
their system.
The notion that ISP's implement these policies as a way to "screw" the
customer is foolish. These policies help the ISP become a better net
citizen, provide a higher level of service to their customers and thus
increase the value of the service.
shag
