At 8:36 PM -0500 2/8/02, Chris imposed structure on a stream of electrons, yielding: >>Note that some of the 'testers' out there do not actually test >>relaying, but only test whether a message is accepted. If you set up >>SIMS with the 'Unknown' account you will 'fail' those tests even >>though the message is not relayed. You'd have to ask ORBZ whether >>they are testing relay or acceptance. I know that at least one of the >>self-styled heirs of ORBS had been making that mistake at one point >>but I don't recall if it was ORBZ. > >Ok SPAM guru's... why (other than laziness or ignorance) would a spam or >open relay policing organization test for acceptance? How can accepting >an email lead to an increase in free roaming spam?
Accepting is the first step in relaying. I didn't mean to give the impression that I thought the testers who have *in fact* only tested for acceptance were not of the belief that they were in fact testing for relay. The problem is laziness. It is very easy to manage an acceptance tester, because it is a single-stage procedure. A real relay tester has to handle a persistent database of who has been tested and how, and just what mail was accepted. There are also problems of nasty edge and corner cases that arise because over the years an amazing collection of psychotics have written mail software and today that class has graduated to trying to poke holes in other people's mail software, including relay testers. >I use the Unknown Account (against my better wishes, but I have a >business reason for needing it), and ALL Unified Domain Accounts are >essentially an Unknown Account (all those dirt cheap web/domain hosts >that just give you one POP account that all mail for the domain goes to). > >I would think that with what is probably a rather large user base that >has an "unknown" account of sorts, that listing someone purely because >they accept any email would be a major no no. well, yes. And I would think that no serious mail operation would allow a neurotically anonymous an uncommunicative third party to manage their blacklist, yet SPEWS is used by some very large ISP's and even some real businesses. I would think that mail server operators would take serious issue with the ethical and behavioral implications of testing without probable cause, yet people flock to use ORBZ, ORDB, and relays.osirusoft.com. Rationality clearly is Not The Rule when it comes to issues of spam. -- Bill Cole [EMAIL PROTECTED] ############################################################# This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
