On Tuesday, June 04, 2002, Peter Milne wrote... > This can be had for the home user or as big as an ISP.
Depends on what the ISP runs, and it's views on privacy doesn't it? If the ISP runs mainly unix systems, isn't it lacking a winsock? Also quite a few ISPs don't even want to touch the legal aspects of starting to scan their users files on incoming/outgoing mail. They'd have to start setting disclaimers everywhere just for the service. > I am not sure what others costs can be but this is fairly > reasonable. Actually, I was working with my ISP but the 'higher ups' > were set on Postini...which uses McAfee. I think the one we run is about $600 (USD) per year, and covers all accounts, all of our network, including the internal servers, our external mail and ftp servers, our web servers, etc etc. We also get the use of the client for the windows computers on the network if we still need it. > I told them that I need to opt out because I get viruses sent to me > all the time and I can't have them stopped. She told me "don't > worry, it won't stop them all". I'm guessing you create virus software for a living? I'd have thought if your ISP is scanning viruses, you'd find it very difficult to get samples sent to you because of that. And I'm 99% sure it's pretty difficult to "opt out" of being scanned, because software like McAfee just scans everything. > So...why does the ISP bother spending all that money for something > marginal...go figure. Get more customers? Good sales pitch I guess... "look, we scan your mail for viruses" :) > As far as the mail content scanning goes. If this were to be used on > an ISP there might be a problem. Most of us want any emails containg > adult natured mail to de ditched. IF you do this on the ISP, all > adult stuff gets ditched and that might get some clients that like > that stuff, upset. But for the virus end of it, your virus problems > would be over. There is a difference between scanning mail for adult material, and scanning a mail for viruses. But when scanning the mail for viruses, you could technically be classed as reading private and confidential material, even though somebody isn't physically sitting there reading it. I know there are laws in the UK that due to privacy the scanner shouldn't be allowed to store any quarantined files, as for the US, or any of the rest of Europe, I have no idea. This would be where things would start to get a little sticky in the legal department. Which is a huge cost for big ISPs, and just another reason they don't want to go there. Scanning for content is another thing ISPs try to stay away from purely because they cannot tell what their customers have signed up to receive (be it adult material, or latest information about mortgages). Some ISPs implement RBLs (or black holes, see www.mail-abuse.org or www.ordb.org), which does reduce some of the spam... but I'm drifting OT ;) If you could contact me about your product, I'd be more than interested in some information... it must run on Unix though ;) -- Jonathan Angliss ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ________________________________________________________ Current Ver: 1.60m FAQ : http://faq.thebat.dutaint.com Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives : http://tbudl.thebat.dutaint.com Moderators : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] TBTech List: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Bug Reports: https://bt.ritlabs.com
