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RE: Stealth Blocking

  • From: Derek Balling
  • Date: Thu May 24 00:07:53 2001

At 4:04 PM -0700 5/23/01, Mike Batchelor wrote:
Sorry, I just have to respond to this.  If the solution to the open relay
problem is to make all users/customers upgrade their mail software so that
SMTP AUTH can be used instead, .. [snip]
There's no "make them upgrade" about it.

The present installed base of MUA's is predominantly capable of doing SMTP AUTH out of the box, and every new PC sold with OE included free o' charge (yuk, but that's a different issue) increases the percentage of people who have ready access to the tools.

"Roaming" is not a right, its a privilege, and if you're one of the minority still using an MUA from 5 years ago that doesn't support it, then that's your own lookout.

Lessee... RFC 2487 is SMTP over TLS, dated January 1999, and RFC 2554 is
SMTP AUTH, dated March 1999.  So that's a wholesale upgrade of mail
infrastructure that has been more or less completed (forced?) in just two
years.  IPv6 is described in RFC 1883, dated December 1995.  And here it is,
6 years later...
Apples... oranges.

D


--
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| [email protected]  | "Conan! What is best in life?"          |
|  Derek J. Balling   | "To crush your enemies, see them        |
|                     |    driven before you, and to hear the   |
|                     |    lamentation of their women!"         |
+---------------------+-----------------------------------------+