> Just my $.25: I could not e-mail my friend, just because the administrator
> blindly banned all *.tpnet.pl hosts. I don't feel responsible for the fact,
> that some percent (large? small?) of tpnet.pl users are spammers and script
> kiddies. I've tried to e-mail that sysadmin, but unfortunatley (yes, you
> guessed it) his e-mail was also "protected" too.

I always mail out directly (ie not via my ISPs mail service), partly
because that is what a unix system wants to do, and partly to avoid
problems of being unable to send mail because the ISPs email system
is down (again).

Since NetBSD (unlike certain othe OS) doesn't take the outbound smtp
server from ppp (extansions?), to do anything else I'd have to
hard-wire my ISPs mail relay - which would mean I couldn't send mail
if attached to another ISP.

It is also worth noting that the ISPs mail servers tend to get
blacklisted if any of their clients has (or appears to have had)
an open relay.  So you are likely to block a lot of wanted mail.

I'm not even sure how much spam (as opposed to viral) mail comes
from dialup accounts anyway?  I know stories from 10 years ago of
companies who got a 1Mb link, and had it cut off the same day because
they were using it for bulk mail!

If ISPs really wanted to help cut out spam they would run transparent
proxies on port 25 and insert a header with the dial-in users real
account/email name.  Then it would be much easier to locate the
sender.

I also realised today the the advertising spammers need the viral
spam sorted - otherwise no one dare open any email so won't read
the adverts.


	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk