[governance] Re: Antispam practices

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Mon, Sep 25, 2006 at 10:49:28AM +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer (bortzmeyer at internatif.org) wrote:

> More on-topic for this list: more and more ISP force users to go
> through their servers for various reasons (the last trend is to block
> port 53 and to force users to use the ISP's DNS servers, then to have
> wildcards in these servers, a la Earthlink). This is clearly a serious
> and on-topic issue for this group.

Yes. Indeed, as I see it, the problem lies more with ISPs than with
DNSBLs - after all, you can't really demand that the fact your IP is
dynamic or that it belongs to a poorly-run ISP should be kept secret,
nor that individual mail server admins that they should not use that
information.

What follows, inevitably, is that as long as dynamic IPs and certain
ISPs are big sources of spam, that they end up blocked, along with
a number of innocent bystanders, like Vittorio.

Trying to solve that by forbidding blacklist maintenance or by
forbidding their use is also very problematic from political point of
view: it is like forbidding organizing consumer boycotts, a rather
radical restriction of freedom of expression. After all, nobody
running a mail server is forced to use any blacklist, it is just
information they can use or ignore - like a suggestion to boycott
a manufacturer for whatever reason.

Of course things are 

Philosophical points aside, ISPs are also an easier target for
legislation or boycotts or indeed any measure you can think of
than blacklist maintainers or mail servers using them.

So, I'd suggest it'd be more useful to try to get ISPs to behave,
including providing static IPs without unreasonable extra cost,
maintaining PTR records properly, not blocking ports without
good reason, &c.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance