[lug] Idea for ISPs to limit spam/zombies

Hugh Brown hugh at math.byu.edu
Thu Jul 14 09:28:40 MDT 2005


This is an interesting idea.  The only problem is that it requires comcast
to do work.  I think that is sufficient to squash it ever happening.

Hugh

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, D. Stimits wrote:

> I was thinking about how many domains I can no longer email, due to
> black hole lists marking my comcast servers as spam. It gets really
> irritating to suffer because of someone else's zombie machine. An ISP
> could block port 25 to anyone other than their own servers, but this is
> the lobotomize approach, it isn't a real solution. So here's an idea I'm
> wondering what people think of, especially anyone who does any kind of
> email service...
>
> In their configuration, such as web login pages to the ISP where the
> non-commercial user can set email preferences, you have an item called
> "unblock port 25/SMTP". If they check this, they are allowed to send to
> any port 25 destination...if not then they can send only to the ISP's
> SMTP port. In order to check this though, they *must* set a CC email
> address at their ISP, and all outgoing mail to port 25 of any server
> other than their own ISP's results in a copy of the email to this email
> box. The named email box would have some limit on it like 10 MB, and if
> it fills up, the port 25 block automatically re-activates. The user
> would have to empty that email box before they could send again to
> outside SMTP. As an option, perhaps they would also have to call the ISP
> on the phone each time to get port 25 re-activated. Perhaps it would be
> useful for the CC email account to also be reachable ONLY via web
> interface, and it would present an image with a second password...it
> would require a human to read the image in order to get into the account
> and to delete emails, no automated deletion would work.
>
> Should someone be infected by a virus or be an open relay, their email
> account would fill up, and they would get a copy of everything they've
> sent. The brakes would be applied when the account fills, and I'm
> assuming a fill of around 10 MB. Non-commercial users could still send
> anywhere, but they would be forced to watch how much traffic they are
> sending out.
>
> D. Stimits, stimits AT comcast DOT net
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