[lug] SMTP delivery: No route to host

[Joseph McDonald]

Nate Duehr said:
> 
> On Mon, 2002-11-25 at 23:20, Kirk Rafferty wrote:
> 
> > I know it's the "geek" thing to do, to run your own mailserver and make
> > your own damn connections.  But even amongst the geek crowd, very few
> > of us have a legitimate need to do so.  It would be nice if we could, but
> > in this case, the benefits of the many really do outweigh those of the
> > few.
> 
> If this argument were true, then spam would already be outlawed
> worldwide.  Instead it's a platitude.  Just block port 25 and move
> along... nothing to see here.  Sorry the network can't be used the way
> it was intended.
> 
> What we really need is new groundbreaking work on server to server
> authentication and identification and then further work in the end-user
> to end-user realm.
> 
> I don't want to trust that my "carrier"'s (to use a telco analogy) mail
> server is up and operating to be able to send my mail.  I don't want my
> mail routed by any other server other than my own (possibly a privacy
> and security risk in itself, although granted anything sensitive should
> be encrypted) and I don't like that the "few" (spammers) are breaking
> the trust inherent in the systems at the detriment of the "many"... the
> rest of us.
> 
> Why aren't the largest ISP's lobbying for stricter laws?  Because
> they're using spam filters as MARKETING FODDER.  "Use
> AOL/Earthlink/Idiots-R-Us!  We'll protect you from the big bad
> Internet!"

You seem to contradict several of your own asertions in the preceeding
paragraphs however this last paragraph is simply ridiculous. SPAM is a 
huge problem for network service providers. They have customer support 
groups dedicated to the investigation of network abuse and SPAM tops
that list. The employees of network service providers are also
overwhelmed with SPAM. The costs that ISP's incur as a result of mail
abuse outweigh any benifits that so called 'MARKETING FODDER' would
produce by perhaps one hundred to one, or more. 

Huge network segments are banned from communicating with public mail servers
because address on those networks have been entered into the realtime 
blackhole SPAM databases. Users simply dial into the network, send out
a million messages and disconnect. It's impossible to stop without hurting
everyone.

Mail isn't really even a standardized protocol anymore because each set 
of systems now employ any number of anti-SPAM methods. This causes more
tangles and snares and it's all going to continue to spiral downwards
because there remains no consensus among network administrators on how
to handle the problem.

	--joey