Re: [MiNT] Is it quiet or is my email broken? :) (fwd)

[Maurits van de Kamp <maurits@bassment.nu>]

Rik, I'm posting this to you as well as the MiNT list since it's also a
good reply to your last mail and I noticed I was typing the same story
twice. :)

> As I wrote some minutes ago, the check was right. See that mail
> for details.

The mystery is already solved; the REAL open relay was (as I expected
since it was on the multihop list) one of Casema's customers who had an
open relay running and, naturally, was admitted to relay via
smtpf.casema.net.  (As I expected, the From-address had nothing to do with
it). What made it confusing is that the real open relay didn't add a
Received-header to the mail. (Thanks for clarifying that, Rik!)

Again, it's completely silly to hold Casema's smtp server responsible for
this, since this would be the case for ANY isp's smtp server whenever one
of their customers is so silly (and since there's one born every minute,
every ISP *will* have an unsuspecting open relay somewhere amongst his
clients). Might as well blacklist smtp.* and be done with it.

> But as the DSBL entry is already two months old, it might be worth
> to trigger a re-test.

Sure, and if they don't bump into an open relay customer this time, it
will be negative.

Actually, I should change back to smtpf.casema.net (like I'm really
supposed to) just for the fun of knowing that every single one of my
postings to the MiNT list will have to be manually approved, just because
some selfrighteous publicity-happy people tell us so.

I guess the DSBL main list is a good thing, but if the multihop list
really exists to punish ISPs for the stupidity of their customers, they
might as well save themselves the trouble and ban every single ISP. They
will _ALL_ relay their customers' mail, and they will _ALL_ have customers
that install nifty my-*-server packages into their windows systems that
create open relays. It's those open relays _themselves_ you'd want to ban,
but that's not possible since they will usually be on dynamic IP
addresses. Blacklisting everyone on that ISP (which is what has basically
happened here) is like bombing an entire nation because a terrorist might
be hiding in the hills. ;)

Even my own smtp server smtp.bassment.nu, where you have to authenticate
using POP3 before you can send mail from your IP address, could end up on
the multihop list if one of my authenticating customers runs an open relay
on his peecee. To me that makes the multihop list a completely meaningless
entity.

Best regards,

Maurits.

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