On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, David D. Hagood wrote:
Francois Gouget wrote:
David,
Can you shed some light on the MAPS DUL stuff below?
Evidently, my ISP is implementing the dialup blocking feature of MAPS (and I never even KNEW they were doing any filtering, from the volume of spam I get!).
Yep. They definitely should really have told you.
I'm all for anti-spam measures (if you check my web site you'll see I even translated the 'Advertising on Usenet' FAQ to french a few years back) but I disagree with MAPS DUL. From what you say it seems pretty ineffective and I'm really irked by the following paragraph:
From http://mail-abuse.org/dul/intro.htm: What gives you the right...
...to deny access to our own, privately owned, equipment?
Our mail servers are private property, to allow others to use as we see it. We have not found a legitimate reason for dial-up users to talk directly to recipients' mail servers, especially since your ISP provides a good mail server for you to use as a gateway. As such, please respect our choice and use the equipment you're authorized to use.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sure they have the right to deny me access to their mail server, but to imply that I'm only allowed to connect to my ISP's mail server is bullshit. What next? Web site administrators are going to deny access to their site from dialup users if they don't go through their ISP's proxy? After all nobody gave you the autorisation to access their web server!
Well, I cannot tell you that you should switch to another ISP, it would be too easy for me and hypocritical as I'm not sure I would do it if I were in your situation. I'll see if I can send them a complaint email (without it getting bounced).
Oh. Damn. I cannot send this email to you, it will get bounced! Hmm, I'll spam the mailing list with an OT email then (last and only one hopefully).
-- Francois Gouget fgouget@free.fr http://fgouget.free.fr/ 1 + e ^ ( i * pi ) = 0
Francois Gouget wrote:
...
Evidently, my ISP is implementing the dialup blocking feature of MAPS
... Sure they have the right to deny me access to their mail server, but to imply that I'm only allowed to connect to my ISP's mail server is bullshit.
There's a good reason for this -- a lot of spam comes from dialup lines. (Think of all those 'free trial' AOL disks.)
It's perfectly fine to ask you to relay through your ISP's mail server; doesn't impede your life at all, really, does it? Your ISP's mail server will happily relay your mail to the desired destination.
- Dan
On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Francois Gouget wrote:
Sure they have the right to deny me access to their mail server, but to imply that I'm only allowed to connect to my ISP's mail server is bullshit.
Exactly why? You *should* use your ISP's mail server, that's what it's there for. Anything else is inefficient and plain stupid. You've found one of the reasons it's stupid - another is that if the target mailserver is unreachable for the moment, it's better to let the ISP's mailserver try again for the usual 5 days than to sit dialed up yourself for 5 days. Yet another reason would be that since your ISP generally has more bandwidth than your own dialup connection, both SMTP connections are less likely to time out and cause unnecessary retries, delays, and traffic.
Well, I cannot tell you that you should switch to another ISP, it would be too easy for me and hypocritical as I'm not sure I would do it if I were in your situation. I'll see if I can send them a complaint email (without it getting bounced).
Maybe *you* should switch to another ISP, one that is able to educate their users properly.
Ove Kaaven wrote:
On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Francois Gouget wrote:
Sure they have the right to deny me access to their mail server, but to imply that I'm only allowed to connect to my ISP's mail server is bullshit.
Exactly why? You *should* use your ISP's mail server, that's what it's there for. Anything else is inefficient and plain stupid. You've found one of the reasons it's stupid - another is that if the target mailserver is unreachable for the moment, it's better to let the ISP's mailserver try again for the usual 5 days than to sit dialed up yourself for 5 days. Yet another reason would be that since your ISP generally has more bandwidth than your own dialup connection, both SMTP connections are less likely to time out and cause unnecessary retries, delays, and traffic.
That is most definitely correct.
Well, I cannot tell you that you should switch to another ISP, it would be too easy for me and hypocritical as I'm not sure I would do it if I were in your situation. I'll see if I can send them a complaint email (without it getting bounced).
Maybe *you* should switch to another ISP, one that is able to educate their users properly.
That's kind of harsh, but yeah, you should definitely be going through your ISPs mail server if you have a dialup. Personally I run my own, but I have a cable modem and @Home uses bad mailservers which crash all the time. If I had a dial-up I would most definitely go through my ISPs mail-server.
I also filter mail with all of the MAPS list and my own threats to spammers. It has been very effective, reducing my spam to a few per week which I usually forward to the admins of the mail servers or connections involved. Lately I have been kind of lax about that figuring a few per week is not bad. Apparently the spammers have a black-list of their own. Report enough of them to ISPs and you won't get more spam because they don't want to deal with your shit anymore. ;-). Still doesn't help those who don't have the knowledge to effectively report spam, but it has reduced my spam very nicely.
-Dave
On Sun, 11 Feb 2001, David Elliott wrote:
Ove Kaaven wrote:
On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Francois Gouget wrote:
Well, I cannot tell you that you should switch to another ISP, it would be too easy for me and hypocritical as I'm not sure I would do it if I were in your situation. I'll see if I can send them a complaint email (without it getting bounced).
Maybe *you* should switch to another ISP, one that is able to educate their users properly.
That's kind of harsh, but yeah, you should definitely be going through your ISPs mail server if you have a dialup. Personally I run my own, but I have a cable modem and @Home uses bad mailservers which crash all the time. If I had a dial-up I would most definitely go through my ISPs mail-server.
Yep. Here, I don't have any option: my SMTP packets go to the university mail server, or they get eaten by the border routers. Seems fair enough, really: allowing privately run MTAs directly is just asking for someone to set up an open relay and get your whole site blacklisted!
(Our routers implement the RBL, blocking ALL net traffic from blacklisted subnets. Harsh, but it tends to get the message across about not allowing spam...)
One UK ISP just diverts all SMTP traffic into their mailservers anyway, as well as using a transparent WWW proxy. Not one I use these days, although it worked perfectly well - and no problems with MAPS DUL either!
James.
On Sun, 11 Feb 2001, Ove Kaaven wrote:
On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Francois Gouget wrote:
Sure they have the right to deny me access to their mail server, but to imply that I'm only allowed to connect to my ISP's mail server is bullshit.
Exactly why? You *should* use your ISP's mail server, that's what it's there for. Anything else is inefficient and plain stupid. You've found one of the reasons it's stupid - another is that if the target mailserver is unreachable for the moment, it's better to let the ISP's mailserver try again for the usual 5 days than to sit dialed up yourself for 5 days. Yet another reason would be that since your ISP generally has more bandwidth than your own dialup connection, both SMTP connections are less likely to time out and cause unnecessary retries, delays, and traffic.
But I'm not behind a modem. I'm behind a DSL so the above really doesn't matter much. I know I could just as well use my ISP's mail server and maybe I'll change my configuration one day. But it seems to me that the MAPS DUL is treating innocent users as criminals, especially when they say "and use the equipment you're authorized to use." This means in their eyes I'm not allowed to connect to anyone's mail server myself since they are not part of the 'equipment I'm allowed to use'. I see this as an undue restriction of my freedom and this is what I think is wrong with MAPS DUL. I'm more favorable to other forms of Spam prevention like MAPS RSS and ORBS. At least in these cases the servers being blocked are at a minimum guilty of negligence (by being open relays). In contrast, people using MAPS DUL are discriminating against individuals just because some might be spammers (they don't even claim there is a larger proportion of spammers among them). What if a big chain store refused to let you in because some statistics says you belong to a population group with a higher percentage of shop-lifters. 'But of course, feel free to shop on the web, it's more convenient anyway'. It's discrimination just the same and, IMO, the wrong way to tackle the problem.
Well, I cannot tell you that you should switch to another ISP, it would be too easy for me and hypocritical as I'm not sure I would do it if I were in your situation. I'll see if I can send them a complaint email (without it getting bounced).
Maybe *you* should switch to another ISP, one that is able to educate their users properly.
If an ISP tells me I am not allowed to send mail without going through their mail server then I certainly won't subscribe. It's a matter of freedom. It also seems to me that this leads to a system where dialup users are second rate internet citizens and have fewer rights than first rate citizens. So in this future if you're not an accredited corporation you would not have the right to connect to any computer but your ISP's servers which will then relay your traffic... for a fee, if they see fit... ISPs have a lot of more important things to educate their users about. They could start with how to secure one's computer (or how to do masquerading ;-).
To come back to my mail server configuration, I must admit I did not really intentionally set it up this way though I've known about this for a long time. I may change its configuration one day but it's not high in my todo list. And somehow it recently got quite a bit lower.
Why is wine-dev so quiet lately? This sad thread is almost the only one today. would it be that everyone is waiting for the return of Alexandre?
-- Francois Gouget fgouget@free.fr http://fgouget.free.fr/ War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.
Why is wine-dev so quiet lately? This sad thread is almost the only one today. would it be that everyone is waiting for the return of Alexandre?
I sure am!
I've been working on shlwapi & specmaker instead of msvcrt because I don't want to get tied up resubmitting patches, I need the ones I've sent already and Patriks winapi_check updates (which naturally touch a lot of stuff) to be committed first. My local tree is quite divergent from CVS at this point...
Its nice to have a change of tack. But since shlwapi is so trivial there are no issues to discuss so far ;-)
I quite often get in the mood where I just want to implement something random (todays choice is LHashValOfNameSysA from oleaut32.dll). What I'd really like to see is a 'hot' list of API calls that need to be implemented. Trudging through one DLL at a time gets boring, if I'm going to implement something else for a break it'd be good to know it helps something specific work...
Cheers, Jon
On Sun, 11 Feb 2001, Jon Griffiths wrote:
(todays choice is LHashValOfNameSysA from oleaut32.dll). What I'd really like to see is a 'hot' list of API calls that need to be implemented. Trudging through one DLL at a time gets boring, if I'm going to implement something else for a break it'd be good to know it helps something specific work...
Well, I've been trying to get alot of old Direct3D games to work (with little luck, unfortunately), and have been using Regedit a fair bit to tweak the registry entries for these games and what they depend on. Regedit has an annoying refresh problem due to a lack of a DrawAnimatedRects implementation... so, the next time you need a break and have nothing better to do... ;)
-Ryan
Hi,
Regedit has an annoying refresh problem due to a lack of a DrawAnimatedRects implementation... so, the next time you need a break and have nothing better to do... ;)
Hmm, Ive played with regedit from 98 OSR2, and I cant make it call DrawAnimatedRects. What action specifically makes it fail to refresh?
Cheers, Jon
I quite often get in the mood where I just want to implement something random (todays choice is LHashValOfNameSysA from oleaut32.dll). What I'd really like to see is a 'hot' list of API calls that need to be implemented. Trudging through one DLL at a time gets boring, if I'm going to implement something else for a break it'd be good to know it helps something specific work...
Well, it still needs tons of work, but you could walk the API list at http://wine.codeweavers.com/apidb/advanced.php and find unknown, stubbed, or 'not done' APIs.
We're trying to get a top ten list of apps to use to scan to generate a 'most wanted' list of functions, but we haven't gotten there yet.
Jer
On Sun, 11 Feb 2001, Francois Gouget wrote:
I know I could just as well use my ISP's mail server and maybe I'll change my configuration one day. But it seems to me that the MAPS DUL is treating innocent users as criminals, especially when they say "and use the equipment you're authorized to use." This means in their eyes I'm not allowed to connect to anyone's mail server myself since they are not part of the 'equipment I'm allowed to use'. I see this as an undue restriction of my freedom and this is what I think is wrong with MAPS DUL.
Oh, knock it off. If I took my car (if I had one) and drove through a public park, a children's playground, and private property, just because it's a shortcut to the highway, and I was stopped and pointed towards the nearby road, I wouldn't be screaming about restrictions of my freedom. Nor do I, when I see a shop with a surveillance camera, scream about treating every customer as a criminal. I have absolutely no sympathy for your cause, nor those of the spammers your arguments protect.
When I connected my computr to the university network, with dhcp and firewalls, I configured my MTA tousethe university mailserver as smarthost in 1 easy step (ran eximconfig from the debian package) even though I wouldn't necessarily have to, and the link was a 2Mbps permanent connection... it just seemed like the right thing to do; it's respect for the infrastructure that keeps the world from falling apart. Respect that implies unwritten rules, rules that may only make sense after thinking long enough. Maybe much like the hacker ethos...
Why is wine-dev so quiet lately? This sad thread is almost the only one today. would it be that everyone is waiting for the return of Alexandre?
Apropos: I have the power to commit stuff myself. Why don't I? There's no law saying I can't. I don't because we must respect that which holds the project togethr - Alexandre, and he don't want us to commit.
I'm working on ddraw HAL, so not much wine-devel activity from me.
On Sun, 11 Feb 2001, Ove Kaaven wrote: [...]
Oh, knock it off. If I took my car (if I had one) and drove through a public park, a children's playground, and private property, just because it's a shortcut to the highway, and I was stopped and pointed towards the
I believe your analogy is flawed: if I were going through children playgrounds and private properties with my MTA then in your analogy we would see buses and taxis doing so too. A better analogy might be one where you are forbidden to drive a car because private car owners have accidents. You should take a taxis or the bus.
nearby road, I wouldn't be screaming about restrictions of my freedom. Nor do I, when I see a shop with a surveillance camera, scream about treating every customer as a criminal.
At least they're not preventing you from entering, they're just making a log of who comes in. Just like an ISP makes a log of who send what using their MTA, or could (does?) make a log of the IP addresses with which you exchange packets.
-- Francois Gouget fgouget@free.fr http://fgouget.free.fr/ "Utilisateur" (nom commun) : Mot utilisé par les informaticiens en lieu et place d'"idiot".
Francois Gouget wrote:
But I'm not behind a modem. I'm behind a DSL so the above really doesn't matter much.
Ah, but you don't have a static IP address, I bet. It's much easier to track back spam to a static IP address, so those addresses are much safer from being spam sources. It's those dynamic IP addresses that let spammers hide.
It also seems to me that this leads to a system where dialup users are second rate internet citizens and have fewer rights than first rate citizens. So in this future if you're not an accredited corporation you would not have the right to connect to any computer but your ISP's servers which will then relay your traffic... for a fee, if they see fit...
Well, sorry, but if you want to get rid of spam, we need to add some primitive tracability features to the email system, and requiring a static IP is part of that.
ISPs have a lot of more important things to educate their users about. They could start with how to secure one's computer (or how to do masquerading ;-).
That's for darn sure.
- Dan
On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Dan Kegel wrote:
Francois Gouget wrote:
But I'm not behind a modem. I'm behind a DSL so the above really doesn't matter much.
Ah, but you don't have a static IP address, I bet. It's much easier to track back spam to a static IP address, so those addresses are much safer from being spam sources. It's those dynamic IP addresses that let spammers hide.
How is forcing me to use my ISP's mail server going to help? You'll get the ISP's IP address granted. But the 'From' field is going to be forged so the ISP will have no idea of who sent the mail.
The only way for them to find out is to look at the header and see from which IP address the mail originates. And this is going to be what? You guessed it, a dynamic IP address! Just like in the headers you get from me: they source is my dynamic IP address.
So you're back to square one and you haven't gained anything.
Ok, I'm not an expert of spam tracing, but it seems to me that the best way to find its source is to do a whois and a traceroute on the originating IP address.
It also seems to me that this leads to a system where dialup users are second rate internet citizens and have fewer rights than first rate citizens. So in this future if you're not an accredited corporation you would not have the right to connect to any computer but your ISP's servers which will then relay your traffic... for a fee, if they see fit...
Well, sorry, but if you want to get rid of spam, we need to add some primitive tracability features to the email system, and requiring a static IP is part of that.
I'm not convinced about the static IP aspect. Even if it turns out to be necessary I still cannot swallow the way the MAPS DUL puts it: "...use the equipment you're authorized to use". This clearly implies I'm not allowed to connect to their email server. If that's so I really don't see why I would be allowed to connect to their Web server, or anonymous ftp server, ... Then what's left of the Internet?
-- Francois Gouget fgouget@free.fr http://fgouget.free.fr/ "Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)" -- Linus Torvalds
Francois Gouget wrote:
On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Dan Kegel wrote:
Francois Gouget wrote:
But I'm not behind a modem. I'm behind a DSL so the above really doesn't matter much.
Ah, but you don't have a static IP address, I bet. It's much easier to track back spam to a static IP address, so those addresses are much safer from being spam sources. It's those dynamic IP addresses that let spammers hide.
How is forcing me to use my ISP's mail server going to help? You'll get the ISP's IP address granted. But the 'From' field is going to be forged so the ISP will have no idea of who sent the mail.
The only way for them to find out is to look at the header and see from which IP address the mail originates. And this is going to be what? You guessed it, a dynamic IP address! Just like in the headers you get from me: they source is my dynamic IP address.
Yeah, but you also generated an entry in the mailservers log and I am sure they are keeping track of their own dynamic IP assignments at specific times. So therefore it gives people one authority to bitch to for spam (the ISPs mail server) and from their the ISP can take appropriate action. It also means that if there is tons of spam from the ISP then the ISPs mail server just needs to be blocked since all the "dial-ups" already are.
So you're back to square one and you haven't gained anything.
Ok, I'm not an expert of spam tracing, but it seems to me that the best way to find its source is to do a whois and a traceroute on the originating IP address.
Ish. Sometimes there are extra forged headers too.
It also seems to me that this leads to a system where dialup users are second rate internet citizens and have fewer rights than first rate citizens. So in this future if you're not an accredited corporation you would not have the right to connect to any computer but your ISP's servers which will then relay your traffic... for a fee, if they see fit...
Well, sorry, but if you want to get rid of spam, we need to add some primitive tracability features to the email system, and requiring a static IP is part of that.
I'm not convinced about the static IP aspect. Even if it turns out to be necessary I still cannot swallow the way the MAPS DUL puts it: "...use the equipment you're authorized to use". This clearly implies I'm not allowed to connect to their email server. If that's so I really don't see why I would be allowed to connect to their Web server, or anonymous ftp server, ... Then what's left of the Internet?
I thought of it more as "You are given a nice mailserver that has a very permanent connection to the net and can be reached at all times. Use the damn thing." I also have to say that using the DUL has saved me from many a spam according to my logs Every so often I get SPAM from a dial-up that is not listed in the DUL and I encourage the ISP to add their dial-up pools to the DUL.
Now, your case would seem to be someone different since it's not like you can really get a throwaway DSL/Cable connection as easily as a standard dial-up. There is quite a bit of setup involved usually. I know for cable they must send a tech to your house, they do not allow self-installs, period. So that also solves the fake name/address problem. Personally I would rather that the DUL did not list DSL/Cable IP pools, or if they were in a seperate list. But I love the fact that the DUL lists most of the major dial-up pools. Especially consider that on a dial-up link you really can't reliably run your own mail server and have almost no reason for doing so since your ISPs mail server is there and you are authorized to use it. On a DSL/Cable link you can conceivably run your own outgoing mailserver, and even run an incoming one if you have a static IP. In fact, I probably save @Home a bit of cash by running my own mailserver since it means I am not using resources on theirs, so I can't really see the reason for DSL/Cable to want to put their IP pools in the DUL. (BTW, I have a static IP which is not listed in the DUL).
Oh well, this debate is getting kind of old. You really ought to try using all three MAPS lists and also report any spam that comes through anyway to maps and to the ISPs/sysadmins/etc. involved. You will be amazed at the decrease in spam. I used to have like 4 a day. I get one every few days now (so like 2-4 a week). Every so often there is a burst of like 3 spams in a row from the same dumbass but other than that it has been very effective and thus I support MAPS and encourage others to do so as well.
-Dave
-
Dan Kegel -
David Elliott -
Francois Gouget -
James Sutherland -
Jeremy White -
Jon Griffiths -
Ove Kaaven -
Ryan Cumming