[MPlayer-dev-eng] to michael

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Thursday, 25 May 2006 at 17:31, Romain Dolbeau wrote:
> Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski <dominik at rangers.eu.org> wrote:
> 
> > For you. Not for me. http://www.nanae.org/thank_the_spammers.html
> 
> Meaning, you accept the "guilty by proximity" rule. It's idiotic. I
> fully agree spammers must be fought. But I will never, never, *never*,
> *NEVER* accept collateral damages on the users. You don't wage a war
> using the civilians as weapons and shields when you're civilized.

So you prefer to go out of business because spam will cost you more and
more bandwith/server resources instead?

> > These days, they do and it is their business. Otherwise they're
> > irresponsible.
> 
> IT IS NOT !
> 
> They sell IP connectivity ; whatever goes on those links is NONE OF
> THEIR FREAKING BUSINESS ! Any law saying they're responsible is idiotic.

Who said there's a law?

> They're no more responsible of the IP traffic than the highway owner are
> of the car traffic.

Of course they're responsible for the traffic they're sending out into
the Internet. There's no law that requires any ISP to accept traffic
from any other ISP. These are all business deals. And, if my ISP decides
your ISP sends too much spam, they can stop accepting all of your traffic.
That's how it works, in case you didn't know.

> The only solutions to spam is educating the end users. I know it's not
> going to happen anytime soon, but as soon as you deny the users a
> service on account of spams, the spammers have won and control the
> internet. I'm not willing to concede them the war yet.

Your ISP must be rich then.

> > > And anyone who blacklist may server is discriminating against me.
> > 
> > ROTFL.
> 
> What's so funny ? Please let me in on the joke where IP-based
> discrimination (or any other) becomes funny. it may not seem important
> to you, but dicrimination is important to some people.

The notion that this is discrimination is funny.

> > If I block direct SMTP connections from dynamic IPs, I'm not preventing
> > you from sending e-mail to me. You can still send via your provider's mail
> > gateway.
> 
> On what ground do you discriminate against me ?

I'm not discriminating. It is up to me to decide who I let into my house,
isn't it? Or are you claiming to have the right to enter my house any time
you like over my objections?

> And why should I gateway
> through the crappy, slow, unreliable no-TLS no-SSL server of my ISP ?

Get a real connection, then. You get what you pay for.

> > You shouldn't send e-mail directly to MXs from a dynamic IP.
> 
> Says who ? Is that the eleventh commandment ? (incidentally, this is all
> a matter of principles with me, as I only have fixed IPs anyway ;-) I
> don't see why dynamic IP should be banned from running a SMTP server.
> That's what (among other thing) dynamic DNS is for.

Says my experience. And many other administrators of much bigger networks.

> > Bad analogy. ISPs are hardly ever entirely listed because of a single spam
> > incident.
> 
> As soon as you ban dynamic IP, you ban everyone using one because some
> people are breaking he "law" (annoying as it is, I'm not even sure spam
> is against the law...). That's a very good analogy. Most dynamic IP
> users have never sent a spam in their lives.

They don't have to break any law. I am perfectly within my rights to refuse
mail from any IP/e-mail address I choose. And on behalf of my users, if they
choose to delegate spam filtering to me.

> > IMHO it is efficient even if a small number of potentially wanted e-mail
> > gets rejected.
> 
> BS. One legit mail rejected is unacceptable, and anyone claiming it is,
> is notw orth the job description of administrator.

Making the company upgrade the uplink and server hardware every year
just to cope with the influx of spam is what an administrator should do,
apparently, yes?

> The job is to ensure *ALL* legit mails are made available to the
> end-users, *not* make *its* life easy by using idiotic solutions. Spam
> is the problem of the admin ; pushing the problem on the user by forcing
> them to bypass idiotic countermeasures is the sign of someone most
> definitely *not* doing his job.
> 
> If I thought acceptable to reject legit mails because it makes my life
> easier, I would fully expect to get fired with no benefits for
> incompetence.

Email isn't and never was a 100% reliable means of communication. The
spammers have made it even less reliable. My view is that you either spend
money on bandwith and faster servers or accept that some mail might get
rejected. There is no third option. I try to strike a balance between the two,
but I refuse to let spammers use my resources if I can prevent it.

Regards,
R.

-- 
MPlayer developer and RPMs maintainer: http://rpm.greysector.net/mplayer/
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and
oppression to develop psychic muscles.
	-- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan