[MPlayer-dev-eng] to michael

Thu May 25 18:44:58 CEST 2006

On Thursday, 25 May 2006 at 18:19, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 06:02:53PM +0200, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > 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?
> 
> The cost argument is utter bullshit.

It is not. The evidence is all over the net.

> All the significant cost of spam
> is the work of the admins in trying to keep it down to acceptable
> levels for users, not the bandwidth and storage. Storage is cheap and
> as for bandwidth I get flooded with spam on my 600kbit (static IP,
> reverse DNS, fully legit for mailserver but still blacklisted!!!!)
> DSL and it's a bit annoying but doesn't really hamper performance. And
> I'm also blocking it all with procmail which would in theory cost way
> too much in cpu time, yet somehow my wimpy K6 handles it just fine..
> 
> Granted ISPs and businesses have more spam, but they have pipes,
> storage, and cpus that are orders of magnitude better than mine...

Granted, it's not only about hardware resources, but still spam costs all
of us.

[...]
> > > 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.
> 
> And this is very wrong. Instead they should file charges and subpoena
> the ISP to release the names of the spammers so they can be prosecuted
> and sent to jail.

You see, spam isn't a crime in every country in the world, so you can't do
that. I agree that it would be best for everybody, but we're stuck with
something else instead. Ever heard about UDP[1] (and no, I don't mean the
protocol)?

> > > > > 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.
> 
> Stop laughing, it's not funny. Maybe you think it's ok for only a few
> multinational telcom corps to control email, but the rest of us don't.

And how exactly have multinational telecoms suddenly appeared in the equation?

> > > > 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?
> 
> No, we claim the right to email people receiving internet connectivity
> from your business, people who want to receive our emails.

What if they don't? What if they don't want e-mails from spam-supporting ISPs?

> > > 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.
> 
> Due to the sort of crap you propose, there are no longer options in
> many locations. Moreover sending email thru isp mailservers is not
> acceptable because they log everything including message contents.

Buy a smarthosting solution then. If you insist on paying an ISP who
supports spammers then you have to accept some side-effects.

> > > > 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.
> 
> Administrators who are not doing their job.

On the contrary.

> > > > 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.
> 
> No you are not. If you refused mail from all Jewish isps you would be
> in jail. :)

Not. For example, I'm perfectly within my rights to refuse all e-mail from
Israel. Not because they're Jewish, but because there's so much spam coming
from there that it's more efficient to block the whole country and
whitelist only our clients.

> > > > 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?
> 
> They should do whatever is necessary to ensure that not one legitimate
> email is ever lost. Anything less is not doing their job.

I agree, but apparently, we have a different notion of "lost".

> > > 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.
> 
> Since when does it take more bandwidth anyway? The SMTP connection was
> already made and you're already sending an error message.
> Content-based filters should be able to detect spam after the first
> few KB and close the connection; most spam is only a few KB anyway.
> IMO the bandwidth argument is highly suspect...

Not when spam is 50-70% of your mail traffic. That is, it would've been
if I hadn't been rejecting it.

Regards,
R.

[1] Usenet Death Penalty

-- 
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