[ On Mon, November 24, 1997 at 16:44:33 (-0800), George Bonser wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [EXIM] RBL
>
> You can not deny credit to everyone living on a particular street simply
> because there are a couple of deadbeats in the neighborhood.
>
> What you are saying is to deny someone credit because their neighbor does
> not pay their bills.
>
> I do not think this will go far. The parctice is called "redlining" in
> the US and is illegal.
This is an interesting but extremely flawed analogy.
A more correct one would be to compare net blocking to denying credit to
everyone in a communal home because one of the commune members has a bad
rating. After all they share everything, the good and the bad, right?
In the realm of cyberspace those discriminated against because of who
they share network numbers with have two options: go elsewhere (there's
no shortage of alternatives these days, not anywhere!), or to work with
their provider to clean up their own back yards. I like the latter
option best, but no doubt the first is the easiest for most.
Somewhere we must draw the line. I personally (i.e. for my own local
mail servers) draw it at the degree of resolution provided by a third
party database, namely the SWIP data retrieved by 'whois' from the
InterNIC's white pages databases for internet address assignment and
allocation information.
For a list of those I've drawn the line on, plus another short
discussion of my local administrative policy, please see:
http://www.robohack.planix.com/~woods/hosts.allow.txt
Unfortunately this policy cannot easily apply to a service provider's
requirements for blocking abusive mail sources without getting both
sides mad. However it works wonders against the truely professional
spammers (if that's not an oxymoron all by itself), i.e. the one's who
don't commit fraud and who don't steal services from third party relays
and who don't post to their junk to Usenet (the rest we must deal with
through the legal systems where possible, and with draconian technical
mechanisms applied at the source -- i.e. the currently wide open dial-up
ports most providers offer for the taking).
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 443-1734 VE3TCP <gwoods@???> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@???>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
--
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