[Exim] Re: Example of legit email rejected by testing on rev…

Suresh Ramasubramanian <mallet@???> writes:

> Dynamic IPs on the other hand deserve to be blocked wholesale.

This is an interesting philosophical :-) discussion as it encompasses many of
the points of view and issues facing people regarding email these days. As
someone who is in 'both camps' - looking after multiple company mail servers
on static IP and having personal Linux/Exim mail server at home on cable
dynamic IP address - I can sympathise with both sides.

There are many instances where home (dynamic IP) mail servers are badly setup
and *just waiting* to be abused by spammers. Conversely I can think of some
'home' mail servers which are better run than a number of commercial
'professional' mail systems - well at least run by more knowledgeable persons!

Personally I would not have any problems with sending all my outgoing mail
through my (home) ISP's mail server. However, as someone else said on a
separate thread with similar discussion, that would presuppose that my ISP
would a) take responsibility and care and b) could be contacted in case of
problems. Unfortunately neither is true. It is like the situation where I have
given up advising my home cable ISP of the *dozens* of hosts on their
networks which are wide open and/or actively attacking my host. I believe until
the day when ISP's are forced to proactively manage hosts on their networks
without "throwing out the baby with the bathwater", i.e. taking the easy way
out by blocking incoming ports like 25 and 80 network wide, we will have
questions like this. After all, if a number of RBL type sites can manage to
scan networks querying for open SMTP servers (I see them in logs all the time)
then why can't/won't the ISP's....

Of course all of the above relates to 'semi-static' IP's such as cable or DSL
(my address has not changed for > 1 year but then my box is never turned off,
it is a mail server after all!) as for dial-up I would agree fully with Suresh.

Patrick