Author: Willie Viljoen Date: To: Alan J. Flavell, Exim users list Subject: Re: [Exim] MX Record points to non-existent host
On Saturday 22 February 2003 20:32, Alan J. Flavell wrote: > On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Willie Viljoen wrote:
> > If every MTA had been released with relaying disabled by default (such
> > as Exim 4 is), there would be no spam problem on the internet.
>
> Just a side remark here, but my impression is that much of the spam we
> deal with now has been relayed through a proxy in which no MTA,
> properly so called, was involved (e.g HTTP or Socks proxies), rather
> than a leaky MTA configuration.
Well, yes and no. Most people these days check black lists for open relays,
if this were not the case, we would be getting a lot more spam, but you
make a very pertanent point:
The same goes for open proxies, atleast in the context of the point I was
making, if people bothered to configure their [proxies|MTAs|web
servers|firewalls] correctly, a lot of the problems we face on the internet
today would not exist.
Another thing that has (thankfully) declined is direct to MX spamming, where
spammers transmit the messages directly from their dial-ups. Most dial-up
blocks in the world are now listed as such, the only place where this
problem still crops up is with new DSL blocks, but those are quickly
noticed and listed aswell.
--
Willie Viljoen
Freelance IT Consultant
214 Paul Kruger Avenue, Universitas
Bloemfontein
9321
South Africa
