Re: [Exim] What to do with messages that seem to be virus-i…

At 4:54 pm +0000 2004/03/06, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
>On Sat, 6 Mar 2004, Giuliano Gavazzi wrote:
>
>> At 1:26 pm +0100 2004/03/06, Toralf Lund wrote:
>> >But, don't virus messages often come from machines that don't have an
>> >SMTP server at all, but where the MUA connects to a remote one, possibly
>> >at an ISP?
>>
>> no.
>
>Well, you have a point, but it's not such a clear yes/no answer as you
>are claiming.

actually, I agree! My "no" was more to the "often" than to deny the
possibility... I also agree with the rest of your discussion. I will
not comment on those ISPs who steal traffic to port 25 (their point
really escapes me) except to say that they deserve if their MTAs
loose their good ratings.

[...]
>
>> From the point of view of delivery *alone* the virus acts as a small
>> SMTP server.
>
>Pedantic remark: it doesn't act as a "server" in the technical sense,
>it only acts as a client. It might look to an outsider superficially
>like an MTA (loosely known as a "mail server"), but MTAs act sometimes
>as server and sometimes as client: this kind of virus only acts as
>client.
>

Indeed I should have said an MTA... and I specified "delivery
*alone*" with a reason.

Giuliano