Re: [exim] Re: Thoughts on Open Relays

With respect to Nigel and his latest comments (I wrote this first).

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Marc Perkel wrote:

> I'm already running authenticated SMTP and I have web mail. I'm just trying
> this as an experiment to see if it's possible to run a spam free open relay.
>
> The only reason people got aaway from open relays is bacause of the spammers.

No it isn't.

People realised that there is no benefit to them, and possibly detrimental
effect for their own legitimate users, to allow arbitrary third parties to
relay mail to other arbitrary third parties, consuming resources.

I am utterly perplexed as to why you feel that providing such a service is
beneficial for you, in the face of the comments made, and the fact that
you already provide services for your roaming users. It isn't your
responsibility to provide relay services for the rest of the world; why
are you taking it on, for free?

If this is, as you now appear to be saying, some sort of experiment, do it
in a test environment.

You've already admitted to screwing up your config and becoming an open
relay by accident (and ending up on blocklists for some time as a result).
Now you are intending to do it deliberately, and, in addition, you are
taking measures to avoid people finding out that you are an open relay by
blocking the robots etc that look for these things. How do we know you
won't screw up your config again so you won't have a "spam free" open
relay?

Open-relays were closed down - with great effort - for good reasons.
Unless you can demonstrate a real business case that requires you to go
back on, people will continue to view your statements with incredulity.
So far, it seems you're only doing it for a bit of fun, for no business
benefit, at the risk of getting yourself in a whole heap of trouble. Do
you like inflicting pain on yourself? It won't take long for your IP
address(es) to get out, and then you'll be slapped straight back on those
blocklists. Possibly along with those of your ISP, who I am sure will be
overjoyed.

I would also advise you speak to your legal representation about your
liability in the event of illegal material transiting through your hosts.

> But if I solve that problem then why not?

Because of all the reasons people have given. Most importantly, your own
bandwidth provider may view this rather unfavourably, and as has been
pointed out you'll have to play hop-the-ISP. Which is exactly the game
that many spammers have to play.

But if you require more pain infliction, you do as advised and head on
over to SPAM-L. That's where most of the world's anti-spam experts
reside. They'll love your suggestion there; I'll look forward to reading
their responses, it should be even more entertaining than this thread has
been. And let exim-users get back on track.

Jethro.

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Jethro R Binks
Computing Officer, IT Services
University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK