Duplicate Posts - Burst Posts...

From: der Mouse <mouse_at_Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Date: Thu Jun 17 17:04:54 2004

> Most ISPs seem to be drowning in a sea of spam these days and
> completely overloaded - at least they are over here.

I've always wondered, when I see such things. I can easily name a
half-dozen simple technical measures that will _drastically_ cut the
incoming spam load to a mailserver. They're all fairly well known,
even. Yet ISPs refuse to implement them, usually citing the "but it
might refuse legitimate mail!" mantra, apparently preferring to lose
legitimate mail randomly and silently to overload than to lose
legitimate mail obviously and controlledly to filters, a mindset I just
don't get - especially since the "legitimate" mail that will be lost is
all defective to at least some extent already (because such defects are
what the filters test for).

A good example is sleep-before-banner. It kills an awful lot of
ratware dead, is difficult at best for them to adapt to, and won't kill
anyone who bothers to pay attention to the minimum timeouts specified
in RFCs 1123 and 2821. I've seen it said that as little as 15 seconds
is effective (I use 90).

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Received on Thu Jun 17 2004 - 17:04:54 BST