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Re: Last Call: 'Email Submission Between Independent Networks' to BCP

Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu> Thu, 16 June 2005 12:49 UTC

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Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:49:01 -0400
From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
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Cc: Dean Anderson <dean@av8.com>, ietf@ietf.org, iesg <iesg@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: Last Call: 'Email Submission Between Independent Networks' to BCP
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> There is a strong rough consensus in the email operations community that open 
> relays -- MTAs that accept mail from any source on the open Internet, when it is 
> directly destined to go back out to the Internet -- prevents providing 
> reasonable levels of message sender accountability.  
> 
> That rough consensus has been in place for quite a few years.

sometimes rough consensus is wrong, particularly when it hasn't resulted 
from informed, intelligent dialogue.  another way to put it is that 
sometimes rough consensus is indistinguishable from blind prejudice.

it's possible to have open relays that don't contribute to spam.  but 
those relays need to employ some other means, e.g. rate limiting, to 
block spam.  the goal of such relays is to make it at least as easy for 
the spammer to simply contact the appropriate MXes for the destination 
addresses as to use the relays.  of course it is necessary for such 
relays to record source IP addresses, etc., so that they are as 
traceable to their origin as messages sent directly to MXes.

unfortunately, the vigilante character of various open-relay blacklists 
killed any attempt at this kind of innovation.  just as we're now in 
danger of various kinds of brain-dead "authentication" methods and 
meaningless requirements killing useful email functionality.

> The fact that attackers are not trying to exploit a particular weakness right 
> now, although they used it heavily in the past, does not justify leaving the 
> weakness in place.

this much is certainly true.

Keith

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