Re: post.office

Lee Levitt ( Lee.Levitt@software.com )
Sun, 23 Mar 1997 20:16:41 -0500

At 06:57 PM 3/23/97 -0600, Daryl Banttari wrote:
>Hi Everyone,
>
>I've been following this post.office spammer thread with some interest.
>Here's an idea:
>
>Set up a machine as a mail forwarder (only), and point MX to it. Use
>only a hosts file for name resolution (disable DNS) so that the only
>machine the forwarder can look up by name is the "real" mail server.
>Make sure the hosts file includes an entry for the domain itself that
>points to the real mail server. Any SMTP for your system goes through
>through the forwarder to the real mail host, and any mail hitting that
>"inbound" mail server for other mail servers dies as undeliverable.
>Then block tcp:25 in to your "real" mail server. It's kludgy but it may
>work for some of you with a spare machine and a few hours of time.
>
>It does nothing to actually fix the core problem, i.e. buggy software
>and poor support, but I'm offering this suggestion for those of you
>pushed against the wall by this.

So lets see, we build a product that adheres to the IETF standard for MTA
relaying, and you call it "buggy" as a result? I don't think that's fair.

I understand your pain WRT spam, but the problem is *not* a bug, it's
adherence to the spec that defines how our product interoperates across the
Internet. And *any* mailserver that conforms to the IETF spec is
susceptible to being used as a spam relay.

What we're working on is a workaround to the problem, one that doesn't
corrupt the spec we must adhere to.

Thanks,

Lee
*************************************************************
Lee Levitt, Director, Business Development
Lee.Levitt@software.com
Software.com - The Internet Infrastructure Company (tm)
Publishers of Post.Office and InterMail
91 Hartwell Avenue http://www.software.com
Lexington, MA 02173
Phone: 617-274-7000 x 229 Fax: 617-674-1080
*************************************************************