At 07:12 PM 5/7/97 -0400, Brad Knowles wrote:
>> As  a matter  of  fact, yes,  I  do think  I could  do  better than  your
>> sendmail-based setup!
>
>    Then put your money where your mouth is.  Give up your day
>job and come over here to learn how the big boys play the game.

Holy cow.....I can hardly wait to read Eric's response to this, even though
he's mellowed with age.  I await the challenge of experience in this
world......sorry, Brad.

>    Until you think in terms like terabyte and petabyte the way
>everyone else talks about kilobytes and megabytes, you won't be
>thinking on the right kind of scale as to where we are today, much
>less where we have to plan to be tomorrow.

Assuming AOL survives their latest screwups, including this one.

>    Until you can think in the right scale, and invent solutions
>out of wholecloth for the unique types of problems that presents,
>there are just some things you can't talk intelligently about.

Brad....let me ask a dumbass little question.  I'm not a mail guru, though
I fully understand the issues that are being discussed here.  I'm just not
the guy to know all the RFCs inside out and don't sit on any big gun
committees.

So, the question is, WHY bother bouncing the messages that cause problems
instead of just sending them to the good old bit bucket?  Why place that
load of umptyzillion messages on your mail program, on smtp, on your
hardware, on your howevermany T3 pipes, the rest of the internet,or the
folks on the other end.  I know it is fashionable to toss crap back at the
spammers....and I've done so a few times....though have never mail bombed
them, and never will.  Having discussed this with spammers and having read
some of the books and articles on it, they expect the load to come
back...they are rejecting it or autocanning it themselves.  And, since they
probably got a half a zillion other messages and flames back, your extras
are immaterial to their "learning" or "changing their ways"....mainly
because they won't.

I just can't see why you SHOULD, or would want to, send it back and hurt
the whole internet, except for the spammer.

>>                              I still don't  agree with the  approach, but
>> this at  least makes  some measure  of sense.  Definitely more  than just
>> stating  that  source  routes  are  intrinsically evil  and  need  to  be
>> exterminated.
>
>    You obviously don't understand.  This is not a discussion about
>how things should be done, it's a simple statement of fact about
>how the AOL mail system works.  Period.

Once again, why add extra load to your system by bouncing instead of
canning them.

>    I know quite well that you have to deal with junkmailers on a
>daily basis, and from what I've seen, you've done a pretty good job.
>However, no other site on the *planet* has to deal with them on
>the scale that we do.  This is a case where a difference in size
>has created a difference in kind.

Yet again, why reject instead of deleting?

>    Unfortunately, we are required by law to take whatever technical
>means are possible to prevent "abuse" of our systems, and only when
>all possible avenues of technical methods are exhausted, will the
>courts (or lawmakers) then listen to our complaints.
>
>    Such is the legal system we have to live with.

Fine....agreed.....but if your technical methods did NOT bounce them, did
NOT thus hassle the rest of the net....since it won't affect the spammers
at all.....why bother putting more load on your apparently overloaded and
fragile systems that you're trying to protect?

dan

Dan Lester
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In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.  Erasmus, 1534