[CLUE-Tech] Mail Delivery (failure clue-tech@clue.denver.co.us)

[Jed S. Baer]

On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 14:54:22 -0400
"Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> wrote:

> > FWIW, I've had a considerable lack of success reporting e-mail abuse.
> > Regrettable, but true. Since this is a virus, maybe the ISP would be
> > willing to do something about the user? Or, maybe already has.
> 
> It's interesting how so many ISPs seem to view keeping you from
> _downloading_ spam or viruses to be a "good thing" (I guess it is from a
> marketing point of view) but they don't seem to bother with any
> consideration whatever about people _upoading_ the damn things.

Actually, a couple weeks ago, there was news going around about Comcast
actually blocking SMTP from infected machines. (Or maybe it wasn't quite
that drastic?)

I think we will see more of this, as volume goes up. Some ISPs, or other
e-mail service companies, do provide scanning of outgoing mail. There are
plugins for M$ Exchange that do it, and I'll bet for sendmail, exim, and
qmail too. (And GroupWise and Lotus)

If I were an ISP, I'd seriously be looking at filtering outbound mail. And
for those who would argue the privacy aspects, I have two answers. Running
a hashing algorithm on any attachments, and comparing the "fingerprint"
thus obtained to known viruses is not, I think, an invasion of privacy. No
words would be read in any manner which conveyed meaning, except as to
compute the hash (or CRC, or whatever it is that builds the
"fingerprint"). And, I'd be telling all my users what was happening. It's
a market solution -- anyone who didn't like it could take their business
elsewhere. (I'm rabid about privacy, but only when there's no opportunity
to consent to disclosure, or in cases of misuse/abuse.)

I am *so* glad my ISP provides mail filtering. The cool thing is that it's
user configurable to the point where nobody can complain about lost
e-mail. 

jed
-- 
http://s88369986.onlinehome.us/freedomsight/

... it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday
facilitate a police state. -- Bruce Schneier