Spam is bad MMM-kay Open relays are bad MMM-kay Now the thing that I've been noticing lately is the increase of spam that comes right to my door directly from the company from which it was sent. Here's an example [headers modified, but wilbur is my mailhost] Return-Path: <newsletter(a)quickinspirations.com> Received: (qmail 15667 invoked from network); 7 Jan 2002 10:00:59 -0000 Received: from mail20.quickinspirations.com (64.37.73.220) by wilbur.katipo.co.nz with SMTP; 7 Jan 2002 10:00:59 -0000 Received: by MAIL20.quickinspirations.com (PowerMTA(TM) v1.5); Mon, 7 Jan 2002 04:04:19 -0600 (envelope-from +<newsletter(a)quickinspirations.com>) Subject: Lose 10 Pounds by February 4th !! From: Quick Inspirations <newsletter(a)quickinspirations.com> To: dean(a)flatnet.gen.nz Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 04:04:19 -0600 Now I'm not disputing that I could do with losing 10 pounds by Feb 4th =) But this is still spam. And notice that it's not using an open relay to get to me. It's coming straight from the company who is sending me the spam. I also did a quick ip check on the headers dean(a)wilbur% host 64.37.73.220 Name: mail20.quickinspirations.com Address: 64.37.73.220 dean(a)wilbur% host mail20.quickinspirations.com mail20.quickinspirations.com A 64.37.73.220 So that checks out. Now sure I can go and beat on the door of the person who owns the supernet, but thats got nothing to do with open relays. It's not as easy as having them convince a customer to shut a relay. Not I have to convince them to shutdown a customer and loose money. dean(a)wilbur% whois 64.37.73.220 Cybercon, Inc. (NETBLK-CYBERCON-BLK-3) 4534 N. Lindbergh Blvd, Suite 430-438 St. Louis, MO 63044 US Netname: CYBERCON-BLK-3 Netblock: 64.37.64.0 - 64.37.127.255 Maintainer: CBCN So yes - SPAM is bad. But I don't think that JUST open relays are the answer now I'm seeing more and more of my spam coming from direct mailhosts. I think it's just a case of making sure that providers have good AUP's and that they enforce them. Thoughts, either onlist or offlist welcome Dean - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog