Klarinet Archive - Posting 000073.txt from 2006/02

From: charette@-----.org
Subj: Re: [kl] Email 'postage'
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:22:38 -0500

> For the moment, I'd like to put aside obvious issues such as: "Should a
> mailing list which solicits an annual contribution and/or accepts paid
> sponsors be classified as a 'company'?"

It's a company ... Woodwind.Org, Inc. ... as shown in the footer of every
message.

> This causes me to ask: Do spammers _need_ an independent ISP
> (and thereby ISPs can band together to impose postage)? Or can anyone
> with enough money for a computer and a telephone connect to the Internet
> if they have the technical savvy?

Doesn't take much savvy or money - to whit - I'm an ISP, providing mail &
Web services and running my own DNS entries. Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. are
just convenient (and very high-speed) carriers, and other services can't
block them even if they;re used to send spam - there's too much "legit"
traffic on them.

Blocking small "spam" ISPs is easy but tedious. I use RBLs (Realtime
Black-hole Lists) to block some millions, and I have about 150,000 others
on the site's local block list. Spammers can change their spots almost
immediately. It'll help the "big guys" from losing money by having their
bandwidth usurped more than it'll help anyone else.

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