Re: Complain against comcast

["Robert Krawitz-2" <user=69@nabble.blu.org>]

    Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:27:53 -0500 
   From: Bill Horne <[hidden email]> 

   > Of course the spam argument doesn't really apply to blocking 
   > inbound port 25. 

   Seen from the perspective of a network manager, it _does_ apply: 
   there are thousands of business and home users whose machines are 
   set up to receive email on port 25 by default, and when those uses 
   get spam, they call Comcast and complain. If blocking inbound 
   traffic to port 25 avoids paying for a staff to handle those 
   complaints, then the manager's choice is simple. 

My own guess is that the large majority of residential customers, if 
they were aware of all the arguments, would enthusiastically *support* 
blocking port 25 inbound. 

In addition to this issue, look at the number of remotely exploitable 
security holes in Windows that don't require the user to connect to a 
malicious web site (various RPC holes and such).  I don't know whether 
Windows systems by default have an SMTP listener, but it would hardly 
be surprising if there were an attack vector available through that 
mechanism. 

Not to mention that receiving traffic on port 25 might just consume a 
non-trivial amount of bandwidth... 

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <[hidden email]> 

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail [hidden email] 
Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." 
--Eric Crampton 

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