Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the for-the-moment-anyway dept.
pnevares writes "CNet has the news that the UDP on @Home has been lifted, apparently before the close of business Tuesday. They still have a 30-day probation, but the UDP [Usenet Death Penalty] will not go into effect."
Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Drakino
·
· Score: 2
This whole UDP thing with @Home proves that Broadband ISP's need different user agreements and setups.
By having a faster internet connection and static IP's, the benefits to the end user are nice, but unfornatully the newbie Linux user installing every package in RedHat probably dosen't realise that his internet accessable machine can be used to read and post to newsgroups unrestricted. And since he has a fast connection, he dosen't notice a difference in the bandwith like a modem user would see if the connection is flooded. For ISP's sakes, they need to make sure their users understand their liability in situations like this.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Bryan+Andersen
·
· Score: 2
The solution to this is to get all the distributions to make all forwarding type services opt in. That is forwarding services need to be explicitly enabled by the installer. This goes for any type of server, mail, news, IRC, ICQ, whatever. This isn't all that hard of task to do. It only takes some changes in the default configuration files, initial setup code, and documentation.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
mpe
·
· Score: 2
If you believe @Home the problem was windows machines with proxy software.
Banning Windows would be an effective, though not politically correct solution. The problem here wasn't really the newbie who can't setup his machine but @home just ignoring all the problems that it caused.
It's a combination of the software having completly inappropriate defaults, combined with lack of enforcement.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Raffy
·
· Score: 2
Drakino writes: By having a faster internet connection and static IP's
This is not the case with all (perhaps not even the majority) of Cable/Broadband ISPs. The service I support uses dynamic IP addressing under DHCP to support our customer base. The only customers who have anything approaching a "static" IP address are those whose machines are on 24/7.
Running/hosting any kind of server on our service is not permitted under the AUP, as is attempting to bypass the DHCP process by assigning a static IP.
While this may upset more knowledgeable users who can -correctly- configure a box to do something, it cuts down on numerous problems. . . problems, apparently, that @Home attempted to ignore and sweep under the carpet.
Personally, I think their "open proxy" solution is 100% BS, and anticipate them getting re-slapped with the UDP within the 30 days they've been put on probation. The only way this might be averted, other than a sudden windfall of clues in their network management department, is if the spammers themselves decide that they like having a big, fat @Home pipeline available and lay low during the next month, only to resume activity once the hot-button interest cools.
Rafe
V^^^^V
-- Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
This has nothing to do with email. The UDP affects usenet posting only.
You are correct that the UDP affects usenet only; however, junk streams from @home in many ways; unless I am only one who is a victim of junk from their direction. Junk news and junk email. One is on the news spool for everyone and the other is thoughfully targeted to your mail spool.
"Self-appointed administrators"?
by
sparks
·
· Score: 2
I don't like the way they used this term to describe the people who work against spam on Usenet. The fact is that most of them do administer news servers. It's their job. They're "boss-appointed!"
Desribing them this way makes it sound like they're just a group of busybodies with nothing better to do than play vigilante. In fact, these are the people who keep Usenet working. They represent the people who own the servers and pay for the bandwidth. In a real sense, they're "in charge". And they rule by consensus.
Re:"Self-appointed administrators"?
by
EvilAlien
·
· Score: 3
Furthermore, that is how Usenet works. It used to be how the Internet worked, more or less. The fact is, its the admins who own the boxes, and they have the right to decide which packets they accept.
There is this frightening misconception among some naive users that they have a right to send email, post whatever they wish, etc, but they forget that someone elses property has to be involved in propagating their material. This translates to the use of the network and associated services being a PRIVALEDGE, not a RIGHT.
What about free speech? Well, everone still should have the freedom to say what they want, however they don't have to freedom to force others to carry the message and distribute it.
I actually found the rest of the article far more interesting than the withdrawal of the UDP. Seeing ISPs talking about how many of their users access news makes for interesting reading, especially those claiming the numbers are flat - the volume of news is *far* from flat, I can assure you.
As for comments regarding the alternatives - web-based bulletin boards and the like - I find them far *harder* to use. Point, click, wait, scroll, wait, back-up, point, click, wait... a decent news reader (personally I use slrn) knocks all of this into a cocked hat. And I can read off-line, so I don't pay the whole time I'm reading and replying.
/.'s interface is fairly usuable, for a web-based forum - most of the others I've seen are *far* worse, especially the min-fora that exist as 'feedback to this article' on countless news web sites. But it's still a million miles from threading, kill-files and a real editor.
Wow. Do they really claim that usenet usage is flat? My Usenet provider tells a different story. Here's some statistics from news.alt.net, giving the amount of news they carry. These numbers are in average megabytes per *day*; that is, as of August, they pulled in 50 gigabytes of news per day.
I tend to agree that Usenet is still a useful way to exchange information and carry on discussions, but I don't think that text makes up the bulk of the increase.
I agree that UseNet is better than a web-based forum, but it still seems to be somewhat badly designed to me. If anybody still remembers FidoNet and the other BBS echomail networks, that's more what my idea of a well-designed discussion forum is. All messages in the forum were public, but could optionally be addressed to a user. That was I could go through and look for all replies that were to my messages or any messages written specifically to me, and then when I had more time go through and read the others. With UseNet the only way to do this is to remember which threads I've posted to and read those first (and then I still have to read the whole thread, I can't read just the replies to my posts first).
Any ideas where to find a similarly-designed setup on the internet, now that FidoNet seems to be extremely close to dead?
If you are getting large volumes of e-mail spam from @home and no response from their abuse dept, why not start working towards getting them in the RBL? See here for details on the procedure.
I've seen very little spam with forged @home addresses, but a good deal coming from *.home.com. Given the apparant state of their network, blocking outgoing port 25 connections is probably the easiest way to deal with this. There are very few legitimate reasons for wanting to send mail through a mail server other than your ISP's, and pretty much none for sending it directly rather than using a smarthost. For the small number of people who can demonstrate a legitimate requirement for external port 25 access, it should be feasible to provide a waiver thing like I seem to recall they have for 139.
Of course, this would mean extra hassle for the @Home network people and tech support as they have to deal with thousands of users with misconfigured mail setups who want to know why they can't send mail any more. Which probably means that the chances of it ever happening are zero, because everyone knows that getting your people to do work to avoid other people (who aren't on your payroll) having to clean up your mess is stupid. Sigh.
Re:I wonder if @home paid them off....
by
Lovepump
·
· Score: 2
Admittedly, that would be nice!
Consider though, that any clueless user can get access to a fast connection (except in the UK of course!), connect up and put their machine online. They are never aware that they are wide open and all sorts of stuff is being routed via their machine onto the net. They have no idea of firewalling, logging, checking their port configs for holes, etc. No-one ever tells them until it's all too late.
When you want to drive a car, you have to take an exam. You are questioned on your knowledge and you ability to control the vehicle. You are asked about the law and how it relates to your vehicle. You are show the right way to do things and then, once you've satisfied the examiners you are responsible, you are allowed free reign.
I'd like to see a cut-down version for newbies. You get an account, and go on Learner plates for a trial period, and only after passing through this period without major mishap, are you allowed off onto the net by yourself.
I can't see any way in which is could feasibly be enforced or how it would pan out in practise (I'm sure "Freedom of Speech" nuts would have a field day if anyone ever tried to put this into practise) but it might cut down on the number of new-users providing free injection points for spam.....
Re:I did not spam you. Repeat. *I* did not spam yo
by
tskirvin
·
· Score: 2
Am I being a tad arrogant here? Not half as arrogant as anyone who thinks issuing 3rd party cancel messages is acceptable under any circumstances.
Go read the Cancel FAQ will ya? That oughta answer your implied question of "who would think that 3rd party cancels are a good idea?".
And, no, I can't just "switch" to another provider. There *is* *no* *other* cablemodem ISP in the area. And no DSL either.
Use an old dialup connection, if you have to. Or you can always post through DejaNews or one of the commercial Usenet providers.
Slashdot Mirror
This whole UDP thing with @Home proves that Broadband ISP's need different user agreements and setups.
By having a faster internet connection and static IP's, the benefits to the end user are nice, but unfornatully the newbie Linux user installing every package in RedHat probably dosen't realise that his internet accessable machine can be used to read and post to newsgroups unrestricted. And since he has a fast connection, he dosen't notice a difference in the bandwith like a modem user would see if the connection is flooded. For ISP's sakes, they need to make sure their users understand their liability in situations like this.
This has nothing to do with email. The UDP affects usenet posting only.
You are correct that the UDP affects usenet only; however, junk streams from @home in many ways; unless I am only one who is a victim of junk from their direction. Junk news and junk email. One is on the news spool for everyone and the other is thoughfully targeted to your mail spool.
Desribing them this way makes it sound like they're just a group of busybodies with nothing better to do than play vigilante. In fact, these are the people who keep Usenet working. They represent the people who own the servers and pay for the bandwidth. In a real sense, they're "in charge". And they rule by consensus.
I actually found the rest of the article far more interesting than the withdrawal of the UDP. Seeing ISPs talking about how many of their users access news makes for interesting reading, especially those claiming the numbers are flat - the volume of news is *far* from flat, I can assure you.
As for comments regarding the alternatives - web-based bulletin boards and the like - I find them far *harder* to use. Point, click, wait, scroll, wait, back-up, point, click, wait... a decent news reader (personally I use slrn) knocks all of this into a cocked hat. And I can read off-line, so I don't pay the whole time I'm reading and replying.
/.'s interface is fairly usuable, for a web-based forum - most of the others I've seen are *far* worse, especially the min-fora that exist as 'feedback to this article' on countless news web sites. But it's still a million miles from threading, kill-files and a real editor.
Regards,
Tim.
If you are getting large volumes of e-mail spam from @home and no response from their abuse dept, why not start working towards getting them in the RBL? See here for details on the procedure.
I've seen very little spam with forged @home addresses, but a good deal coming from *.home.com. Given the apparant state of their network, blocking outgoing port 25 connections is probably the easiest way to deal with this. There are very few legitimate reasons for wanting to send mail through a mail server other than your ISP's, and pretty much none for sending it directly rather than using a smarthost. For the small number of people who can demonstrate a legitimate requirement for external port 25 access, it should be feasible to provide a waiver thing like I seem to recall they have for 139.
Of course, this would mean extra hassle for the @Home network people and tech support as they have to deal with thousands of users with misconfigured mail setups who want to know why they can't send mail any more. Which probably means that the chances of it ever happening are zero, because everyone knows that getting your people to do work to avoid other people (who aren't on your payroll) having to clean up your mess is stupid. Sigh.
Admittedly, that would be nice!
Consider though, that any clueless user can get access to a fast connection (except in the UK of course!), connect up and put their machine online. They are never aware that they are wide open and all sorts of stuff is being routed via their machine onto the net. They have no idea of firewalling, logging, checking their port configs for holes, etc. No-one ever tells them until it's all too late.
When you want to drive a car, you have to take an exam. You are questioned on your knowledge and you ability to control the vehicle. You are asked about the law and how it relates to your vehicle. You are show the right way to do things and then, once you've satisfied the examiners you are responsible, you are allowed free reign.
I'd like to see a cut-down version for newbies. You get an account, and go on Learner plates for a trial period, and only after passing through this period without major mishap, are you allowed off onto the net by yourself.
I can't see any way in which is could feasibly be enforced or how it would pan out in practise (I'm sure "Freedom of Speech" nuts would have a field day if anyone ever tried to put this into practise) but it might cut down on the number of new-users providing free injection points for spam.....
Go read the Cancel FAQ will ya? That oughta answer your implied question of "who would think that 3rd party cancels are a good idea?".
And, no, I can't just "switch" to another provider. There *is* *no* *other* cablemodem ISP in the area. And no DSL either.
Use an old dialup connection, if you have to. Or you can always post through DejaNews or one of the commercial Usenet providers.
- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org)