AOL Bans Mail From DSL-Hosted Servers

kmself writes "As first reported at linux-elitists by Aaron Sherman, and with a demonstration of the denial at zIWETHEY, AOL has begun blocking mailservers identified with residential DSL lines as an anti-spam measure, apparently heedless of the huge collateral damage this move imposes (and guess who can't send mail to Mom...). This action was unannounced, and has received virtually no coverage, spare an oblique mention at News.com. It also violates SMTP RFCs, as Aaron points out, not to mention the 'good neighbor' conventions of Internet communications. Mail to AOL's postmaster is also bounced -- this is RFC-ignorant. I strongly recommend that as a compensatory measure, non-AOL MTAs be configured to deny all incoming mail from AOL's domain."

Comments

This is a good thing

[mark_space2001]

From the article:

In its latest attempt to crack down on spam, America Online has started blocking what it deems to be suspicious e-mail sent by customers of Comcast's High-Speed Internet and AOL Time Warner's Road Runner broadband services.

AOL, the interactive arm of AOL Time Warner, began in the last week to reject some e-mail sent by users of those services, according to AOL. AOL and Comcast, in particular, have worked together to identify a range of Internet protocol addresses of Comcast customers who have set up their own mail server to send messages, as opposed to using Comcast's mail servers like most subscribers do.

So this only affects you if you're 1) using Comcast, and 2) are running your own SMTP server. I have a different ISP and I use their SMTP server, even tho I have a server running for other protocols. It works fine, and there's no functionality I feel I'm missing. Mostly my server is there for firewall and NAT.

Can't send mail to mom, timmy? Use Comcast's goddamn mail server.

This move by AOL is a good thing. It eliminates one more source of potential spam, and closes many open relays, many of which were open only through ignorance. This is the way of the future, and I assume what everyone using the internet wants: close those damn open relays. I certainly am sick of spam, and I can't see how this is truly a cause of any inconvenience for anyone.

If Comcast was closing off incomming port 80 for all customers, and then charging an ass reaming to reconnect the service, that would be different. But having your own SMTP server doesn't provide any functionality that you can't get from Comcast at base price anyway.

In summary, good, and I hope many ISP's will follow Comcast's lead on this one.

Doesn't bother me

[vandan]

I'm sick of all the spam, and all the spam comes from DSL SPAM faggots. So what's the problem?
If you have to send mail from a DSL account, use your ISP SMTP server. That's what it's there for. Having said that, I am a DSL user who uses his own SMTP server (mainly for spam filtering which I think I can do better than my ISP)- but if I am forced to use my ISP's smtp server to help lessen the burden of SPAM, I don't have a problem with that.

For another way to fight spam, which I read on the Mimedefang mailing list, how about setting up a way for domain admins to specify valid smtp servers for a domain. Then when mail comes in from, for example, yahoo.com, your mail server can query yahoo.com for the list, and if the originating server isn't on it, then the mail isn't accepted.