FTC vs. Open SMTP Relays

HighOrbit writes "Cnet reports on news.com.com that The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, several state Attorneys General, and Australia, Canada and Japan are sending this letter (pdf) to operators of open relay mail servers to educate them on the dangers of open relays and how they help spread spam. Although the letter does not threaten direct law enforcement action, it does let open relayers know that they have been noticed and warned. The threat of being blacklisted has not worked yet, so will this finally convince mail server admins to shut down those open relays?"

Comments

Some simple logic in order?

[PM4RK5]

Maybe I'm the only one that had this train of thought, but I'll put it here anyways. I, personally, run a home-based server that runs many services (web, ftp, SMTP and POP3 are some of them).

The threat of being blacklisted would make me change my ways, as I have nothing to gain and everything to lose should that happen. I would presume the same is true for most sys admins out there, who run *honest* servers.

Now let's say that the few "Open Relay" servers that are left are threatened, but they don't take action. Pardon my conspiracy theory, but it may very well be that these "innocent" open relays are in fact sponsored by spam clearinghouses, in which case server admins have monetary incentive to NOT close their relays.

I'd imagine the few open relays that are left are supported by spammers in some way, as they are key in spreading spam, and most people don't want spam passing through their systems anyway, so any anti-spam person would probably close their relays as soon as they are first notified.

So to relate this to the article, I'd say that a letter from the FTC that doesn't threaten *legal* action will provide no more incentive to these system administrators to close the relays; thus the letters become little more than a waste of paper...

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Re:Some simple logic in order?

[kill-hup]

Pardon my conspiracy theory, but it may very well be that these "innocent" open relays are in fact sponsored by spam clearinghouses, in which case server admins have monetary incentive to NOT close their relays.

Interesting thought, but I doubt anybody's going to pay to have an open relay stay open. There's just so many of them out there from which to choose! ;)

I would imagine they all fall into one of the following groups:

• Insecure default setups
• Admins who don't know better (or aren't really "admins")
• Admins that don't give a crap

Besides, I'd hate to have a business relationship or paper trail with an open relay provider in case it ever becomes possible to sue over an open relay. I'm no lawyer but I'd think you'd be an accessory by paying them to provide a questionable service.