Re: Anti-spam Working Group

[Gunnar Lindberg <]

John,

Sorry, I felt you moved focus away from what's really important, but
I agree - I didn't make it enough clear in the first place. Re-try:

The sad news is that the don't-know-what-I'm-up-to sysadmins has to be
given top priority and vendor updates much lower. Unfortunately the
former are many more than the latter, so it's much more work and it's
work that has to be done by this community, the ISPs. I don't expect
to get love letters back by saying this, but I do think it's true.

Then, when the "awareness" (if there is such a word) is high enough,
Sun et.al. will see a "market demand" for better mail binaries - or
people will get gcc and build mail systems from source.

So, please keep focus on what's important, despite it's hard work.

	Gunnar

>Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 11:56:38 +0200
>From: John Martin martin@localhost
>To: Gunnar Lindberg lindberg@localhost
>Message-Id: <v03110714b212c4984237@[192.87.30.41]>
>Subject: Re: Anti-spam Working Group
>At 11:20 am +0200 2/9/98, Gunnar Lindberg wrote:
>>John, do you mis-interpret what I say by will or what? If there was
>>any message at all, it was that someone needs to spread the info to
>>the huge amount of don't-know-what-I'm-up-to sysadmins. Some of them
>>even seem to run a minor ISP/dialup/web-hotel/etc.

>I agree. But I was responding more specifically to the first piece of
>information in your original mail:

>At 8:48 am +0200 2/9/98, Gunnar Lindberg wrote:
>>It seems like an increasing number of spam Mail Relay now uses hosts
>>in Spain (.es), most often Sun with native/naive sendmail.

>Specifically "most often Sun with native / naive sendmail". Did I
>misinterpret this - I dont think so?

>There are thousands - if not tens of thousands of people on the sun
>managers list. Even more read the FAQ and grep for responses. I'm
>interested as to why you choose to pour scorn on this particular idea -
>surely *any* avenue is helpful?

>>    Then some of these don't-know-what-I'm-up-to sysadmins happen to
>>    use Sun and for those there are at least two options: 1) get
>>    sendmail-8 source 2) twist Sun's arms to get better binaries.
>>    Again, assuming they know beans about the problem in question.
>>    Which they don't.

>Which is why it might surely be a good idea to contact the
>dont-know-what-I'm-up-to sysadmins, or at least a large subset
>via whatever
>means are available - right?

>>    I've come across a Sun employee that I have reason to believe
>>    knows something about their sendmail and a few minutes ago I've
>>    sent him the suggestions a) turn of Mail Relay b) make sure
>>    Received: lines are useful and not just contain "the other guy
>>    said 'HELO default' to me". My 0.001 ECU worth is that a) will
>>    not happen since that will make Sun system installation more
>>    complicated, but maybe b) will.

>I would suggest we make some conact via FIRST / CERTs as they appear to
>	have very good contact with vendors.

>I have been on the Sun Managers list for more years than I care
>to remember
>and I can vouch for the fact that there are more questions there about
>configuring sendmail than any other single topic. This alone surely
>warrants some attention.

>John