[Mimedefang] filter_relay

[Ben]

David F. Skoll wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Oct 2004, David Hiebert wrote:
> 
> However, I question the wisdom of rejecting mail from machines with no
> reverse DNS.  I'm not convinced it will block bad mail more often than
> good.

I would add to that by acknowledging there's a lot of idiots out there on the 
net who haven't a clue how important proper DNS is. Reverse DNS checking blocks 
a LOT of spam... but it does indeed block a lot of legit mail too.

Example: Texas Instruments (yes, the semiconductor powerhouse company)
  has bad rDNS for their mail server. A tech rep trying to email me was
getting bounced. Why? Exchange only reports something stupid like,
"Cannot send mail, and error has occured" versus the whole reject message.
So the users have no clue what's going on and either the admins aren't bright 
enough to know or just don't care.

I think if just ONE big mail portal (MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc..) would reject on DNS 
like that, a lot of netizens would fix their darn DNS appropriately.

Where that would help up is if the ISP's purposefully set up DNS for DHCP and 
dialup addresses to NOT be correct... and instantly, all those typically zombied 
addresses would become useless....

Oh well. It's a nice thought anyway.

-- 
Ben Kamen - O.D.T., S.P.
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Email: bkamen AT benjammin DOT net       Web: http://www.benjammin.net