[GreenKeys] Some ITTY Info

[Bill Horne]

George B. Hutchison wrote:
> GreenKeyers - - -
>
> ITTY recently endured a situation where some contributors could not
> get their submissions into ITTY.
>
> No one had changed anything at their respective locations, but things
> just stopped working for no apparent reason.
>
> Bill, K7TTY, Tom Tillson, Mechanically Interested Citizen, and myself
> spent a number of hours trying to ascertain just what was happening.
>
> Bill and Tom pinned it down with the discovery of the internet's
> efforts at reducing spam by many ISPs simply shutting down acceptance
> and/or handling of Port 25 SMTP traffic.
>
> I have not seen it publicized, yet my local ISP knew of what was
> going on, and they either forgot what was happening, or otherwise
> neglected to let an important part of their operation, their
> customers, know of the Port 25 action.
>   

ISP's, especially cable companies, aren't very good at communicating to 
their customers. Comcast has been blocking port 25 for years, all the 
while denying that they were doing it.

This situation is a good illustration of how frustrating and 
time-consuming it can be to deal with a system that has hidden agendas 
encoded in the routing rules. Many ISP's bleat about "spam prevention", 
but in truth they don't care about spam: after all, they don't bear the 
costs of dealing with it. What they _do _care about is keeping track of 
where emails go in their systems, because that data is valuable 
commercial intelligence which they sell to all comers. In order to 
maximize the value of the data, ISP's usually insist that their 
customers route all emails through "Smarthost" machines, where they can 
keep better records _and_ add advertisements to outgoing messages to 
maximize their profits.

This is, of course, a long-standing problem, with a variety of 
solutions. Here are some suggestions which will allow you to continue to 
receive emails directly from end users, without having to pay a tithe to 
some media conglomerate:

   1. Use a non-standard port, as you're doing with port 593. I suggest,
      however, that you change to a port number much higher up, because
      most port numbers below 4096 are "sort of reserved" for special
      functions.
   2. Use a dynamic dns service which will map ports for you. This would
      allow your users to send emails on port 25, and have them
      automagically retransmitted on "high" ports such as 49025. If the
      restrictions are only on the receiving side, with will cure the
      trouble.
   3. Use a dynamic dns service to remap the other way; i.e., users
      would send on e.g., port 49025, and you could receive on 25. It
      all depends on where the block is.
   4. Use Virtual Private Networks. Most ISP shy away from blocking VPN
      port numbers, because the majority of VPN use is by businessmen
      who are doing "road warrier" traffic, e.g., salesmen placing
      orders, etc. The ISP's who depend on the "business" classes of
      service as their cash cow, will almost always let VPN traffic
      through without blocking. So, port 22 (SSH), and the various
      Mickeysoft VPN ports will almost always get through.


> I would like to thank Wayne LeTourneau, WB0CTE, for carrying the bulk
> of the load as far as message traffic and stories seen on ITTY from
> about 10 November until this morning, when Tom was once again able to
> submit news items.
>
> ITTY has hit its max capacity of eight "Listeners" a couple of times
> this past two weeks. I will open it up to allow up to 12 listeners.
> We have a pretty good upload bandwidth, with upload capacity of 32
> listeners based on the 896 kbps upload caapacity on the DSL circuit
> here at ITTY. We keep the individual listener bandwidth low so that
> those on Dial-up will have continuous copy.
>
> In perhaps three weeks ITTY will go up to four channels. More on this
> as we get things assembled.
>
> ITTY was our solution to a comment that was tendered about ten years
> ago on GreenKeys that "there was nothing on the HF Bands to copy any
> more".
>
> ITTY is there to give your machines something to print, get them
> warm, the oil fragrant, and your respective shacks and shops and
> radio rooms more like the old days when the machines would clatter
> for hours and hours.
>   

I'd like more info. Please suppy a URL. TIA.

> ITTY is politically incorrect, so on behalf of the small but
> dedicated ITTY staff, a very MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, and fun
> part of 2009 to all.
>
> George - W7TTY - ITTY Central.
>
>   
A joyous holiday season to you and yours as well. Good luck in the new year.

73,

Bill, W1AC

-- 
E. William Horne
William Warren Consulting
Computer & Network Installations, Security, and Service
http://william-warren.com
781-784-7287