[KYHAM] Arrl source of Spam

[Chuck Milam, KF9FR]

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, Tom Currie wrote:

> What is also true is that all the best and most reliable anti-spam
> options are SERVER options -- which the League refuses to consider
> simply because the decent ones all cost a few dollars a month.  

If all you speak of in terms of "cost" is licensing fees, perhaps you are
correct.  However, if you consider the extra processing required to scan
each and every message going through a high-volume E-Mail server, you very
quickly have to look at the cost of extra hardware and systems
administration time to implement and manage a server-side anti-spam
system.  Systems administrators who are *truly qualified* to manage such a
complex system do not come cheap.

> There are a number of server-side anti-spam options that have negligible
> false-positive rates.

Negligible false-positive rates are fine for the service provider--1 or 2
percent of millions of messages per day is no big deal to them.  To the
end user who is expecting an E-Mail that will never arrive, any false
positive rate is not acceptable.

> Almost any of the server-side options would have a much lower
> false-positive rate than the current League practice of encouraging
> spammers to abuse League members which regularly results in major ISPs
> rejecting all mail from the commercial server handling the league's
> wide-open relay service when the spam rate gets too high.

Oh boy.  The league is not running an open relay, in the technically
correct definition.  They forward messages sent from one VALID address to
another VALID address.  Because the @arrl.net addresses are easy to guess,
they are an easy mark for spammers.  I find the ARRL service to be quite
valuable, and indeed have maintained my ARRL membership largely because of
this particular service.

If major ISPs are blocking @arrl.net addresses because they incorrectly 
believe them to be spam sources, then I would suggest that is yet another 
symptom of the .com insanity where it was assumed that anyone who could 
drive a mouse could administer a complex Internet service/system.

-- 
Chuck Milam
KF9FR@arrl.net