Here I am, reading the morning Register, and I come across this article on how the ITU figures ISPs need to take the lead in fighting spam.
The ITU is calling on ISPs to draw up enforceable codes of conduct that will mean service providers take a tough line in enforcing policies against any customer caught spamming, the Financial Times reports.
Codes of conduct. Yeah, that's the ticket! Just like all those enforceable codes of conduct that make up International Law. Like the one that's eliminated genocide.
C'mon, the way for ISPs to stop spam is technical! Some random customer connects via your network, and you don't allow port 25 connections except to your mail server! If he wants to use Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail, he'll be using a port 80 or 443 connection anyway.
There's just no reason for Joe User to be making SMTP connections to any machine that isn't one of his ISP's own mail servers. The ISP's mail server can enforce, e.g., a limit on messages per hour (unless, perhaps, the customer has informed the ISP that he's running a mailing list), and screen for obvious spam/virus/worm content.
For users who actually want to run their own mail servers (looks in mirror), at least make 'em ask to have port 25 unblocked (which the unwitting owners of zombie machines aren't going to do).
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