ISP's Protecting you From Yourself > Deal with it.....

reply to GNXPower

Re: Deal with it.....

SMTP servers can suck in lots of ways...dropped messages, messages that take a week or more to deliver(big issue when comcast was first on their own after @home died. It's better now...), not supporting SSL, etc etc.

Now back to the thing about 'regular' users. How many regular users are going to know to use smtp.comcast.net or whatever instead of the server they were told to use when they signed up for their third party e-mail account? And who are they gonna call? Comcast wouldn't be my first instinct...I would go bother the tech support of the third party e-mail. And probably not get very much help by doing so...

reply to Hall
Hall, I used to post in the EL forum as an official Tech. There are always problems with EL servers, sometimes the routing can be messed up between two of them and it takes 10 hours for messages to go over an internal 100mbit connection from 1 server to another (sitting in the same room). There are lots of reasons why people want to be able to use an SMTP server from their own hosting provider.

#1. That way their email cant be logged by the ISP's email server.... (aside from the ISP sniffing their traffic, AKA Carnivore/DCS1000)

#2. Having mail server show up as "mail.mydomain.com" instead of *.earthlink.net

#3. Avoiding EarthLink's blacklist that happens all the time from auto mass-blacklisting spam lists.

I'm sure there are many more... I realize the hosting company can set up a mail server listening on a different port, but should every other company on the internet have to do something special because some isps are breaking standard port numbers?

This is how censorship starts.

reply to Hall
most users don't....

I, and many others, however regulary use either:
* My work email, or
* My home email, or
* Special project email

and I need to do this from:
* One of my many work boxen
* ditto from home
* from the laptop whilst on the road

Some ISPs(bellsouth) let you use any headers, which works ok - but it doesn't let me use their smarthosts unless I am actually on their subnets (no tls/auth)

Some (I've heard) prohibit you from using anything other than their own domains (fine for general users, a killer for me).

Some (the hotel I'm staying at), intercept port 25 traffic to their own dummy smarthost to get around DUL type blocks.

Many of the recent anti-spam techniques kill my functionality completely!!! You think my employer is going add a DNS record so I can email from the hotel? Is Bellsouth?

If most ISPs just started requiring TLS and/or SMTP AUTH so
we could use them from anywhere - even outlook supports both these days, we could make a dent in the spam - and I might support force smarthost usage (without From: domain checks)
--
Richard Nelson

With webmail and VPN, you should be able to use any mail from anyplace you need to. And if your company does not have VPN or webmail services, then shame on them.

puritan

said by wentlanc:

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With webmail and VPN, you should be able to use any mail from anyplace you need to. And if your company does not have VPN or webmail services, then shame on them.

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reply to Hall
Preach on, brotha/sista.

One of the key points is, my parents (your average technology "masses" user) don't even know what a port is, and don't care. Most people (even a lot of gearheads I know) don't bother with running a mail server or playing tricks with mail servers. They use Hotmail or change the REPLY-TO on their Outlook client to a forwarding address or whatnot.

Those playing with the mail servers and find themselves limited are in the VAST minority, and aren't even a blip on the broadband providers' collective radar. This is for the good of the entire network. I suggest you cope.