« KnowSpam to Shut Down Unexpectedly | Main | New Sober Variant Seen »
April 19, 2005
A Novel Idea: Fighting Spam by Keeping It From Leaving Your Own Network
A recent story from CNN on a shift in antispam strategy: going after the spammers before the spam leaves your own network; rather than turning a blind eye to it and only fighting to keep it out of your own network, ISPs are now looking harder at ways to keep it out of other people's networks, too. Of course, this is not new - some ISPs have long blocked outbound direct-to-MX SMTP using port 25 blocks or redirection to their own mail servers (Earthlink/Mindspring comes to mind as an example in the US, and they're also featured in this article) - but due to developments over the past year or so in the zombie spambots used to proxy spam from elsewhere, and the shift to SMTP AUTH and port 587, ISPs are having to think about containment. And that translates into less spam everyone else has to deal with if they can keep it from reaching our servers in the first place.
According to Suresh from Outblaze, the strategies discussed in the article are a rehash of the best current practices discussed by MAAWG. (via spam-l)
Posted by schampeo at April 19, 2005 1:14 PM