MAPS vs. Gordon Feyck: Who Owns the DUL?

etrnl writes "The spam-l mailing list has an interesting post from Nick Nicholas about a recent lawsuit between MAPS, LLC. and Gordon Fecyk, who had arranged with Paul Vixie to host the DUL with MAPS in 1998. Even more interesting is that Nick was the Executive Director of MAPS who hired Gordon at MAPS in 1999. Notable quote from Nick: 'I find it extremely ironic that an organization which is currently soliciting donations to its own legal defense fund would now be using its limited resources to pursue litigation against a former employee.'" MAPS wants a temporary restraining order on two separate copyright claims: first, that Feyck can't use the DUL database, and second, that he can't run a too-similar website (now down). The bone of contention is that Feyck claims he bought back the DUL from MAPS, and MAPS disagrees. Incidentally, the DUL is currently stopping CmdrTaco from directly emailing one of the Slash coders.

Speaking of antispam..

[mindstrm]

Here's a problem... with no easy way to deal with it.

Over the last few years, the Internet provider for Costa Rica has been targetted by anti-spam types as a spam hoster.

Now.. that's all well and good, but the end result is that

a) The entire country's IP range is on SPEWS
b) Internet is a government run monopoly here.
c) There is no direct way to be removed from SPEWS. You cannot contact them. You cannot explain your situation. (My situation is that we happen to have some IP addresses in this country, and have trouble reaching our customers because of it. We don't spam.)

Now.. I fully support the fact that the Internet is an anarchy, that each individual is free to decide how their network will or will not accept traffic from others, yada yada yada. On that I am firm.

But when it comes to an ISP.. we have a problem. An ISP that subscribes to this, sure, it's their choice, but it's awfully hard to explain to the client that they have to instruct their ISP to stop using this service. And the odds of the ISP stopping? Not likely.

The point is, in theory, it's all fair, in practice, it's a problem.

Misconception...again

[Dwonis]

Incidentally, the DUL is currently stopping CmdrTaco from directly emailing one of the Slash coders.

Sigh. No it's not. (How many times does this need to be said.) The mail server CmdrTaco is trying to email is stopping him. The DUL is just a listing; it does no blocking.

What a surprise... they're unpleasant people!

[brooks_talley]

Anyone who has worked with / for / against MAPS knows that they are primarily interested in fighting. Their original purpose was to fight spam, but they're just as into fighting folks they don't like and each other. As far as I can tell, they really don't care *who* they fight, as long as there's lots of name calling and moral outrage involved.

MAPS is a joke. A classic case of the old saying about the pavement on the road to hell, and also a classic case of people thinking there's a technical solution to a social problem.

-b

Re:Speaking of antispam..

[mindstrm]

Again.. I don't accuse spews. Spam is a problem, and everyone is free to decide how to deal with it on their own.

I agree the system works. Unfortunately for anyone doing business in Costa Rica, there IS no competition. You have no choice. None whatsoever, and given the way things work, it's going to take quite a while to actually get changes made.

The other thing is..

This isn't just an ISP in the country.. it's the national (and only) telecom carrier. This is more like UUNET being blacklisted because on some level they sell bandwidth to spammers.

Re:Misconception...again

[Senior Frac]

It's an important distinction when the collateral damage victims go whining to the press.

It reminds everyone that the administrator of the machine receiving the emails has chosen to use that list maintainer's recommendations as possible spam sources, and that they should be blocked.

Without subscribers, all spam source listings are toothless. This isn't some evil government agency blocking your email on the sly. It's sharing of information, and only as good as the maintainer's policies and reputation.

The problem is, Gordon's "contract" isn't

[TekPolitik]

It's quite clearly a pre-contractual negotiation. It clearly doesn't even contemplate acceptance in those terms. If there's no written contract, the thing Gordon points to as a contract would be evidence of what the terms are, but not conclusive evidence. If there's a written contract somewhere else, then unless those terms are in it, Gordon's out of luck.

Because that's how Unix email works

[billstewart]

Taco's probably using a Linux system, with some popular Mail Transfer Agent like Sendmail or Postfix or [3 or 4 others] that are smart enough to be able to deliver mail without needing help, like just about any other Unix machine since we started using domain names in the mid-1980s. If you're on the DUL, your main net connection is probably dialup or DSL or cable modem, so you're a MERE LUSER instead of owning a T1 all your own, but so what? You've got a computer with a Real Operating System, and there's no need to pretend you're a Windows-using couch potato that's running a mail client too dumb to deliver its own email - even if you are running a dumb client, sendmail on 127.0.0.1 fixes that problem.

In other words, Taco does have an smtp server of his own to access. On his own machine. Like he should. If you're a dialup user, it's beneficial to have an inbound mailbox server somewhere that's always connected, whether it delivers the mail to you by SMTP or POP/IMAP. But no need to do that for outbound.

The reason the DUL is helpful for blocking spammers is not because there's no legitimate reason for a dialup user to run SMTP - it's just that many of the popular clients use a relay so they don't have to handle error messages or hang out trying to deliver to slow servers or delay delivery on temporarily unavailable servers, and that many spammers abuse cheap disposable dialup accounts, but they get booted off of their ISPs' mail servers too fast to make them practical, or rate-limited, so they deliver their own email so they can reach more suckers before being squashed.

Some ISPs block outgoing Port 25 that doesn't go through their servers - really annoying if you've got more than one ISP account, and don't like having to reconfigure your machine just because you're dialing in from work or on the DSL at home instead of the other dialup.

Re:Because that's how Unix email works

[User 956]

Taco's probably using a Linux system, with some popular Mail Transfer Agent like Sendmail or Postfix or [3 or 4 others] that are smart enough to be able to deliver mail without needing help, like just about any other Unix machine since we started using domain names in the mid-1980s.

Ok, but that isn't stopping Taco from getting a free yahoo/hotmail/myrealbox account, and emailing the "unreachable" Slash code developer from there. The DUL won't affect those free email services, and Taco obviously has a functioning web browser.

What's the fucking problem? Oh wait, Taco's a stubborn ass. As are you.

I guess free email isn't l33t enough for you L1nuX h4X0R3Z, even though it's FUCKING FUNCTIONAL.

Typical.

Re:Acronyms Abound

[karmawarrior]

It also has the worst false-positive rate. Typically, most Linux distros I've seen are set up to send their own email rather than rely on a third party email relay to send it. The DUL ensures that machines set up in this default fashion, despite not being set up as relays, will not be able to deliver perfectly legitimate email.

Essentially, for something to be useful against spam it has to reject as much spam as possible while leaving as much legitimate email as possible alone. The DUL may succeed on the first ground, but it fails miserably on the second. It also promotes ignoring RFCs, as relaying was never blessed as the way for ordinary users to send email.

You can reject spam by setting up your mailbox as a softlink to /dev/null. I wouldn't encourage it though, and I wouldn't encourage use of the DUL for the same reason.

This is why I hate MAPS and DUL

[Ark]

Incidentally, the DUL is currently stopping CmdrTaco from directly emailing one of the Slash coders.

No, its not DUL preventing our fearless leader from sending e-mail, its the admin of the box using DUL.

This is why I hate things like DUL and MAPS that block everything and are prone to false positives that keep you from even seeing the mail. Stuff like spamassassin can take MAPS and DUL into account and add "spam" score based on that, but at least with spamassasin the mail isn't completely toss away, you at least have the filter it to a "spambox" you look at like once a week for the false positives and/or you can put CmdrTaco on your white list, so he doesn't ever register as spam.

Spamassasin is a much better solution, IMHO.