5 ms·

Although an open email relay would probably be some other violation of the AUP, methinks. (warning: haven't actually read AUP.)

drbawb 13y ago
I actually butted heads with this part of the AUP when I was a teenager. I was young, naive, and trying to set up my own mail server. Ended up creating an open SMTP relay instead. Received a phone call within 15 minutes of successfully testing my mail server! They were calling to tell me they suspect a computer in my house has a virus. I chatted with support for a while and we eventually figured out it was my mail server. They were rather pleasant about it actually, they explained that it doesn't necessarily violate their AUP but it's hard to configure a mail server correctly. I'd later learn that since my IP address was from their dynamically allocated pool: most popular mail servers would reject my messages as spam anyways. --- This was with TimeWarner cable about 7 or 8 years ago.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Surely yes, but they probably don't want to go through the trouble of tracking them down one by one- and doing so on a continuing, never-ending basis.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Most likely. But it's trivial to see whether or not someone is running an SMTP server whereas it's more difficult to determine if they're running an open relay.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  Wouldn't it be a simple matter of just trying to send an email using the server in question? If you receive the email you just sent, then it's an open relay.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    So now you have to have an email account somewhere that allows anything and everything to be sent to it (no spam filtering), and you need a system to send emails and correlate that with received emails. This is all certainly possible and not necessarily that difficult, but compared to seeing if a service is running on port 25 it's about a hojillion times more hassle.
    - vidarh 13y ago
      You don't need to send. Send "helo", "mail from" and "rcpt to" commands and most servers that are not open relays will reject the message after the rcpt to. Issue a "data", and most remaining ones will. At which point you can disconnect without sending any e-mails. Open relay testers are dime a dozen.

drbawb 13y ago

I actually butted heads with this part of the AUP when I was a teenager. I was young, naive, and trying to set up my own mail server. Ended up creating an open SMTP relay instead. Received a phone call within 15 minutes of successfully testing my mail server! They were calling to tell me they suspect a computer in my house has a virus. I chatted with support for a while and we eventually figured out it was my mail server. They were rather pleasant about it actually, they explained that it doesn't necessarily violate their AUP but it's hard to configure a mail server correctly. I'd later learn that since my IP address was from their dynamically allocated pool: most popular mail servers would reject my messages as spam anyways. --- This was with TimeWarner cable about 7 or 8 years ago.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Surely yes, but they probably don't want to go through the trouble of tracking them down one by one- and doing so on a continuing, never-ending basis.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

Most likely. But it's trivial to see whether or not someone is running an SMTP server whereas it's more difficult to determine if they're running an open relay.

officemonkey 13y ago
Wouldn't it be a simple matter of just trying to send an email using the server in question? If you receive the email you just sent, then it's an open relay.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  So now you have to have an email account somewhere that allows anything and everything to be sent to it (no spam filtering), and you need a system to send emails and correlate that with received emails. This is all certainly possible and not necessarily that difficult, but compared to seeing if a service is running on port 25 it's about a hojillion times more hassle.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    You don't need to send. Send "helo", "mail from" and "rcpt to" commands and most servers that are not open relays will reject the message after the rcpt to. Issue a "data", and most remaining ones will. At which point you can disconnect without sending any e-mails. Open relay testers are dime a dozen.