In message <20001103231015.44D864@proven.weird.com>, Greg A. Woods writes:
>> "illegal" is not quite the right word.  Some people run their own mail
>> servers legitimately.  We may be forced to cede that ground, but not all
>> port 25 connections from dialups are bad.

>Any such connection that's not explicitly authorised is in fact a theft
>of service, which is probably illegal in most jurisdictions (even though
>it's often not possible to prosecute).

No.  If it's real email, with real content, it's no different than a
connection from an official relay which is "not explicitly authorized".

>Every dail-up provider worth using in the first place offers a proper
>outbound mail relay host that explicitly authorises only his own dial-up
>ports for this very reason.

Yes.  But some people - especially people using NetBSD, instead of Windows -
may have an easier time just sending mail directly than setting up their
boxes to use a relay.

>Anyone not using their provider's authorised outbound mail relay has a
>serious configuration problem that they should fix sooner rather than
>later.

Or a Unix box which is smarter than the provider's relay.  :)

-s