A simple test for email via IPv6

Philipp Kern phil at philkern.de
Tue Apr 30 12:33:14 CEST 2013


On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 03:20:58AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> We aren't talking some opt-in mailing list that could possibly
> argue that they had a reason to allow a reply to a 3rd party.
> 
> There is no reason that a proper autoresponder setup for the purpose
> of testing (that the OP stated) should allow what I did.

Most out-of-office autoresponders do so. Obviously they could also be
limited to own users, but my feeling is that most aren't. But they
are commonly throttled which is what I was hinting at.

> Even if it did implement throttling that is not an excuse to allow a
> 3rd party relay unless it's needed.  And in this case it's not needed.

How is it a 3rd party relay if you don't control the mail that's sent?
The cost you have is similar to what you would have by connecting
directly, so it's not even amplification. Obviously the reputation of
that particular host might suffer.

> I didn't say it was.  I said that it could be abused to stuff up
> someone's e-mail box.  That implied a lack of throttling of course.
> I assumed that if the OP was ignoring the sender's IP that they would
> not have implemented throttling either.

How does the sender's IP matter in your actions? Everybody can fake
everywhere, you are not required to use the outbound MTA of Gmail,
for instance.

> >>   I know we're all excited about IPv6 but the problem is that way too
> >>many people are implementing it without any firewalling, or filtering
> >>or anything.  Please don't think that the spammers are stupid.
> >I'm not sure how this relates to the problem at hand, except for
> >pushing the filtering agenda.
> Oh good Lord.  So, reasonable mail filtering is now an 'agenda'?
> Since when did mail filtering become undesirable?

You did not say mail filtering, didn't you? You said implementing IPv6,
which is different. What's happening here does not depend on IPv6 at
all.

> Please publicly post the IP address of a mailserver YOU administer
> that is NOT filtered and allows unthrottled autoresponses.  And for
> extra credit, why don't you open it for open relaying, too?

I said that sane autoreponders implement throttling. You did not
post that you tried to mail twice and it replied to both attempts.
(Which is well possible, but you did not say that.)

> Do I really have to explain why it's not polite to walk out into the
> middle of a crowd in the city and take off all your clothes?  (well,
> for most people to do that, that is - I can think of a few exceptions)

I'm not sure how this polemic response is related. For odd reasons
there are laws against this, whereas misbehaving mail servers are
regulated (i.e., voted down through blacklists) by the internet
community at large.

Kind regards
Philipp Kern
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