Re: POP/IMAP before SMTP

[Roy C Bixler <rcb@press-gopher.uchicago.edu>]

On Tue, 28 Apr 1998, Eugene Crosser wrote:
> > Another real-world example.  Hotmail used to have (dunno if they still do)
> > the ability to read remote mailboxes via POP.  You probably wouldn't want
> > to open your SMTP server up to all the spam-slime on Hotmail...

Spam slime from Hotmail?  Hotmail addresses were frequently forged in
spams, but very little spam actually comes from Hotmail.  Nonetheless,
Hotmail is good about cancelling accounts used as dropboxes for spams. 
The trend in these forgeries has been away from Hotmail, AOL and other
companies that take an agressive stance and more towards smaller ISP's
which may lack the will or resources to agressively pursue the spammers. 

> This is more dangerous than the previous example.  Probably we will need
> a way to tell the smtpserver to not trust certain addresses even if there
> where POP connections from them.

Yes, this is a good idea since there probably always will be abusers or
rogue domains out there. 

---
Roy Bixler
The University of Chicago Press
rcb@press-gopher.uchicago.edu