Re: [tlug] Teergrube [was: ... mail not working]

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2010-03-15 22:54 +0900 (Mon), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Why do this in user space if you can do it in the TCP stack cheaply
> enough?  (That's a real question.)

1. Ease of administration.
2. More informative error messages.

Thinking about it, making the errors as informative as possible really
should be the top priority by far. Bad or confusing error modes don't
hurt spammers at all. They're not going to try to work out what went
wrong; they're just going to let it go and move on to the next system.
They won't even notice whether their latest mail run was 43.3% or 43.4%
underliverable.

Bad or confusing error modes can only hurt the good guys. Worse yet, the
good guys they're most likely to hurt (by sucking up their time) are
likely the ones who are best qualified and spend the most time working
on stopping the bad guys.

So if you sense some moral outrage coming from me at Godwin's opinion
that it's fine to waste my time and others, keep in mind that it's
not just me losing personally: I spent half an hour tracking down his
issue rather than doing other mail-related activities for the good of
the general public, such as fighting spammers and teaching people how
to build more reliable mail systems. To wish to continue to do such a
thing, not to mention a general wish to make mail connectivity worse for
the good guys, puts him firmly in the "doing bad" camp, to my mind.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson         <cjs@example.com>         +81 90 7737 2974
             http://www.starling-software.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism
by those who have not got it.    --George Bernard Shaw