On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:33:15 -0500 Kris Deugau <kdeu...@vianet.ca> articulated:
> Jerry wrote: > > On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:33:09 -0500 > > Kris Deugau <kdeu...@vianet.ca> articulated: > > > >> Steven Stern wrote: > >>> Checking outgoing mail is pointless. Why bother? > >> So you can reduce malware propagation? (And as a result, maybe not > >> end up on everyone's local blacklist for spewing garbage...) > > > > It is still pointless and a waste of processing power. > > A waste of processing power to help keep your server's reputation out > of the ranks of the spammers? To help keep your server off, not only > well-trusted public blacklists, but off local admins' *local* > blacklists and firewalls? > > On average, for anything larger than a trivial personal system, > you'll have to spend the CPU power on one side or the other; you > might as well gain the benefit of not spewing quite as much junk from > your network by scanning outbound mail. Lets take this from the top. You, and other advocates of enforced screening of sent e-mail are assuming that all individuals who send e-mail would abide by that edict. Obviously you know that is a false assumption. Spammers obviously would not adhere to that edict; nor would the majority of casual e-mail users. There is just no incentive to do so. It therefore becomes the responsibility of the recipient to insure the integrity of the document(s) that they accept. Second, you appear to be under some sort of misguided belief that all scanning engines are equal and that they are 100% accurate. In actuality, that is another fallacy. Third, you seem to believe that the sending of a malicious e-mail would result in your network being blacklisted. That is also false. Now, if you were sending a multitude of such documents, that could very well happen. However, if you are in fact sending hundreds of malicious documents you have problems that far transcend simply screening of your transmissions. In reality, a user running his own mail server has a greater chance of getting blacklisted if they produce 'backscatter'. You have to, or at least should screen all received documents anyway. Wasting time and resources to do it on transmitted as well as received ones is redundant. If your network is spewing large amounts of garbage you do have a serious problem. One that should be corrected at the source. If you don't know how, or lack the fortitude to do so, then perhaps you should consider hiring a professional to do it for you. -- Jerry ges...@yahoo.com |::::======= |::::======= |=========== |=========== | buzzword, n: The fly in the ointment of computer literacy. _______________________________________________ Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: visit http://wiki.clamav.net http://www.clamav.net/support/ml
