[mythtv-users] Comcast vs. FIOS, ease of mythtv integration?

Simon Hobson linux at thehobsons.co.uk
Fri Jul 9 20:08:36 UTC 2010


Brian Wood wrote:

>Port 25 is often blocked by ISPs in order to make your machine(s) 
>unattractive to spammers who might compromise you. If
>they can't send out spam from your connection, there is less reason 
>to target you.

More accurately, if outbound connections to port 25 are blocked, then 
outbound spam will fail - so any ISP with a view to being a good 
netizen should be blocking it by default. They should however either 
unblock it if requested by those that need it, and provide a secure 
outbound gateway for those that don't need direct delivery. Most 
users don't need direct delivery, they'll just configure their 
Outlook Express* to use whatever server their mail provider tells 
them to and that's that.

Many mail service providers run a service on port 587 (the Submission 
port) which acts the same as port 25 except that it normally 
**requires** authentication by the client before it accepts mail - 
hence being useless to spammers unless they've nabbed your 
credentials. ISPs have zero excuse for blocking access to this port - 
but some do.

* Yes it's the most commonly used mail user agent, especially amongst 
those user who aren't savvy enough/don't need to do anything "fancy".

-- 
Simon Hobson

Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
Christmas stocking fillers. Some available as e-books.


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