AOL block of Comcast residential IPs

[richb at pioneer.ci.net (Rich Braun)]

>> OTOH, when your machine is down, your mail bounces.  It's all about tradeoffs.

> Transient failures, unless your machine is down for days.  This is not
> a problem, unless you have a catastrophic failure and can't provide a
> replacement.  But if that's the case, you have nothing to read your
>mail with anyway.  So it hardly matters...

Well, in my case I went on a vacation for 10 days, right after sticking a
backup tape into my Amanda server which also happens to be my home SMTP
server.  The backup tape hit a bad block, the Linux O/S hung, I bounded off to
Logan airport without bothering to check the tape drive, and there it sat
while I had a jolly old time but my sig-other at home had no access to the
'net or email.

Unfortunately for me my backup mail server admin safely ensconced in
storm-resistant, war-proof Indiana simultaneously handed *his* sig-other the
root password for a botched sendmail installation.

So there you have it.  A realistic, one-in-a-million scenario in which your
machine is down for days, your backup facilities simultaneously fail, and you
can't provide a replacement.  And, to boot, you have plenty of Internet access
to read your mail with anyway--in the form of web browsers at the Internet
cafes which dot the land.

I have since then overhauled every sorry last bit of equipment and software
involved in this scenerio.  Am once again current on munitions-grade
encryption, Linux server software, and commodity firewall hardware (have gone
through the Linksys and D-Link boxes, anyone want to borrow and SMC Barricade
for an eval?).

Oh, and I should note that my A++ comments on SquirrelMail are the 6th here in
the BLU archives.  It's replaced my antiquated elm; at this point I don't
think I even need elm anymore, and the security of running it over SSL is
equal to what I had before (with the exception that Mozilla is far more likely
than elm to contain some vile security bug that transmits my Schwab
account/PIN to some nefarious cracker in a Russian terror cell).

-rich