Comcast and SORBS

[Rich Braun]

> They can already monitor your IP packets just fine if they want.
> Running your own outbound mailer doesn't give you any more privacy
> than relaying through Comcast.

I have two responses to that:

(1) Privacy is not the only reason for wanting to run my own mail server. 
SMTP by its definition is a distributed system that works most reliably and
fastest if you transmit point-to-point rather than funneling it through
central points of failure.

(2) The odds of an ISP monitoring packets on a particular subscribers line are
far lower than that of an ISP logging traffic on their SMTP servers.  In fact
you can almost be *certain* that routine logs of SMTP traffic are kept on an
ISP's mail server (to what level of detail depends on software and management
policies).  Only following a court order is an ISP likely to monitor a
subscriber's IP traffic.

On both of these arguments, I have experience managing both sides of the
issue.  One thing that has changed since my business-world experience is the
price of a hard drive:  a terabyte of storage (for keeping logs, if so
desired) has dropped to well under a thousand dollars.

Call me paranoid, but don't forget who got reelected on November 2nd.  Freedom
of association is a central target of the so-called War on Terror, especially
if you're among the many who disagree with the government's policies.

-rich