Success with Sending email without a SMTP Server!!!!

[Richard Gaskin]

kee nethery wrote:
> 
> On Jan 30, 2005, at 12:41 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> 
>> Andre Garzia wrote:
>>
>>> I am most pleased to announce that we can send email from Rev in pure 
>>> transcript without a need for SMTP Server or email account. I just 
>>> create a stack that will show how to do it. You can fetch the 
>>> destination email, for example dan at shafermedia.com, then ask the DNS 
>>> server for a SMTP Server that is responsible for that email, then 
>>> talk directly with that server.
>>
>>
>> I don't understand:
>>
>> If a conversation with an SMTP server doesn't include a password, what 
>> will be the outcome?
> 
> 
> conversations with SMTP servers do not include passwords. Your SMTP 
> server might decide to not "relay" your email to the destination SMTP 
> server if your SMTP server can not validate that you are someone it 
> handles mail for. And it might use a password to do that. But if you are 
> sending email to someone on your SMTP server, your SMTP server will in 
> most circumstances, accept that email without asking for a password from 
> the sender.
> 
>> Surely no one in 2005 aids spammers by turning off the default 
>> requirement for SMTP authentication (if they did they should be fired 
>> and forced to wear T-shirt in public reading "I'm the reason you get 
>> spam").
>>
>> So if I understand you correctly it still comes down to the question: 
>> Is Dan comfortable handing is SMTP password to anyone with a copy of 
>> Interarchy or other traffic monitoring tool?
> 
> 
> No, you have a misunderstanding about SMTP mail. Relaying is the 
> functionality that spammers use that is evil. Most SMTP servers these 
> days will not accept email to relay to another server unless they 
> authenticate the sender with the sender's password. But almost all SMTP 
> servers will accept email that is destined for a user on that specific 
> server that is accepting the email. That is what SMTP servers do.

Thanks for the explanation.

But doesn't this mean that all any spammer has to do is use the same 
trick to send spam to a recipient on the recipient's own SMTP server?

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com