AOL Will Not Support Sender-ID 269
DominoTree writes "America Online said Thursday that it will not support the Microsoft-backed antispam technology called Sender-ID. The online giant cited 'lackluster' industry support and compatibility issues with the anti-spam technology SPF that AOL supports."
as a sys admin (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunatly there are thousands of ISPs that dont take SPAM as seriously as what AOL does. Realistically this is something that doesnt come as a suprise to many people that have been following the anti-spam developments closly. You cant blame AOL for having a service that is computer illiterate friendly despite your own experiences.
Everyone has the freedom to choose thier provider. Personally Im never going to use them.. but hey the option is there if you ever do want it. and if you do sign up you can live with less spam
Re:ah, props to AOL for once! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all about the all mighty buck. If they think this concept will make them more money than it cost to research and implement, you can bet your arse they'll implement it. They really don't care about interoperability either. They could care less if no one outside of the msn.com and hotmail.com domains can use it (or care to). That's one helluva userbase right there. Plus, they can just spout it off as another "Security" or "anti-spam" feature to get people to pay for hotmail premium accounts.
SPF issues (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. Why is this surprising? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does implementing Microsoft's Caller-ID have to offer in addition to AOL's subscribers?
I may hate AOL... (Score:3, Insightful)
Interop, Just Easier? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm, not too fond of Redmond? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, what does AOL for Mac OS use?
Hardly, its business related (Score:1, Insightful)
In this case I'd say the decision was made from the business perspective. AOL could either fall in line and attempt to break away and make billions off their own patent if it succeeds. This so-called 'lackluster' support is probably nothing more than excuse from AOL to prop up their own versions.
Re:Hmm, not too fond of Redmond? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they use IE, they get an icon on every OEM windows install. that's a LOT of new customers.
Whatever Spam Solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ah, props to AOL for once! (Score:5, Insightful)
They thought they could ignore the Internet and TCP/IP, but eventually they realized that some things are even bigger than they are.
I mean seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
The final nail in Microsoft's Patented Sender-ID (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm, not too fond of Redmond? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the $750 million payoff [userfriendly.org] had something to do with it.
Re:I mean seriously... (Score:3, Insightful)
Never been a mac fan.. but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The more people that use Macs, the more people that will be browsing web sites without IE, and the more websites that won't rely on IE-only functionality.
Truthfully though, it hasn't been a problem running Mozilla for 98% of the sites I visit. And I don't only visit sites like Slashdot - I go to a lot of sites that the masses visit as well. No browser string faking, no activeX plug-ins. Just straight Mozilla, and it works great.
All we need to do is chisel down those last 2% and we'll be living large.
With all the visible security problems in Windows and IE these days - more and more people are getting sick and tired of it. Some people are seeking alternative Browsers, more every day. It's not the obscure security bugs that people care about or even know about it's the ones that allow spyware to be installed causing them to have to call friends, family, support people and generally have a terrible time using their computers.
So.. GO MACS! And.. GO IE BUGS!
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
It comes down to knowing the system which you are using. If someone uses a C/R anti-spam system and cannot even be bother to use it correctly, then that person gets nothing in return. I am not spending my time chasing these people down. If and when said person calls, I just explain that I was not able to respond, and he or she needs to contact the ISP to determine the problem.
You cannot always blame these people, either. There are a number of cases where people refuse to become informed -- they just think it should work with no expendature of effort. But in many cases it is the fault of the ISP which provides whiz-bang services and not a drop of intelligent support, information, guidance, or some combination thereof.
I have read many times over that C/R systems are broken, brain-dead, and a Band-Aid approach to the problem. The more I encounter these systems and the people using them, the more I agree.
Re:Don't use email in the office anymore (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't talk like this to your business partners (who pay you). When you fight for contracts and sales you can't just tell the customer "contact me only my way, or go away", because the customer will go away.
Re:The Problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm afraid it's someone else who must get real. MS, as any other company, is required to extract as much profit as possible from any and all assets it owns, or else shareholders will file a lawsuit. This happens.
Besides, why MS would not do that? They can do it in a smart way - provide Windows users with a free license, and everyone else has to pay $1000 per license. Where will Linux or BSD be there? Who will be using these OSes for mail transfer? Hardly anyone, that's who.
You must look beyond your nose to see the danger, and it must be said "no" while it is still possible.
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I mean seriously... (Score:2, Insightful)
The result was that literally overnight there appeared thousands of clueless n00bs with @aol.com addresses.
It made quite an impression at the time, and you're still seeing the fallout today.
Re:Don't use email in the office anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
where are the flaws in this reasoning?
1) You aren't a businessman. Don't pretend you are, and certainly don't pretend you know how things should be when running one.
2) Businesses are there to make money. Thus, the cardinal rule of business is... don't say "no" to money. In any form. If you turn away customers by not being available for them, you are, in effect, saying "no" to money.
Show me that it won't result in having to say "Sorry mr. corporate contact..." and you might have something. Otherwise, that noise is just your butt cheeks flapping together pointlessly.
A Flaw in SPF? (Score:2, Insightful)
My domain and mail is handled by my host, with one mail server sending mail for multiple domains (mine and other people who have an account with the host). The reverse DNS lookup for the mail server give the server's name (myhost.com) and not my domain's (mydomain.com) as it's shared, so mail from mydomain.com only has to come from myhost.com to be vailidated. It would therefore be trivial for someone to set up an account with my web host, and they would then be able to Joe Job me.
I know it's only cheapo hosting, but the small one man bands who are vulnerable to Joe Jobbing may be using this exact setup. And yes, it would cost you money to set up the account, but if you were setting out to deliberately harm a competitor it's negligible. Or have I misunderstood something somewhere?
Re:A little OT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:as a sys admin (Score:2, Insightful)
Some time ago they blocked our IP, ostensibly for sending spam. I contacted them, and eventually managed to persuade them to unblock it, as we weren't evil spammers, but a student campaigning organization.
So they insisted on having an address to send service complaints to, which is cool, we don't want to piss people off with spam. I gave them postmaster@
Then I start getting through the occasional service complaint (scomp@aol.com). Unfortunately these babies:
a. Don't tell you what the complaint is
b. Don't tell you who made the complaint
Their tech support tell me that they can't tell me who is complaining or about what because of privacy issues, which is probably not the best way to get it resolved.
So now I'm left with around 5-10 unspecified complaints of unspecified users from AOL a week, which I dutifully keep in a folder marked ???
Re:Don't use email in the office anymore (Score:2, Insightful)
A friend of mine worked for a food production company and they reached a point where they worked out they were not making enough company for a retailer. They were making a profit, but really, not much of a profit for the hassle required.
A lot of companies just seek volume - trade with anyone and everyone you can. Sometimes, some customers aren't worth having. The deal with these people - raise your prices and see if they stay - that's a no-lose situation.
Re:Schizophrenia (Score:5, Insightful)
AOL develops an "Internet Expereince" for computer Newbies, their service is not for experts, and thats it. They DO dumb down their internet, for reason, because thats exactly what their costomers demand.
The ISP market has a lot of choice, unlike the OS market, and AOL caters for a particular type of market. They are not trying to cater for all users (though their Netscpae Online ISP may be an exception). Those AOL customers whinging that AOL doesnt allow this, AOL doesnt allow that, well thats because what is beign requested is not regarded as important to the average AOL user. The Average usere donesnt know what an SMTP server, iand they do not care about finding out. They just want to send email.
Those moaning about AOL, are free to switch. The majority CHOSE AOL, and are free to switch. Those non-AOL users who are moaning about AOL, again, whats it to do with you? you dont use their services, so why moan?
Secondly, that doesnt mean that AOL is titally unfriendly towards techs, though they do that using other "labels". FOr example, they did sponsor Mozilla, and paid the developers to do a great job in creating our browser, and dont say they got a payoff from Microsoft, because if you look at the figures, AOL still made a monatary loss on the whole Netscape/Mozilla thing. However as a result, we have Mozilla.
When dissolving Netscape, they gave full freedom to Mozilla, transfering copyright, etc. They COULD have been a bitch about it, but they didnt. You can compare their actions to almost like a parent who has a extremely talented child that "outgrew" the rules of the home. Instead of hiding the child, to destroying the child, it let the child go, with some money to help it make its own way.
Also about Netscape, there are somepeople who do NOT trust Mozilla just yet (my parents). Yet they still trust Netscape. Still providing Netscape (another loss to them) is a good thing.
ABout Nullsoft, whatever bad people talk about them, they still were instumental in turning WinAMP into a free (price) product. Ok its not Opensource, but at least we can create puligins and stuff easily, without sellign out to the devil, thanks to its fairly open standards.
I do not recall them going after XMMS either, dispite some similarities between the two.
AOL is not bad, its just different to what we expect, but its not bad, and i do think some of the bashing here is a little unfair. Save it for MS.
Re:ah, props to AOL for once! (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is a big player but most of it products are under rather fair competition with the other big players out there. IBM, Oracle, Unix, Linux, etc... Why do you think Microsoft takes Linux so seriously is because it is in direct competition with Windows market, and is rapidly importing on its main bread and butter. When Linux overtakes windows as a desktop OS, then Open Office will soon take place as the next office suit (Unless MS makes Office for linux in that time frame). And Microsoft will loose its major cash products and will need to resort to (Gasp!) Fair competition with other companies. The Microsoft name will no longer mean Dominance and just will be an other Novel.
Re:ah, props to AOL for once! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they've shown they care about interoperability very much: they don't like it, and will do whatever they can to disrupt it. That's shown by, for example, the changes they've made to filesharing to make life difficult for the Samba people; the fact that they not only don't document file formats for key applications, but change them slightly with every new application version; and now Sender-ID, where (apparently by order from BG personally) they insisted on licensing terms calculated to be incompatible with some of the most important free software licenses, including the GPL.
I think you're wrong about the Microsoft decision process - "If...this concept will make them more money...". Sender-ID would not make them any money; I very much doubt that anyone is going to migrate from Linux to Windows just to get the supposed benefits of Sender-ID! That's not what its for. Breaking interoperability is a corporate goal for Microsoft, because interoperability allows competitors to survive.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can do whatever you want with your mail, but I agree with the grandparent--you won't ever see a reply from me. (Or a lot of other people who deal with a lot of email and don't appreciate having their time wasted by people who want to push their own burdens on to others.)
Re:as a sys admin (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway after contacting AOL I was able to talk to a postmaster (a real human) on the phone, and he was very pleasant and we worked to resolve the problem within the day. And they also established the feedback loop for us, which actually is a pretty nice service. If for whatever reason spammers get smart again and learn how to hack around SMTP to make us look like spammers, AOL now gives us information and a warning that it is happening and we have a chance to correct it before getting blacklisted.
Now, about SPF and the like, the nice thing about them is that they can allow us to prevent spammer abuse where spammers pretend to be us.
Re:Pull Your Head Out Of Your ASS (Score:2, Insightful)