OT - Greylisting (was: Re: gOCR SpamAssassin plugin)

[Logan Shaw]

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006, Jim Holland wrote:
> Another concern is the impact that greylisting would have on the Internet
> if its adoption became widespread - it would mean that all mail servers
> would have to work twice as hard to deliver mail.

Actually, it's only some mail servers.  Greylisting lets known
senders through without a delay.  Mail servers that are mostly
sending messages to recipients who recognize them would not
see delays.  Mail servers that are mostly sending messages
to those who don't recognize them would see the delays.  So,
it makes mail servers up to twice as hard.

Also, while I agree that it would increase the load, in
general I think decreasing spam is worth some increased load.
Sure, it's a slippery slope (one could imagine things getting
so bloated that it takes 5 minutes of CPU time to deliver one
message, if we keep on adding limitless spam-fighting strategy),
but on the other hand, 10 seconds of CPU time spent catching
spam automatically is cheaper than 10 seconds of a human's
time deleting it manually.

   - Logan