[dns-operations] DNS Amplification Attacks

[Randy Bush]

> please do not go on believing that the closing down of open smtp relays has
> been ineffective.  you might be receiving as much spam as ever, and we know
> that as much (or more, depending on day-of-week) spam is sent as ever, but i
> know that the spam problem is MUCH more manageable than it would have been
> had we left all those relays open.

hypothesis (in which i do not hold more than 62% faith):

the amount of spam would actually be the same, as it is driven by
spammers with a desire to spam.  closing one channel just moves
them to different channels.  and the change in cost to the spammer
is, unfortunately, negligible.

this does not bode well for our efforts to slow dns amplification
attacks.

randy