At 10:32 PM 1/9/2004, Ken Raeburn wrote... >Not in any mail I've seen so far, but the other traffic since implies I've missed something. Investigating that... my apologies. 18 U.S.C. 1030 >In any case, the quotations I've seen suggest you believe that the blocking is done without authorization. That is correct. Understand that I am NOT referring to UCE/spam. In the case of UCE/Spam, I will stipulate that the intended recipient may indeed have authorized upstream blocking/filtering. It is, however, irrational and incorrect to argue that the recipient has authorized blocking/filtering of email replies sent in direct response to queries they have sent. RBL/DUL makes no distinction between these types of email, and indiscriminately causes both types to be blocked. One cannot argue that general "best effort" or "no guarantees" terms of service cover this situation, since the blocking is known and deliberate. > As I said in my previous mail, I suspect the service agreement is likely to provide for it; I can only speak for the ISP agreements I've been a party to, and they do NOT authorize any upstream filtering or blocking. >And I suspect the receiving computer to which "damage" would be done would be the ISP's mail server; presumably none of this is interfering with the transmission between the ISP's mail server and the customer's machine. It is interfering with communications between sender and recipient, which is exactly what the cited law prohibits. The maintainer of the MX has publicly agreed to accept mail destined for the domain (by publishing an MX record). Blocking/refusing/filtering email bound for a protected system is a violation of U.S. law, unless specific authorization has been granted to do so, which has not occurred (see above).