AGIS Signing up New Spammers

In article <64q19v$o1@gizmo.dimension.net> you write:

Best guess at ths time, without having had a full review done, is that
filtering spam at the source *might* fall into the same category. However,
since in theory mail is *personal* in nature ratehr than broadcast, it might
be deemed to fall into the same category as blocking all carrier route sorted
bulk mail in the real world. However, note that you *can't* get USPS to do
that, either.

  The follow your argument wouldn't there be a difference
between blocking e-mail from a site (eg, the RBL, or your own
sendmail.cf rules) and blackholing an entire site at the IP
level? In one case you are acting as an editor claiming that
only mail is offensive, in the other you are acting as a
service provider preventing damage to your network?

  It would seem to me that if you argue that the site
causes "network problems" and simly toss all of their packets
regardless of content you are safer. It is also nastier to
the spammer/their provider (eg one or two bad apples
render all of AGIS's network unreachable to a great many),
which in theory should get better responce to fix the
problem.

  To site an example, no one questions a providers
ability to filter a site when it is Smurf'ing them, why not
when spamming them?

Filtering at the SMTP level does exactly that. It prevents the damage
done by the spam.

Its also carefully crafted to do ONLY that, where a general packet filter is
not. A general packet filter is appropriate in the case of a smurf attack.