AT&T aborts plan to block e-mail

[dArKeR]

In a sign of how desperate companies have become to stem the flow of spam, managers at AT&T were about to implement a policy that would block all e-mails to its employees not sent from a trusted group of computers. In a memo this week, AT&T asked its major business clients and some Internet service providers to turn over the Internet addresses of their e-mail systems. After resistance, it halted plans to create a so-called e-mail “white list.”

“WHAT AT&T is asking is for you to help AT&T to restrict incoming mail to just our known and trusted sources (e.g., business partners, clients and customers),” read the Oct. 21 memo, sent by AT&T network managers and obtained by MSNBC.com.
The plan would have created a white list — a database of known and trusted computers, identified by their Internet Protocol (IP) numbers, which are assigned to every computer online. E-mail servers can be reprogrammed to accept incoming mail only from white-listed servers. Anyone who tried to send mail from a server not included on the list would have it kicked back.
“We need to know which IP address(es) are used by your outbound e-mail service so we can selectively permit them,” said the memo, an apparent follow-up to an earlier request for IP addresses. It also noted AT&T had “received many concerned responses” about its plan.

http://msnbc.com/news/983380.asp?0cv=CB10

What if media companies do this and then outsiders can't give them commet? What if government, Fed. and State do this and we not able to contact them?

[Noordam]

1. Been there done that. @ IBM

OK email was not the same in the late 80s as now :D but I did a contract at IBM Tampa on their security for outsiders contacting IBMers by "email" OK maybe it was called PROFS.

Their system was crazy.