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Comment Re:SMTP, DNS, US Customs (Score 1) 109

There are a few problems with using your ISP as your outbound relay: You are now dependent on their SMTP and DNS service. Both for performance and availability. Part of the appeal of running your own SMTP server is that you can operate independently.

For inbound, port 25 has to be unblocked, which eliminates many residential connections. This is less of a big issue, but not ideal.

-molo

Comment SMTP, DNS, US Customs (Score 5, Interesting) 109

It seems that it is getting more and more difficult to successfully run your own SMTP server. See, for example, this post responding to the idea that a user was going to move off gmail to their own server. Are there any prospects for meaningful SMTP reform that would lower the barrier to entry for legitimate emailers?

DNS has been often criticized as a centralized single point of failure / censorship. Have you been following the development of namecoin and P2P DNS? Are these systems viable in your estimation? How would you improve them or encourage their adoption?

The US Customs department recently created headlines in seizing domains. These seizures appear to be extra-legal (not founded in law), but ICANN has gone along with them. Are those fair statements? Should ICANN's trustworthiness be suspect as a result of this process?

Thanks and cheers.
-molo

Comment Re:Why aren't they really occupying Wall Street? (Score 1) 944

Wall Street as a physical location only has a handful of big financial institutions now. NYSE, Deutsche Bank (40 Wall), Bank of New York (1 Wall), Citi (111 Wall). Many of them have moved to other parts of the the city, including midtown, or even to Jersey City. Many of the buildings have now been converted to residential condos or apartments (15 Broad St., 37 Wall, 45 Wall, 63 Wall, 75 Wall).

If they actually occupied the street it would mostly just piss off the local residents and prompt arrests from the NYPD.

-molo

Comment Re:What would Americans comment to this? (Score 1) 1019

I know that for instance mortgage is a different thing in the US, in Holland the debt stays with you and if selling the house doesn't cover the debt you get to keep paying, whereas Americans can apparently just abandon the house and walk away, the debt is with the house.

This is not true. When people say they walk away from a mortgage, it essentially means they are declaring bankruptcy and their credit is destroyed. If you sell a house below the price you paid for it, you will take a loss and still have to pay off the loan.

-molo

Comment Long-distance VHF/UHF happens often (Score 1) 71

Look at the records for 144MHz and 430MHz long distance ham radio contacts (two-way contacts; ignore the EME section, those are being bounced off the moon). Note that distances are in kilometers. Tropospheric ducting is occasionally strong enough to even propagate 430MHz FM signals long distances, like the 2672km contact between northwestern Spain and a ship off the coast of Mauritania.

Most countries limit their ham radio licensees to less than 2kW. In the US it is 1.5kW. In the UK it depends on the license level, I think. This is more than enough power to reach long distances, even on VHF and UHF. The reason your FM broadcast radio doesn't reach long distances is basically that broadcast radio receivers are generally very poor in terms of sensitivity. And the antennas used are similarly poor. Another factor is that the US radio market (maybe the UK also?) is fairly saturated in metropolitan areas. When you drive close to the edge range of a transmitter, often another station begins interfering. There is a zone where you can receive neither very well without directional antennas.

Some more reading on VHF propagation is on Wikipedia.

-molo

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