Phorm and Cookies

[John Lamb]

On Thu, Apr 03, 2008 at 10:51:23AM +0100, james2@jfirth.net wrote:
> 
> Port numbers are completely analogous to service codes/service types in the
> telecommunications industry.  Internet Protocol (IP) is defines 2^16
> different service codes.  In fact Unix-like systems today still call their
> port definition file "services".
> 
> Where is it stated that an ISP has to provide every one of these services?
> 
> Since the port number is at the top of the packet alongside the destination
> address, and is defined as "destination port", the ISP is clearly allowed to
> inspect this information as part of routing traffic.
> 
> If it's clear in the terms of service that users cannot access port 25
> (SMTP) of outside services then surely only competition law could be used to
> challenge this.
> 

AOL block outbound traffic to port 25 from their ADSL subscribers to
all but their own servers - they permit outbound authenticated SMTP on
port 587 though.

http://postmaster.aol.com/faq/port25faq.html

Presumably this is because the spam-bots aren't using port 587 quite
yet. Can't be long though...