January 2003 Archives
authd .. was a kick ass mail filter for its time. Unfortunately, spammers eventually got smarter, and better applications (such as SpamAssassin) have become increasingly neccesary. The authd.org site has details on the history behind it, as well as the last public release of it.
Authd's primary goal was to refuse mail before even seeing the message body. The state of mail these days, is that .. you really need to look at the message bodies any more before determining ham or spam. as such, authd any more is nothing more than an alternative ACL system for SMTP, and hardly a spam deterrent.
What is gigo you might ask?
The Hacker's Dictionary has this to say:
GIGO:- /gi:'goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' -- usually said in response to lusers who complain that a program didn't "do the right thing" when given imperfect input or otherwise mistreated in some way. Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. 2. `Garbage In, Gospel Out': this more recent expansion is a sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have to put excessive trust in `computerized' data.
For the purposes of this site, it was given new meaning several years
ago. I applied the GIGO name to a software package I
wrote. The primary purpose of that package was to translate messages
between a hobby based system called Fidonet to the Internet. The name
Garbage In, Garbage Out seemed rather suitable, given the nature
of what was being transfered.
This site is now primarily a home for hobbyists. It provides
free services to hobby groups and individuals who contribute to the
community.
About gigo.com hosted services
GIGO.COM hosts various services for friends and hobby groups. Typically such hosting is not going to be billed for as long as it is for a worthy cause, and my costs for hosting it are not unreasonable.
Previously we took no business opportunities at all. Now that we are in a commercial colocation center, with all the benefits (and costs!) association with it, we are no longer turning down business web site hosting. Fees for this will be negotiated on
a case by case basis, with the primary concern being cost recovery. Non commercial sies will still be free.
What we do do, for our friends, and for hobby groups who need a home:
- Web hosting for low impact sites
- Web hosting for higher impact sites, if colo fees are planned for
and covered
- Mail hosting and forwarding, especially those suffering from big-name
ISP mail blues.
- Mailing list hosting for mail-based forums
- DNS hosting and management, both static and on-demand dynamic
