Bigpond Static IP: An anti-spam measure

27 Sep 2005

Look carefully at the screenshot above. Something is incongruous.

Yes, that’s right, this “Static IP demonstration” is all about Telstra’s spam filter product (which, incidentally, they charge for — boy am I glad we aren’t using Telstra email as well as Cable in this house!). I clicked through to the demonstration because I was interested to know how exactly one explains the purpose of a static IP to Joe Smallbiz — and the idea that one could creatively demonstrate a number–and a static number no less–seemed too good to miss.

It seems, however, that BigPond’s answer to the great (or should I say bulk…y…) unsolicited email question that floats above the present Internet generation like a puddle doesn’t, is simply to assign everyone static IP addresses and be done with it. Wow. What forward thinking from one of the world’s most notoriously backwards ISPs!

Of course, the whole thing would require an adoption of IPv6 to function, which would defeat the purpose as there would be ample spare resources to acquire once any given IP/subnet got blacklisted, but you know… an interesting concept.