Roaming & SMTP

I am travelling quite a log, and when I travel I often bring my laptop with me. Getting it online is seldom a problem, there is always a network, either someone's LAN, a public WiFi-node or some sort of dial-up.

In past times this was in itself a problem, having to configure IP, gateways and DNS servers, as well as to tell the computer which adapter to use. No problem anymore as XP uses any and all connections seamlessly. It also switches between them if one falls out. All in all; life as a roamer is quite easy.

Now, the one thing that is not simple is SMTP. With the increase in Spam most (if not all) SMTP servers do not allow relaying. This is a good policy. So whenever I roam I will have to find a local SMTP server that allows my IP to use it for roaming. This is not really too hard, but with the second problem being that most of these servers now also have restrictions on the From-address it becomes difficult. (I send with atleast 5 different addresses so some flexibility is needed...)

I used to have a computer of my own online (an old 486) which I set up with SMTP authentication, which then allowed me to relay. When it died I got stuck, often having to use VPN to reach the university network (atleast from places where that is possible). My ISP currently does not allow me to relay, even when my sending address is in its MX... well, not too strange, but still... :(

The question is; does anyone know any company that sells an STMP-auth service to people like me? (I know that I can use SSH port-forwarding and other things... but all I want is one SMTP server that handles all my e-mail wherever I am...)

Posted by ludvig at August 20, 2003 01:30 PM | TrackBack