Editing Open mail relay (section)

== History and technology ==
Until the 1990s, mail servers were commonly intentionally configured as open relays; in fact, this was frequently the installation default setting.<ref name="iukb" /> The traditional [[store and forward]] method of relaying e-mail to its destination required that it was passed from computer to computer (through and beyond the Internet) via [[modem]]s on telephone lines. For many early networks, such as [[UUCP#UUCPNET and mapping|UUCPNET]], [[FidoNet]] and [[BITNET]], lists of machines that were open relays were a core part of those networks.<ref name="whatis" /> [[Email filtering|Filtering]] and speed of e-mail delivery were not priorities at that time and in any case the government and educational servers that were initially on the Internet were covered by a federal edict forbidding the transfer of commercial messages.<ref>RFC 1192 Commercialization of the Internet</ref><ref name="aber">{{Cite web|url=http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/geospat/internet.htm |title=Internet and the World Wide Web |access-date=2008-04-07 |last=Aber |first=James S. |work=ES 351 and 771}}</ref>