At 18:07 9/11/2005, Steve Biddle wrote:
After experiencing email problems I've noticed Paradise's SMTP server is currently being blocked by SpamCop.
http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblock&ip=203.96.152.177
Anybody got any comments? These email problems have been ongoing over the last few weeks so I suspect the server (smtp1.paradise.net.nz) has been on the list for some time.
Warning, rant ahead. :) The same thing happened to us (for the first time) a few weeks ago. No warning of any kind we just suddenly notice that some of our outgoing mail is getting rejected. So I go to the spamcop website to look up our mailserver to see whats going on, and find there is NO information on why we've been blacklisted, just a list of "possible reasons" why spamcop blacklist servers. There is a method to follow to get yourself removed from the list immediately, but it has the veiled threat attached to it that you can only use it "once" and if a further re-ocurrance of a spam report occurs you will be immediately blocked again for at least 12 hours. Not happy with this, since I have no idea WHAT the reason for the block was in the first place, I email them through their contact form complaining that no evidence has been provided as to why the block was in place, and that I can't confirm the "problem" is fixed if I don't know what the supposed problem is. I get back an email response (admitedly fairly quickly, when I wasn't expecting any response) which says: "Your server is not an open relay, but you have a user that is infected with a mass-mailer trojan/malware" (and finally a copy of some message headers that prove it) WHAT ? An entire ISP's mailserver blocked because one user is infected with a spam trojan ? Gosh, if thats their policy, every ISP on the planet is going to keep getting blocked all the time, as I don't know of ANY ISP that doesn't have at least a few customers infected with a spam zombie/trojan at a given time. Not only that, but the sample message header they provided had many of the message fields obfuscated, including the message id tag and the time, making it extremely difficult to track the message back to a specific customer anyway. (As it was a dynamic dialup ip, the exact time is required to confirm their identity....) Another thing with spamcop is that they do NOT verify "spam complaints" from people submitting them to the site before putting someone on a blocklist, it is an automated process. So all it takes is a few disgruntled (or ignorant) netizens to list the same server, and bang, you're on there, whether guilty or innocent. What surprised me during this whole episode is just how many people (including large ISP's) seem to use the spamcop list as an outright block at the SMTP level seemingly without knowing or understanding spamcops (poor) policies. I strongly suggest that people DONT do SMTP level blocks using spamcop lists, as they are simply not trustworthy enough, I only use spamcop as a points scoring mechanism in spamassassin, I've never trusted it for outright blocking... Regards, Simon Byrnand iGRIN Internet