My ISP has been "blacklisted"!

Many of my emails in response to those of you who have sent me pictures for
the new Rec.Aviation website have been "bouncing back".

When it became obvious that it was NOT "everyone else's" problem, I
contacted Mediacom to inquire about the service. Here is their reply --
anyone care to translate? (What the heck is MAPS and RBL, and why is
MEDIACOM the one that is "blacklisted"?):

Dear Jay,
We have found out that Domains that use the same e-mails servers as
Mediacom, but do not use the same precautions as Mediacom, have been
identified as spammers. Because of this, all other Domains that use MAPS
and RBL to check the validity of our mailserver, have us Blacklisted.

Mediacom has been assured that our mail server will be removed from these
blacklist no later then the first of the week, however it may take up to
another 10 days for all these different domains to update their list and
allow mail to be received into their domain from mchsi.com.

It is advised for all customers to have an updated anti-virus program, and
check their system for Trojans (applet progams sending/receiving
data/e-mail; unsuspecting to user), and possibly a firewall to detect this
traffic.

Also, alot of mailservers are halting all mail to see if it is spam, a
virus, or a suspicious file; thus the delivery or rejection notice could
take up to 3 days for Domains protecting their service.

Randy Jackson

Internet Support Representative
Mediacom Online
(877) 387-8087
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In a previous article, "Jay Honeck" said:
When it became obvious that it was NOT "everyone else's" problem, I
contacted Mediacom to inquire about the service. Here is their reply --
anyone care to translate? (What the heck is MAPS and RBL, and why is
MEDIACOM the one that is "blacklisted"?):

MAPS and RBL are "Mail Abuse Prevention System" and "Realtime Blackhole
List" respecitively. They are both systems that some ISPs use to refuse
email from sites that host spammers. Unfortunately, both sites (and every
other spam blackhole list that I've encountered) are run by megalomaniacs
who think that they are the only true spam solution. Because of this,
they are quick to list whole IP (internet address) ranges as spam sites on
very flimsy evidence, and are very slow to remove those lists if they made
a mistake (which they will never admit was a mistake). Think of them as
the Donald Rumsfelds of spam prevention.

These two lists listed a whole IP range that includes your Mediacom mail
server, probably based on one or two spam reports for spam coming from
other customers of whoever Mediacom got their IP address range from.
Eventually they will unlist the Mediacom range, but they will spin it like
they are making great progress in the war on spam and they are doing you a
great favour.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
-- Andy Tannenbaum

You've fallen in with Spammers.. the horror... Next thing.. you will be
sitting around hangars talking about.. GASP!! Airplanes...

Dave

Jay Honeck wrote:

Many of my emails in response to those of you who have sent me pictures for
the new Rec.Aviation website have been "bouncing back".

When it became obvious that it was NOT "everyone else's" problem, I
contacted Mediacom to inquire about the service. Here is their reply --
anyone care to translate? (What the heck is MAPS and RBL, and why is
MEDIACOM the one that is "blacklisted"?):

Dear Jay,
We have found out that Domains that use the same e-mails servers as
Mediacom, but do not use the same precautions as Mediacom, have been
identified as spammers. Because of this, all other Domains that use MAPS
and RBL to check the validity of our mailserver, have us Blacklisted.

Mediacom has been assured that our mail server will be removed from these
blacklist no later then the first of the week, however it may take up to
another 10 days for all these different domains to update their list and
allow mail to be received into their domain from mchsi.com.

It is advised for all customers to have an updated anti-virus program, and
check their system for Trojans (applet progams sending/receiving
data/e-mail; unsuspecting to user), and possibly a firewall to detect this
traffic.

Also, alot of mailservers are halting all mail to see if it is spam, a
virus, or a suspicious file; thus the delivery or rejection notice could
take up to 3 days for Domains protecting their service.

Randy Jackson

Internet Support Representative
Mediacom Online
(877) 387-8087

MAPS=Mail Abuse Prevention System
RBL=Real-time Blackhole List

Both of these are "blacklists" that many mailservers use to try to prevent
spamming. What happens is some mailservers (probably some at mediacom were
like this) aren't correctly setup. If the server is an "open relay" server,
then it allows outside mailers to use the server to bounce spam off of.
Meaning that I could use Mediacom's servers to send out millions of spam
messages even though I'm not a mediacom subscriber.

What the blacklists are for are to identify these "open relay" servers. My
email server now watches for messages from any blacklisted server and
rejects them.

The fix is for Mediacom to correctly setup their mailserver to prevent this
and the resubmit the server for testing by the blacklist organization. Once
they re-test Mediacom's servers, they will remove them from the blacklist.

From the message, it sounds like Mediacom has reconfigured their server and
are waiting on the blacklists to drop their name. I'm not sure what the
comments regarding Antivirus software and firewalls are all about. Sounds
like a little CYA diversion.

Hope that helps.

Jeff


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:151Ab.236241$Dw6.824310@attbi_s02...
Many of my emails in response to those of you who have sent me pictures
for
the new Rec.Aviation website have been "bouncing back".

When it became obvious that it was NOT "everyone else's" problem, I
contacted Mediacom to inquire about the service. Here is their reply --
anyone care to translate? (What the heck is MAPS and RBL, and why is
MEDIACOM the one that is "blacklisted"?):

Dear Jay,
We have found out that Domains that use the same e-mails servers as
Mediacom, but do not use the same precautions as Mediacom, have been
identified as spammers. Because of this, all other Domains that use MAPS
and RBL to check the validity of our mailserver, have us Blacklisted.

Mediacom has been assured that our mail server will be removed from these
blacklist no later then the first of the week, however it may take up to
another 10 days for all these different domains to update their list and
allow mail to be received into their domain from mchsi.com.

It is advised for all customers to have an updated anti-virus program, and
check their system for Trojans (applet progams sending/receiving
data/e-mail; unsuspecting to user), and possibly a firewall to detect this
traffic.

Also, alot of mailservers are halting all mail to see if it is spam, a
virus, or a suspicious file; thus the delivery or rejection notice could
take up to 3 days for Domains protecting their service.

Randy Jackson

Internet Support Representative
Mediacom Online
(877) 387-8087
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
Think of them as
the Donald Rumsfelds of spam prevention.

Good line. Ashcroft may have been better, but still, got me laughing this
morning...

Michael

Kind of like having the Post Office read your mail before you get it,
just to make sure it's really something you need to see! I'll filter my
own spam, thank you very much!

Jay Honeck wrote:
Many of my emails in response to those of you who have sent me pictures for
the new Rec.Aviation website have been "bouncing back".

When it became obvious that it was NOT "everyone else's" problem, I
contacted Mediacom to inquire about the service. Here is their reply --
anyone care to translate? (What the heck is MAPS and RBL, and why is
MEDIACOM the one that is "blacklisted"?):

Dear Jay,
We have found out that Domains that use the same e-mails servers as
Mediacom, but do not use the same precautions as Mediacom, have been
identified as spammers. Because of this, all other Domains that use MAPS
and RBL to check the validity of our mailserver, have us Blacklisted.

Mediacom has been assured that our mail server will be removed from these
blacklist no later then the first of the week, however it may take up to
another 10 days for all these different domains to update their list and
allow mail to be received into their domain from mchsi.com.

It is advised for all customers to have an updated anti-virus program, and
check their system for Trojans (applet progams sending/receiving
data/e-mail; unsuspecting to user), and possibly a firewall to detect this
traffic.

Also, alot of mailservers are halting all mail to see if it is spam, a
virus, or a suspicious file; thus the delivery or rejection notice could
take up to 3 days for Domains protecting their service.

Randy Jackson

Internet Support Representative
Mediacom Online
(877) 387-8087

Because of this,
they are quick to list whole IP (internet address) ranges as spam sites on
very flimsy evidence, and are very slow to remove those lists if they made
a mistake (which they will never admit was a mistake).


This has the advantage of putting pressure on the ISPs to be a bit more careful
to whom they give accounts. Skin off the customer's back is skin off the
provider's back, and it's the providers that are guilty as well as the spammers
themselves. Many providers have no spam policy, or a 'wink wink' policy.
Others farm it out to all comers. Still others are open relays (they let
others bounce off their servers because they don't keep the door locked - this
was ok in the early days of the internet, but not since the two lawyers started
their spam campaign)

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Jeff Franks wrote:

MAPS=Mail Abuse Prevention System
RBL=Real-time Blackhole List

Both of these are "blacklists" that many mailservers use to try to prevent
spamming.

Up to here, you're right.

RBL (or "DNSRBL" or some variation) has come to be the generic label for the
technology used by MAPS and many other "providers". These providers
provide databases of "problem" IP addresses.

How "problem" is defined varies from list to list. Some list open relays.
Others list those that have sent spam in the past. Others list IPs
allocated to DSL or cable users. And so on.

An ISP - or, in many cases now, individual users - can choose one or more of
these lists to use in filtering their email. They can choose to block mail
from listed addresses outright for one list, or to block mail from
addresses listed on some number of lists, or whatever. Antispam software
is becoming quite flexible.

RBLs kind of act like a "consumer reports" of email transmission. Users
choose which of these lists to trust, and how far. However, there are
plenty of other tools beyond just RBLs. A lot of antispam software
provides some combination of tools, with RBLs being just one.

Most of these tools also provide for whitelists, which means that people can
deliberately "permit" your email, even if it would otherwise be rejected.
However, these can be easily abused themselves as anyone can forge email to
appear to be from anyone else's address.

What happens is some mailservers (probably some at mediacom
were
like this) aren't correctly setup. If the server is an "open relay"
server, then it allows outside mailers to use the server to bounce spam
off of. Meaning that I could use Mediacom's servers to send out millions
of spam messages even though I'm not a mediacom subscriber.


This isn't quite correct. Your description of "open relay" is correct, but
MAPS lists more than just this. In fact, I'm not sure that MAPS lists open
relays at all anymore; there are other lists which do this.

MAPS is just one of many list providers. However, they're one of the most
responsive to listed ISPs. Your ISP should contact them, and - together -
they can resolve the problem. Actually, it sounds like this is in progress
already.

I am saddened that you've been adversely impacted by the tools being used to
fight spammers. I remember a much simpler time, when "open relay" was
considered the polite way to configure a mail server.

Remember that spammers exist because someone is buying. That tells us the
best way to kill them off: get people to stop buying from spammers. Until
then, though, or until some other solution kills them off, I'm afraid that
we must all live with the mess those ... people ... have made of email.

- Andrew

"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
...
Heck, do you put all your unanswered questions on r.a.p?
What about Google? Just put on or more of the terms in the search field.

Heck, if Jay didn't ask these (occasional) OT questions and others wouldn't
reply, there'd be a lot of good questions and answers missing.

There's no such thing as a bad (or stupid) question, just bad answers. This
is a good forum to exchange ideas and learn...

Heck, do you put all your unanswered questions on r.a.p?
What about Google? Just put on or more of the terms in the search field.

Well, Martin, this problem is primarily impacting those who have chosen to
send me pictures of their aircraft, for inclusion on our Rec.Aviation photo
page, http://www.alexisparkinn.com/rec_aviation.htm . (I haven't seen YOUR
airplane yet -- what's up with that?) Since I have not been able to contact
them directly, due to this ISP insanity, I posted it here.

Thus, it seemed appropriate to announce the problem here. While I was at
it, I got a few questions answered.

(As an aside, I am SO sick of technology not working, I'm about ready to
chuck it all in the lake. EVERYTHING, from corporate phone mail, to "tech
support", to cell phones, to email, to search engines DO NOT WORK reliably
or properly, period. Now I can't send email, because some 19-year-old
computer goober set a parameter wrong at my ISP! What next?)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"