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RJ44
join:2001-10-19
Nashville, TN
| reply to NormanS
Re: hey guys,
said by NormanS  :What makes you think that even 10% of the forwarded email is spam? You just can't seem to wrap your mind around the fact that it is from an AT&T/Bellsouth user's third party email account to that same AT&T/Bellsouth user's 'bellsouth.net' account. 100% of it was requested by that user; which means that 0% of it is spam from that user's perspective.
I thought I was done too, but this needs a reply. He (and I) think that ~95% is spam because AT&T made that claim, and so far nobody has bothered to dispute it, except you. And you don't have any more personal knowledge of what's going on than I do. But maybe I'm misunderstanding this whole situation. Let me ask a question. You say 100% was requested by the user, but in reality what is happening is 100% is set to automatically forward to the AT&T account right? Let's suppose that by some wild chance, this user's email account (the one that is being forwarded to AT&T) is getting hit by massive amounts of spam. If that user's account is set up to forward everything it receives to the AT&T account, how can you claim no spam is being forwarded? Maybe I'm misunderstanding this entire situation. I've never run an email server so I'm just trying to interpret what Rahlquist has posted, and it sounds to me like the situation I described above. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding. | |
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
 ·Pacific Bell - SBC
| said by RJ44 :I thought I was done too, but this needs a reply. He (and I) think that ~95% is spam because AT&T made that claim, and so far nobody has bothered to dispute it, except you. And you don't have any more personal knowledge of what's going on than I do. But maybe I'm misunderstanding this whole situation. Let me ask a question. You say 100% was requested by the user, but in reality what is happening is 100% is set to automatically forward to the AT&T account right? Let's suppose that by some wild chance, this user's email account (the one that is being forwarded to AT&T) is getting hit by massive amounts of spam. If that user's account is set up to forward everything it receives to the AT&T account, how can you claim no spam is being forwarded? Let me ask you how I am supposed to handle my spam. I get spam to account "A", and I want to move it to account "B". Maybe I am using account "B" to consolidate my spam for processing by SpamCop.net. If that is the case, what is so wrong with doing that?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding this entire situation. I've never run an email server so I'm just trying to interpret what Rahlquist has posted, and it sounds to me like the situation I described above. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
Is is the understanding that I have; with one consideration. This isn't spam being "broadcast" to a thousand AT&T/Bellsouth customers from the server, it is spam which belongs to a single, particular AT&T/Bellsouth user who wants to use his AT&T/Bellsouth account to handle all of his email. Consolidate it, if you will.
Some people acutally don't want their ISP to reject any email to them, they'd rather filter their own email.
I have done this sort of thing myself. Forwarding spam from a Web mail account within which I did not want to open the email and give the spamvertised site click revenue, or validate the email address. It wouldn't redirect properly directly to SpamCop.net, but it *would* redirect properly to another of my accounts (I actually used an account in my personal domain; but I could have used one of my 'pacbell.net' accounts). From there I could forward it properly (as an attachment) to SpamCop.net.
The way the AT&T/Bellsouth server is treating this, an AT&T/Bellsouth user does not have this option. He either opens is Web mail in his browser, thus feeding the clickstream revenue to the spamvertiser, or he simply trashes his spam without doing anything. Well, he could use an email service which won't treat is forwarded email as AT&T/Bellsouth does; in which case, of what utility is his AT&T/Bellsouth email account to him? Might as well not have an AT&T/Bellsouth account in that case.
P.S. I stopped forwarding my ISP email to my local account because I could not figure out how to stop my server from rejecting certain messages. I now just retrieve my email from that account using POP3. I have configured the Yahoo! Mail server handling that 'pacbell.net' email account to download all email, even that which SpamGuard has marked as possible spam. You see, I *don't* want my personal email server bouncing email it thinks is spam when the source is my ISP email account forwarding the email it has received.
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
RJ44
join:2001-10-19
Nashville, TN
| said by NormanS :Let me ask you how I am supposed to handle my spam. I get spam to account "A", and I want to move it to account "B". Maybe I am using account "B" to consolidate my spam for processing by SpamCop.net. If that is the case, what is so wrong with doing that? Nothing's wrong with it. But if AT&T doesn't want to carry your spam, I don't see anything wrong with them refusing to do so either. The fact that you want to "consolidate" your spam is pointless. You aren't entitled to use their network to transport spam. They don't want to waste network resources transporting spam. Period, end of story. Since it's their network they pretty much get to decide. | |
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| said by RJ44 :Nothing's wrong with it. But if AT&T doesn't want to carry your spam, I don't see anything wrong with them refusing to do so either. The fact that you want to "consolidate" your spam is pointless. You aren't entitled to use their network to transport spam. They don't want to waste network resources transporting spam. Period, end of story. Since it's their network they pretty much get to decide. Fine. The thing about spam is, if they don't want spam on their servers, why are they even running email servers. Spam, or not, we are talking about my data! It isn't like this stuff is child pornography. It isn't like I am soliciting illegal acts from other Bellsouth users. It isn't like I am sending this stuff to unwilling recipients.
Sorry about falling back on "Bellsouth"; but it is pretty clear to me that this isn't one monolithic company. The part of AT&T which used to be Bellsouth, and the part of AT&T which was always AT&T are so at odds with the part of AT&T that used to be SBC. I think I am really going to miss SBC. It seems that this merger was a bad idea, after all.
My suggestion to anybody stuck with the old Bellsouth email service is: "Find a real Email Service Provider".
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
rahlquist
Redeye
join:2001-10-30
Villa Rica, GA
| reply to FAQFixer
said by FAQFixer :The shipping manager is responsible for: 1. Knowingly shipping e-coli infected beef 95% of the time. 2. Knowningly does not inspecting the cargo even though he is accutely aware that he is transporting e-coli in the shipment. 3. Claims atferward that it is "is not my problem nor my concern". I think that everyone in the world (except maybe two people) would say that not accepting any shipments from this manager until something changed is completely reasonable and responsible. 1. No I know no such thing, I know the middle man states that it was infected and shipped it all back to the supplier and I have no way of getting the supplier to send me a sample.
2. I am aware of no such thing, the only thing I am aware of is setting up a shipping conduit, what is requested by the receiver and is sent by the shipper is no more my business than if Joe schmo orders from Adam & Eve online.
3. I am providing a requested service much like delivering a pizza to an apartment and for some reason the landlord thinks its my fault or concern that a million other pizza guys are coming through clogging up his driveway. Not my problem or concern, perhaps the manager of the apartment should spend some of their huge profits and improve the driveway some to keep customers happy instead of banning pizza delivery.
I nor my inlaws are paying AT&T to be our content editor nor is their content editing or perusal wanted or warranted (yes I know its allowable under the AUP). However much like AT&T is being accused of illegally providing call data to the feds they are also quite obviously not simply being a mail transport/storage service. They are obviously actively engaged in content monitoring, management and manipulation be it by software or a combination of software and human intervention.
My problem is a moral one, is it right for them to arbitrarily decide to block non originating email sources? No, I dont think it is morally right, and call me old school or die hard but I think any type of 100% automated blocking is poor form. It is no less poor form than a lynch mob mentality based on word of mouth.
I have no problem with them choosing to block any forwarded spam, but to block all delivery from my server is over the top. To say I cant sent any emails to bellsouth.net because the two forwarded accounts have a high concentration of spam is stupid. Especially when they make it so bloody easy to stack the deck.
I have email thats clearly not spam coming in, it would take no effort at all to start forwarding it into one of my free @bellsouth.net email addresses and have it automatically deleted later. This would tip the scales from the spam side of the equation into the ham side.
My problem is solved, not in an optimum manner but it is handled. AT&T is clearly going to block email servers they dont want sending to their network, thereby changing the service they offer from email to fully filtered messaging. Who know maybe one day they will block all non AT&T email deciding its too costly to allow all that nasty outside content in. This is the main reason I've continued in this thread, is to make sure that others are aware that aunt Betty may get cut off from them one day with up to and including no notice to them at all that its going to happen. And no notice to either the sending or the receiving party that it did happen, just whammo and open void.
Like I have said many times, I block obvious spam, I block faked senders when the forgeries are not spectacular and I still wound up getting blocked. Here are this mornings stats from my server
As you can see buried in those 867 that remain would have been the 128 (today) emails delivered to my in-laws. The only one of the methods that AT&T 'recommends' as a best practice that I do not do nor agree with, nor do I implement is deleting emails based on RBL. Sorry I have been on an RBL before both my own server and my works servers and while RBL is a good complimentary technology its not a solution in and of itself. Otherwise everyone would use it and spam wouldn't exist.
In 2009 we will be fighting to get naked (unmolested) email to go with our not yet competitively priced naked dsl.
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Fed Up With Stupidity?
Patentlystupid.com | |
jorcmg
join:2002-10-24
Covington, GA | I'd start with the whois database and work from there to talk to an actual person. it seems that the postmaster was writing you though. what would you say over the phone that wasn't communicated in the email? | |
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to rahlquist
said by rahlquist :As you can see buried in those 867 that remain would have been the 128 (today) emails delivered to my in-laws. The only one of the methods that AT&T 'recommends' as a best practice that I do not do nor agree with, nor do I implement is deleting emails based on RBL. Sorry I have been on an RBL before both my own server and my works servers and while RBL is a good complimentary technology its not a solution in and of itself. Otherwise everyone would use it and spam wouldn't exist. I will disagree with you on this one. I do use RBLs on my mail server. I just choose which ones I use carefully. I'd rather not use an RBL which will list mail hosts, such as yours, because I have never had a spam issue from such mail hosts (you listening, Bellsouth?) I only use RBLs which list compromised residential hosts (NJABL is one such list), and Spamhaus (which is very conservative in its listing; if Spamhause says a mail host is sending spam, it is sending spam).
As for speaking of AT&T in general, I'd like to stress that I have none of the trouble with AT&T that Bellsouth users are facing. I am pretty sure that is because the side of AT&T providing my Internet access is still run according to SBC principles. SBC was providing Internet access indepent of AT&T when AT&T was first accused of rolling over for the NSA, and not, yet, a part of SBC.
Because it was SBC which bought AT&T, I still think of it in terms of SBC. However, the new AT&T has seen fit to assign administration of 'bellsouth.net' to what was once "AT&T Wordlnet Services"; while administration of the nine legacy SBC email domains is still under "AT&T Internet Services", which used to be called, "SBC Internet Services". One company, two contrasting email philosophies.
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
Kala
@bellsouth.net
| reply to rahlquist
Re: Bellsouth blocking my legit email server
On Oct 5,2007 I stop getting email in. I have Bellsouth.net and I have called and called for help on this. To make a very long store short. If I use AT&T email page I can get my email. But If I use my Incredimail I can't. But if I take my computer out of my home and take it to two different places I have not trouble opening my email in my Incredimal. I have heard every kind of story that they can give a person. Hope some one out there can help me out on this. :-( | |
Kala
@bellsouth.net
|  This is Kala and I got my answer to my own question. Being I have a new computer With Windows Vista and had Circuit City put in and Spy Sweeper it was fighting with the new computer HP Anti-Virus that I didn't now it was in and also AT&T has some thing going on with a spam all these things are fighting with each other making it hard for any email to get to me. I was on the phone for 3 hours with AT&T and we got this fixed and I am passing this on to any one else that should have the same trouble. Good Luck Thanks again for having this set up. Kala | |
paulkruger
join:2006-07-27
Interlachen, FL
 ·Comcast
| reply to rahlquist
I do run a server with hundreds of emails. I run a tight ship and have no open relays. Occasionally someone will use a poor password when creating an account and get hacked but I normally find that quick and change passwords.
I have had repeated problems with BellSouth and the problem is they don't really care about small business and how important email can be to them. We are dealing with a block again that affects ALL of my domain clients based on some forwarded spam.
1) These messages do not originate on my server.
2) Business customers also receive legitimate emails from their web site and have a right to do so.
3) There is no filter I know of to pass legitimate emails and block only spam. ( I'd be wealthy if I could do that reliably )
4) Therefor, customers have a right ( NEED ) to decide for themselves what is or is not a valuable email to them.
5) A block on a specific server IP denies every single (Paying) BellSouth customer, residential or business, access to their own legitimate emails including any who don't even use forwarding.
I hate spammers and their trash. But I also won't enable RBL because I don't believe I have the right to decide for someone else what mail they are allowed to receive. My server offers spam filtering and it will delete anything it thinks is spam IF the customer so decides. That is the way it should be. BellSouth's paying customers should have the right to choose to have mail filtered or not. It is not ethical for BellSouth ( or other ISP's ) to make the decision on behalf of a customer without offering them the option.
Some argue "...it's their network, they can do what they want..." to which I counter, yes BUT they are selling access to their network and the people paying to use that network should not then have someone dictate what they can read.
To BellSouth customer's...complain very loud or threaten to find another ISP if they don't sent their email to them and then let them ( customers ) decide what is junk or not. | |
paulkruger
join:2006-07-27
Interlachen, FL
·Comcast
| reply to rahlquist
Send email to:
abuse_rbl@abuse-att.net
postmaster@bellsouth.net
postmaster@att.net
bellsouth_unblock@abuse-att.net
postmaster@abuse-att.net
I also suggest loud complaining to BellSouth by paying customers who should be the people deciding what they want to read. I hate spam...but I hate censorship worse.
Bell has a habit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater by blocking any mail from a specific IP address with no regards to legitimate emails. They are NOT filtering spam they are blocking ALL MESSAGES whether or not they are spam. | |
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