sblake
join:2001-03-15
Oklahoma City, OK | Has AT&T and/or Yahoo started filtering Spam?
All of a sudden the 75 to 100 spam emails I get daily have stopped. Has AT&T and/or Yahoo started filtering Spam? |
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McSummation
Mmmm, Zeebas Are Tastee.
Premium,MVM
join:2003-08-13
Round Rock, TX | Based on the junk I'm seeing, the answer is "no". |
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Old_Grouch
If you don't want to know...don't ask
Premium
join:2004-05-26
Greenwood, IN
clubs:
 ·AT&T Midwest
| reply to sblake
Maybe --
In This Thread there has been some notice of a similar decline and a speculation that Yahoo is upgrading some of the servers to reduce the spam before it even gets near your account.
I've noted a similar reduction...from hundreds per day to hands full. So, I'm hoping the speculation is right. If it is, they may not have gotten to McSummation  's server yet.
--
At Team Discovery we know how to get more outta that danged 'puter of yours!
If you paid taxes it's a rebate. If you didn't, it's welfare. |
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McSummation
Mmmm, Zeebas Are Tastee.
Premium,MVM
join:2003-08-13
Round Rock, TX
·AT&T Southwest
| After going back and looking at the Junk folder in my Thunderbird, it appears that the amount that came in through my SBC account is less than it used to be. Most now comes through my mcsummation account, which is unfiltered at the ISP.
Now, are the filters that Yahoo seem to be installing any better than the previous ones? I am concerned with ISP filtering because Yahoo's filters kept filtering out things I didn't want filtered. My primary account is at 1&1 and I specifically asked if they filtered and they said, "No, because we can't know what you consider junk and what's not." |
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icp1
Premium
join:2000-10-13
Saint Louis, MO
clubs: | reply to sblake
I am still on the old accounts (.swbell) not yahoo, and I see the same thing.
I am seeing only a few-10 per day instead of the 300+ per day I used to get. |
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GB34
join:2004-12-08
Adrian, MO | reply to sblake
I too, have had a major reduction in spam the last few days. Instead of 50-60 a day I only had 3 today. Don't know why but I'm certainly not complaining. |
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rmyork
@suddenlink.net | I've seen a drop in SPAM by about 90%. Two real people are reporting that their emails to me are being blocked. |
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bwclark
join:2004-07-05
Eureka, CA | reply to sblake
Huge reduction in SPAM! I have four email addresses and normally get 100+ SPAM emails....down to less than 10.
 |
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montana3087
Say hello to my little friend
Premium
join:2001-05-03
Santa Clara, CA
clubs:
|  reply to sblake
Yeah, I have to search through my spam anyway to make sure I didn't miss that important email I was waiting for and have noticed that the last couple of days it has been pretty much spam free. But I'm wondering if legit emails are being filtered too?
--
You know what? I have a ball. Perhaps you'd like to bounce it? |
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Larus Hale
@sbcglobal.net | reply to sblake
I too have experienced about a 90% reduction in Spam in the past few days, but I'm wondering where we can look to see what is being filtered out to see what legit emails, if any, are being filtered out. Does anyone know?
Larus |
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KKoch
@swbell.net
| reply to sblake
I too have seen a hugh reduction in the spam in my inbox. Which is nice if all the filterd emails were actually spam. Unfortunately, a family member who is not 100% computer literate (80+ years old) sends me emails almost every day. Those emails are addressed to "Undisclosed Recipient". And to spam filters that usually means spam. BUT I don't use any of my ISP's filtering products. I have turned them off just so I can recieve my family members email. But it looks like they are filtering anyway.
I haven't been getting my family members emails in the last week. |
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ks_av8r
Premium
join:2003-09-17
Newton, KS | reply to rmyork
Just out of curiosity, are they receiving some type of notice that their email is being blocked? |
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KKoch
@swbell.net | I haven't heard anything....yet. |
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homenode
Premium
join:2007-11-18
Bullhead City, AZ
| reply to sblake
Legitimate messages from non-at&t domains are being blocked by these new filters. The sender may receive a bounce response or not - at&t seems to have stopped sending bounce responses this afternoon.
There are several threads running on this problem here at DSLReports:
»Where did my spam go?
»Email Problems?
»Bellsouth blocking my legit email server
There is also a story at The Register on this:
»www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/24···filters/
So, if you're with at&t (at&tworldnet, yahoo, sbcglobal, prodigy, pacbell, etc.) you should contact your support and find out if there is anything you can do to get information to non-at&t correspondents. Others are already reporting important business and personal email messages are being lost.
Hope this helps. |
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Fiscal
join:2007-11-13
Longview, TX
| reply to sblake
I'm an sbcglobal.net customer. I too have noticed a great reduction in spam. My practice was to download everything, and items that were marked as [Bulk] went directly to my trash folder. I'd review those items which were normally spam and empty the trash... but the reviewing let me get legitimate messages that were mistakenly marked as spam. I liked this method of handling spam. Three questions:
1) Who is blocking my spam before I see it?
2) Why did they change the way spam is handled?
3) Can we make them go back to the old way so legitimate mail is not blocked? |
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KKoch
@swbell.net
| reply to sblake
Just got off the phone with "Josh" @ATT tech support and he advised me to check the "Leave a copy of message on server" checkbox on my advanced properties menu in my Outlook Express mail account. I'm using Win 98, so it may be slightly different if you are using another MS OS.
Don't know if it's going to work, since I just changed it. But we'll see...
cheers |
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McSummation
Mmmm, Zeebas Are Tastee.
Premium,MVM
join:2003-08-13
Round Rock, TX
·AT&T Southwest
| said by KKoch :
Just got off the phone with "Josh" @ATT tech support and he advised me to check the "Leave a copy of message on server" ... What the heck is that going to accomplish? If they've filtered it, it's already gone before it gets to your inbox on the server. |
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homenode
Premium
join:2007-11-18
Bullhead City, AZ
| reply to Fiscal
From what I've been able to find in research on this, at&t is blocking the spam in their pre-filter that is not user accessible. This is also where the virus filtering is done.
at&t changed the filtering to reject mail that is coming directly from SMTP hosts that are in a dynamic IP block. The reason for this is that the majority of spam originates from infected (or "p0wnd") home computers - nearly all of which get a dynamic IP address from their ISP. The bot infection that sends the spam is usually a stand-alone email program that, among other tricks to fool spam filters, attempts to send directly to an MX host (the equivalent of a DNS host for email) that is associated with the target email domain. This bypasses the possibility that the "public" email route for the target of the spam is actually a 3rd. party spam filter, thus ensuring that the mail gets delivered with only local Bayesian filtering - or no filtering - in place. (Bayesian filters, while good, are readily bypassed by the new spam engines.)
So blocking mail from dynamic IP addresses is a very strong tool for stopping the overwhelming tide of bot spam.
Unfortunately, there are many legitimate businesses and individuals that do run small email and web servers from dynamic IP addresses. (I'm one of them.) Often these are club list servers, or user group BBS - the type of thing that can be expected from "advanced amateur" computer users. This new level of filtering also blocks those servers.
It is a fair trade-off for the level of security it provides: legitimate SOHO mail servers make up only a few hundredths of a percent of the dynamic IP addresses out there, so they can either get static (non-changing) IP addresses (usually only US$20-100 per month more from their ISP, in combination with other useful services) or move their mail/BBS servers to a hosted server farm (also only a few dollars more per month).
You can try contacting at&t to ask about disabling the filtering for your account. It is very, VERY unlikely that at&t will do this for you - it defeats the entire purpose of applying the filter across their ENTIRE domain.
More useful would be to send an email to all the folks on your contacts list informing them that you are now protected by at&t's "super filter", and for them to reply to your message; when you get their reply, you will send THEM a reply stating that "You're OK, keep sending me mail". If they DO NOT get a reply from you, then they are BLOCKED, and need to either (a) rebuild their computer to remove a bot infection; (b) get a static IP address or (c) get a new email provider/hosting service that does NOT use a dynamic IP address or hosts known spam sources. Gmail, Yahoo! mail and MSN Live are all alternatives for cheap, WEB-based email services that are not being blocked.
This seems to be the end to a sad, sad tale. Since I live in a caravan ("motor-home" for the Yanks) I am never going to be able to get a static IP address. My alternative is buying hosted services, which I will do for my business and personal servers. I'm expecting this to be fairly expensive, much more so than the current investment I have in hardware and software for managing this via wireless. I've resisted this for years, primarily because I have to give up so much control, but it's time to move on. |
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Lizz
Premium
join:2002-10-22
Fullerton, CA
| Brett,
I've heard that the problem is actually on the Yahoo! servers, not AT&T.
I don't know what they're doing, but today I'm receiving spam in my inbox: 5 so far today. None in the bulk/spam folder.
I do have a plain vanilla Yahoo address, but it rarely received spam in the past, and that still holds true. Doesn't get much legit email either, so it's not a good barometer of what's currently going on. |
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homenode
Premium
join:2007-11-18
Bullhead City, AZ
| Lizz, it appears that the problem is over most of the at&t domains, not just Yahoo!. Also sbcglobal, attworldnet, prodigy, and some of the other RBOCs that are again part of at&t are all reporting this issue.
I've done some research into how they're using the PBL (Policy Block List), which is how this is being implemented. Ordinarily the fact that I use a MTA (mail transfer agent) at DNS2GO would be construed as having an "OK" IP address for mail acceptance, as all the MX (Mail Exchange) records for my domains point to the DNS2GO MTA, which has a set of static IP addresses that it uses. However, the originator address for my mail is from my PC, which is on a private subnet that is translated (NAT) to a dynamic public IP address by my gateway/modem. THIS address show as the original sender of the email, and it is THIS address that is being subject to PBL blocking.
As I mention above, I'm hosed because I can't get a static IP for a wireless modem (or at least not without paying upwards of $1000/mo), so I'm going to have to move my domains into a hosted server environment and give up mobile computing except for web mail. There are a few little bright points of light left, but I doubt that I'm going to be able to afford to continue with this experiment.
For more info on RBL, XBL, PBL, ROKSO and DROP, read the info at The Spamhaus Project:
»www.spamhaus.org/
Spamhaus is considered to be the "gold standard" of blocklists in the world. I use them for my own RBL/XBL/PBL block lists (their ZEN list). I was actually blacklisted by them way back in the early 1990's (I had an open relay - OOPS!) and they were very helpful in getting me fixed up and protected - and off their list for good. They explain how these systems work and what the up and down sides are. |
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