Topic 'Re: AT&T and Yahoo servers' in forum 'AT&T Midwest' - dslreports.com

Re: Where did my spam go?

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:44:58 EDT

anon posted : I work for a medium-sized ISP and recently we have noticed an increase in customers who cannot send to AT&T, yahoo, or sbcglobal, even though the IP address they are sending from is not blacklisted. We pay close attention to RFC compliance, especially reverse DNS matching both the MX record for the zone as well as the mailserver greeting. Sometimes they receive an error message, other times they do not. Here is the latest error message received by a customer:

Response: 553 5.3.0 nlpi046,DNSBL:RBL To request removal of,
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, send the complete error message in an E-mail to removeme@sbc.

I have created a yahoo group called Internet Service Providers aimed primarily at ISPs who are experiencing difficulty sending to sbcglobal, AT&T, et al. This group is also open to any user who is having difficulty sending email to these domains, and will be closely moderated. Feel free to join in the discussion!

Re: Definitely not getting emails

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:33:36 EDT

tonyreo posted : David,

Here is the text of error message:

Delete Prev Next Reply/All Forward/Inline Open Trash 276 of 297 Inbox Draft Junk Mail Sent Trash

Date: Fri 4 Apr 06:10:19 EDT 2008
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem Add To Address Book | This is Spam
Subject: Returned mail: Cannot send message within 8 hours
To: breo08@jcu.edu

The original message was received at Thu, 3 Apr 2008 21:49:01 -0400 (EDT) from mirapoint.jcu.edu [76.227.135.244]

----- The following addresses had permanent delivery errors ----- tonyreo@scbglobal.net

Reporting-MTA: dns; mirapoint.jcu.edu
Arrival-Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 21:49:01 -0400 (EDT)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; tonyreo@scbglobal.net
Action: failed
Status: 4.4.7
Remote-MTA: DNS; scbglobal.net
Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 06:10:19 -0400 (EDT)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attachment: message.rfc822 (1k bytes) Open

Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 21:49:01 -0400 (EDT)
From:
Subject: Receipt for message:
To: "Tony"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delete Prev Next Reply/All Forward/Inline Open Trash 276 of 297 Inbox Draft Junk Mail Sent Trash

Re: Definitely not getting emails

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:19:31 EDT

David posted : Can you post the error or message you are getting?

Re: Definitely not getting emails

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 08:40:42 EDT

tonyreo posted : I have tried the "removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net", it didn't work. I hate to complain but what the heck are they doing?

Re: Definitely not getting emails

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:53:18 EDT

David posted : Did the someone get a bounce message back? If he/she did all they should have to do is send it to removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net and they typically unblock it.

Definitely not getting emails

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:07:49 EDT

anon posted : Someone sent an email reply to me and CC'd a friend -- he received it, I didn't. (I hadn't put this person's email address into my Outlook Express address book though.) Other reports of not receiving emails also. This is awful. I don't know what to do now. I'm paying $15.99 a month just to keep my stupid sbcglobal.net email address also (my Internet connection is included in my rent). This is ridiculous.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:59:08 EDT

David posted :

said by rolande:

The good thing is I am married to a super advanced warning system that detects problems the instant they occur. All I know is is when the whining starts about missing email, then there is a problem. No whining going on here yet... ;)

You employ THE WIFE too? What version you running? I am running BLONDE 1.0 rev. 2
--
If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this.
Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:37:22 EDT

rolande posted : So, strangely enough I have noticed the same trend in Spam drop off on my own mailserver over the past few weeks which I host behind my DSL line on a static IP using my own direct MX forwarding. I have probably been getting 10% of the normal Spam volume hitting my SpamAssassin filters. I wonder if the DNSBL's have gotten more aggressive. I did a variety of maintenance work and updates to my SpamAssassin install during this time and I thought that was related but the messages are not even getting beyond the intial milters on port 25 if they are even coming in at all. The only stuff I see getting through has fairly valid headers and SpamAssassin has been catching pretty much all of that crap.

The good thing is I am married to a super advanced warning system that detects problems the instant they occur. All I know is is when the whining starts about missing email, then there is a problem. No whining going on here yet... ;)
--
Ignorance is temporary...stupidity lasts forever!

»www.thewaystation.com/
»blog.thewaystation.com/

Re: Email domains w/Disposable or Wildcard Addresses now a PITA

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:35:02 EDT

justbits posted : This is a great way for AT+T to lose some of the more advanced customers that run services from their home DSL line.

With this change, the primary alternatives are:
* switch to a different provider that provides a static IP address. (For me, SpeakEasy, Covad, Lightning Bolt DSL, maybe others.)
* switch to a business package that has a static IP address.
* find a third party to pay that provides wildcard email domain address forwarding.

Unless this is a marketing decision to get people running email servers to switch to business accounts (non-RBLed static IPs), I don't see how preventing wildcard email domains is a spam or security threat to AT+T/Yahoo. I can see how this makes complete sense for "free" Yahoo! accounts where anybody can create an account, abuse it, and leave it. However, AT+T/Yahoo's service is directly tied to monetary payments and a billing system that can physically locate the person responsible for a particular email account.

If they're worried on the technical side that someone may decide that they want to send as *@gmail.com, I can understand where that trust issue comes from. Therefore, I propose doing something similar to what Google Apps requires. Require that the customer provide a DNS record that AT+T Yahoo generates, and can thus verify by a DNS lookup.

Google does domain verification by requiring the customer to create a new DNS CNAME record, such as:
googlefffffafbfcfdfefg.mydomain.com. CNAME google.com.
By having the customer modify their DNS domain information, this provides sufficient proof that the requester owns that particular domain and has the capability to edit the DNS records for that domain.

I understand that adding a DNS verification method to validate wildcarded email domains for email verification could require significant work on AT+T/Yahoo's side of the world and that it probably can't be done overnight. But, it's a solution to a problem that they're otherwise ignoring that could result in an exodus of a certain kind of AT+T/Yahoo customer.

Another alternative that AT+T could provide to solve my problem is single static IP addresses. I'd be happy to pay $5/month (maybe $10/month) to get a single static IP address that is NOT listed in any RBL (realtime black list). As I understand it, single static IPs can be done with changes to PPPoE Authentication on the customer side (@static.sbcglobal.net?) and configuration on the Redback(s). I'm sure there are several blocks of addresses out there that AT+T hasn't registered with RBLs as dynamic IP addresses.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:28:13 EDT

Ozzie4 posted : Just another person chiming in, but mostly in thanks. I visited this forum after not being here in a week or so and read the post. Not thinking much of it, I realized I had gotten a lot less spam. Looking in the spam folder though I found all sorts of stuff blocked that shouldn't have been - job offers from companies I've gotten mail from for years, legitimate business I do work with and for including some requests for work (!), and even a note from my mom that was bounced for some reason (apparently AOL is unsafe now?).

The new spam filter is a bit too agressive. If I hadn't read this, I'd have lost actual money from those job offers I saved last night.

Re: Email domains w/Disposable or Wildcard Addresses now a PITA

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:53:48 EDT

David posted : I turned your request over to a few friends and from what I got back it only accepts individual addresses at this time not domains. Basically from what I got Yahoo! is not budging on the issue. Apparently it was covered prior to you guys thinking it.

Re: Email domains w/Disposable or Wildcard Addresses now a PITA

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:16:44 EDT

justmb posted : I vote for this too!

I need disposable address support!

Re: Email domains w/Disposable or Wildcard Addresses now a PITA

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:48:54 EDT

NormanS posted :

said by justbits:

Therefore, I propose that on the "Step 2: Enter Email Address" page, "Name:" be allowed to be "postmaster@mydomain.com" and "Email:" be allowed to be "*@mydomain.com" so that postmaster@mydomain.com is responsible for all email originated as *@mydomain.com for my AT+T Yahoo email credentials. The "verification" email would be sent to postmaster@mydomain.com. If AT+T Yahoo would require me to implement DomainKeys or DKIM, I'd be glad to enter that information as a part of the configuration process for getting wildcard domains approved.

I will second this proposal.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Email domains w/Disposable or Wildcard Addresses now a PITA

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:45:36 EDT

justbits posted : I'd like to point out that the error 553 document and »help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/o···-07.html URL describe a procedure that only works with the "Classic Mail" interface. It also fails to work with email domains that provide disposable/wildcard addresses.

I run my own email server. I have my own version of Disposable Email Addresses that works similar to how wildcard email domains work. The "error 553" change now requires that I "Verify" every single unique email address that I expect to originate email from by going though a configuration page on the AT+T Yahoo Email configuration web site. That is going to be nearly impossible to automate with my email domain(s) that provide wildcard and/or disposable email addresses.

What I'd like to propose is that domains can be added and validated such that *@mydomain.com is acceptable not just oneaddress@mydomain.com. (Where "*" represents that any email address user is valid.)

Therefore, I propose that on the "Step 2: Enter Email Address" page, "Name:" be allowed to be "postmaster@mydomain.com" and "Email:" be allowed to be "*@mydomain.com" so that postmaster@mydomain.com is responsible for all email originated as *@mydomain.com for my AT+T Yahoo email credentials. The "verification" email would be sent to postmaster@mydomain.com. If AT+T Yahoo would require me to implement DomainKeys or DKIM, I'd be glad to enter that information as a part of the configuration process for getting wildcard domains approved.

Can you help get this change to allow wildcard/disposable email domains? Whose cage should I start rattling?

Re: AT&T and Yahoo servers

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:22:13 EDT

David posted : For those that are needing it, here is the err553 document and details.

err553.pdf

AT&T and Yahoo servers

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:46:27 EDT

anon posted : Wow, NormanS, thank you so much for the very detailed answer, with screen shots and all. I skimmed it for now and will study it later when I have the time. Very enlightening, thank you.

Re: List of domain names

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:24:45 EDT

NormanS posted :

said by Rosie :

Thank you NormanS for the clarification on the AT&T domain names. I'm unclear about the "handed off" thing. Does that mean that the spam filters are applied at the AT&T MX server first such that some emails may be deleted or bounced back before they can get "handed off" to the Yahoo servers?

Based on some tests I did a while ago, the AT&T MX servers do some basic filtering by DNSBL, and similar criteria. Email will either be accepted, or rejected a this point. Rejected email results in a "bounce" generated by the sending relay client (if that relay client is a spamming 'bot, no "bounce" is generated). Accepted email is forwarded to Yahoo! Mail Delivery Agents for placement in the user's mailbox.

Are the emails that get through being filtered again at Yahoo?

Yes. The Yahoo! MDAs provide additional filtering based on the criteria established for SpamGuard. Nearly as I can tell, no "bounces" are generated at this point; rather, email is either routed to the Inbox, or the Bulk folder. This is actually a "Good Thing®" because a "bounce" generated at this point could only go to the Return_Path email address; in spam this is forged, or fake, about 99% of the time. This would result in "backscatter": Sending "bounces" to uninvolved parties.

Just an example of what you should see in this process:

Received: from 207.115.36.38  (EHLO nlpi009.prodigy.net) (207.115.36.38)  by mta148.sbc.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:53:46 -0700X-Originating-IP: [65.55.175.211]Received: from blu139-omc3-s11.blu139.hotmail.com (blu139-omc3-s11.blu139.hotmail.com [65.55.175.211])by nlpi009.prodigy.net (8.13.8 inb regex/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m32Erjfb014056for <%User_ID%@pacbell.net>; Wed, 2 Apr 2008 09:53:45 -0500Received: from BLU110-DS2 ([65.55.162.188]) by blu139-omc3-s11.blu139.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Wed, 2 Apr 2008 07:53:45 -0700Subject: [TEST] Routing of email through at&t Yahoo! HSI service

The "Received" line at the bottom of the list is reporting my client connection (Windows Live Mail) to a Windows Live Mail account.

The "Received" line in the middle is the ATTIS MX server for the 'pacbell.net' domain accepting the email from the 'live.com' SMTP relay agent. This is where the initial filtering will take place; and the "accept/reject" decision would be made.

The "Received" line at the top is the Yahoo! MDA for this 'pacbell.net' account. This is where the filtering decision for "Inbox/Bulk" will take place.

By comparison, here is a straight Yahoo! email address. These headers from a 'yahoo.com' email address added to that 'pacbell.net' account as an "Extra" email address through the Mail Options:

Received: from 65.55.175.212  (EHLO blu139-omc3-s12.blu139.hotmail.com) (65.55.175.212)  by mta462.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:35:29 -0700Received: from BLU110-DS3 ([65.55.162.187]) by blu139-omc3-s12.blu139.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Wed, 2 Apr 2008 08:31:36 -0700Subject: [TEST] Extra email address

This was picked up by the same account. You will see that this time the email goes straight to the Yahoo! server, bypassing the ATTIS server.

The screen shots show both email messages in the client folder, and the Yahoo! Mail Options screen where the extra accounts are set up.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Email messages in the Pegasus Mail client.
Email address in the Yahoo! Mail Options.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:19:10 EDT

dxiv posted :

said by David:

send that [bounced message with full headers] to the removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net address. They will need that info.

I got the reply from "AT&T Internet Services Security Center" to "please try resending your message" (a bit off the mark, since it wasn't my message which was being bounced to begin with). Anyway, something did change for the better, and the previously bounced emails now get through to my inbox (using the same server on the sending side which was "blocked" before). Thank you, and I hope this case is closed for good.

Re: List of domain names

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:36:16 EDT

nwrickert posted :

Does that mean that the spam filters are applied at the AT&T MX server first such that some emails may be deleted or bounced back before they can get "handed off" to the Yahoo servers?

That is my understanding of what is happening, based on the evidence thus far. Unfortunately AT&T has not given official information about this.

Are the emails that get through being filtered again at Yahoo?

Yes, but the Yahoo filtering mainly is for deciding what goes into your bulk folder.

And yes, things have changed a lot since the 80s.
--
AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.13

Re: List of domain names

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:15:29 EDT

anon posted : Thank you NormanS for the clarification on the AT&T domain names. I'm unclear about the "handed off" thing. Does that mean that the spam filters are applied at the AT&T MX server first such that some emails may be deleted or bounced back before they can get "handed off" to the Yahoo servers? Are the emails that get through being filtered again at Yahoo? I don't understand the terminology well enough to follow the explanations. I'll have to do some reading online in order to understand the messages in this thread. I was a comp. sci. major in college in the '80's -- 3 classes shy of a B.S. when I had to drop out for health reasons -- but I never actually worked in the field. The Internet was not in widespread use at that time, that I can recall.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:14:51 EDT

NormanS posted :

said by gdm:

This isn't a ATT problem it's yahoo's. Yahoo controls the mail not ATT. So the ATT techs really have no clue what is going on.

Depends. All 'att.net' and 'bellsouth.net' email is handled by AT&T Worlndnet Services MX servers. All 'ameritech.net', 'flash.net', 'nvbell.net', 'pacbell.net', 'prodigy.net', 'sbcglobal.net', snet.net', 'swbell.net', and 'wans.net' email is handled by AT&T Internet Services MX servers.

If a customer is a migrated, or new at&t Yahoo! HSI customer, email is handed off from AT&T MX servers to Yahoo! MDAs (Mail Delivery Agents). But any policies applied at the MX server are AT&T policies.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Re: List of domain names

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:09:35 EDT

NormanS posted :

said by nwrickert:

I think bellsouth.net, att.net, worldnet.att.net are being handled by different servers, so I am not sure whether it applies to them.

What I am seeing makes me think that AT&T Worldnet Services MX policies ('worldnet.att.net', att.net', and 'bellsouth.net') are now being applied to AT&T Internet Services MX servers.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Re: List of domain names

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:06:49 EDT

NormanS posted :

said by Rosie :

Here is a list of AT&T domain names(not sure how current this is though):

bellsouth.net (MX server run by AT&T Worldnet Services)
worldnet.att.net (MX server run by AT&T Worldnet Services)
ameritech.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
att.net (MX server run by AT&T Worldnet Services)
flash.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
nvbell.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
pacbell.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
prodigy.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
sbcglobal.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
snet.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
wans.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)
swbell.net (MX server run by AT&T Internet Services)

I am correct on this? (Again, not a techie -- just a struggling civilian here.)

AT&T Internet Services used to be SBC Internet Services (before SBC bought AT&T, and changed the corporate branding).

The 'bellsouth.net' domain was independent of anything SBC, or AT&T until AT&T bought Bellsouth.

I don't know that the 'worldnet.att.net' domain will ever be used with DSL service.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

Re: Where did my spam go?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:52:28 EDT

anon posted :

said by dxiv:

said by : :

It would be a sad day if their servers had to be rescued off ameritech's blacklist by a private retired person in his mid-seventies (who happens to be my father).

Go DXIV's Dad! I haven't gotten any bulk mail for days now which scares me. There's nothing more I can do now other than switch IP's I guess. Then my emails might be blocked to AT&T domains. Choosing the lesser of two evils is our only choice it seems...

Re: Where did my spam go?

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:18:46 EDT

anon posted : I had 2 different chats with ATT/Yahoo! and asked about the reduction in spam - Mine was reduced from 100+ to about 7 daily. Both techs denied any changes on their end.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:52:16 EDT

dxiv posted :

said by David:

send that to the removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net address. They will need that info.

David, thanks for chiming in. I sent an email with the bounced message attached, just in case it reaches a human. If it's a robot, then I doubt it helps, since it will carry my IP, not the original sender's. I doubt that even having the sender forward it would help, since the quoted blocked IP is that of the ISP's email server, not his own IP. And FWIW upc/chello is a quite large broadband provider in Europe. It would be a sad day if their servers had to be rescued off ameritech's blacklist by a private retired person in his mid-seventies (who happens to be my father).

That said, I'll keep the fingers crossed, since there isn't much else I can do anyway.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:55:31 EDT

gdm posted : That could be, I just came back to ATT/SBC what ever name it is this month. I never really used the email for anything when I had dsl. I just prefer to use my own domain to make life simpler.

Hopefully who ever is at fault which it sounds like a combo of the two it gets fixed.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:12:27 EDT

anon posted :

said by gdm:

said by :

This isn't a ATT problem it's yahoo's. Yahoo controls the mail not ATT. So the ATT techs really have no clue what is going on.

(Can't figure out the brackets for quoting just the response...) I have had several live chats with techs at the AT&T Yahoo website (where I receive my sbcglobal.net webmail) and they don't have a clue either. From the articles I've read, it appears to be AT&T that changed their spam filters(?) Read RWRickert's response to me on page 5 of this thread about the connection between Yahoo and AT&T.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:09:22 EDT

David posted : send that to the removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net address. They will need that info.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:49:44 EDT

dxiv posted :

said by gdm:

This isn't a ATT problem it's yahoo's. Yahoo controls the mail not ATT. So the ATT techs really have no clue what is going on.

Maybe there is more than one problem, and maybe not all have the same source. This one below does look like ATT's.

quote:
Final-Recipient: RFC822; /******@ameritech.net/
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.3
Remote-MTA: dns; aitmx5.prodigy.net (207.115.37.20)
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 553 5.3.0 nlpi009,DNSBL:521/ 213.46.255.22 /_is_blocked.__See_»www.att.net/bls_rbl/_for_information.

It was part of a bounced email sent to my @ameritech.net address. The IP marked as blocked is that of the ISP's email server in Austria, not the originating end-user machine.

P.S. Edited the IP back in, the angle brackets had eaten it.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:43:02 EDT

David posted :

said by tonyreo:

said by tonyreo:

I'm getting legitimate email "blocked" without any indication.
About 2 to 3 weeks ago email from my son, at college, started getting bounced back to him with no indication to me that it was bounced. It's a major university, (.edu address) so I can't see why it's happening..
I wonder how many legitimate emails I've been missing.
It's great that the spam has all but stopped but it looks like "the operation was a success but the patient died".

I emailed tech support and they replied ...."I understand that you are not able to receive emails because the email address was rejected by our server. I sincerely apologize that you are not able to locate a help topic about in our support website. I will be glad to assist you and provide the information that you need.

I have checked on this matter and found that this is an occurring issue with email. In some instances, when an email is sent to an AT&T customer they get a message stating that there DNS IP has been blocked.

To remove the email address from being blocked, you will need to forward the email to [removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net]. The removal from blocked list may take up to 24 hours."

I replied asking... "How can I do this if I cannot receive the email to begin with?"

Waiting for a response....

Actually the originator of the e-mail (your son's e-mail address) needs to forward the bounce back with headers included to removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net.

Basically, in a nutshell that gives them the IP address to unblock and allow the e-mail through.

This message should go for anyone that is getting a rejection message in e-mailing someone on the at&t domains from gmail, dslr.net, yahoo.com, lycos.com and any others. if you get a rejection message be sure to forward that message to the removeme@sbc.sbcglobal.net. It needs to originate from the address that failed.
--
If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this.
Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:31:15 EDT

nemoslats posted : Well - new spam filters are working. BUT now a few spams are getting through to the bulk folder. Just figure that new domain names and email addresses for spam to get through and get into either the inbox or bulk folder.

Maybe --???? AT&T is taking our blocked or spam addresses and making a giant database and paring down the domains and addresses to make the new spam blocked email filter? What do you think??

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:36:26 EDT

Lizz posted : Yes, it's definitely Yahoo. You need to get to an AT&T tech (Tier 2) who will write up the problem and send it to Yahoo. Then maybe, just maybe, it can get fixed.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:46:14 EDT

gdm posted :

said by Larus Hale :

Tonyreo, in my experience you will not receive a response to your last (and the real question) from AT&T. I put this question to AT&T tech support in their chat forum a week ago and the tech just continually ignored that question and would provide an answer to a question not asked instead. Also, when asked if the current problem of emails simply being deleted with no notice to the sender or recipient being caused by new AT&T spam filtering-the question was ignored, even after being repeatedly asked.

This isn't a ATT problem it's yahoo's. Yahoo controls the mail not ATT. So the ATT techs really have no clue what is going on.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:12:19 EDT

anon posted : Tonyreo, in my experience you will not receive a response to your last (and the real question) from AT&T. I put this question to AT&T tech support in their chat forum a week ago and the tech just continually ignored that question and would provide an answer to a question not asked instead. Also, when asked if the current problem of emails simply being deleted with no notice to the sender or recipient being caused by new AT&T spam filtering-the question was ignored, even after being repeatedly asked.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:30:47 EDT

tonyreo posted :

Re: List of domain names

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:07:30 EDT

nwrickert posted :

The concensus from the various articles I've read seems to be that it's the AT&T spam filters that changed. If I understand correctly, then all AT&T domains would be affected by this change.

I think bellsouth.net, att.net, worldnet.att.net are being handled by different servers, so I am not sure whether it applies to them.
--
AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.12

Re: Where did my spam go?

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:27:20 EDT

anon posted :

said by IAmNotHe :

I think AT&T and Yahoo BOTH sent an email out about the new Spam filters but reports claim that the new filters actually blocked and deleted the email before it ever reached any customer's email accounts. ;)

Hysterical. :D

off-topic

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:09:53 EDT

anon posted : Sorry about going off-topic...started ranting.

List of domain names

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:07:43 EDT

anon posted : The concensus from the various articles I've read seems to be that it's the AT&T spam filters that changed. If I understand correctly, then all AT&T domains would be affected by this change. Here is a list of AT&T domain names(not sure how current this is though):

bellsouth.net
worldnet.att.net
ameritech.net
att.net
flash.net
nvbell.net
pacbell.net
prodigy.net
sbcglobal.net
snet.net
wans.net
swbell.net

I am correct on this? (Again, not a techie -- just a struggling civilian here.)

Re: thank you

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:58:47 EDT

nwrickert posted :

Another odd thing is that my posts don't appear in the time sequence that I wrote them.

I'm not sure, but it is possible that anonymous posts are put on hold until a moderator looks at them.

I had a couple of online chats with AT&T Yahoo tech support yesterday. Do you know if those are AT&T or Yahoo employees?

I can't tell, since I don't know who you chatted with, but my best guess is that they were AT&T employees or employees of a service company to which AT&T has outsourced some of these tasks.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was a victim of McAfee's auto renewal scam, where they charge your debit card one month before the expiration date of their internet security program, without any warning nor prior authorization (well, hidden in fine print in sneak wrap in an umpteen zillion page EULA maybe).

I know somebody had the same problem with Norton recently, but the charge was refunded after a phone call.

By the way, we have drifted a bit off-topic for this thread.
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AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.12

thank you

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:26:57 EDT

anon posted : Note: I somehow deleted (or prematurely posted?) a partial message just now. I thought I just hit the Enter key but then it threw me back to the "Do you still want to post?" screen(?) Another odd thing is that my posts don't appear in the time sequence that I wrote them. The second post I wrote last night didn't show up until way after the 3rd one did. Anyway, starting over:

NWRickert, thank you very much for the detailed explanations. I appreciate it. I didn't receive any warning of the filter changes and no option was given to keep things as they were (which was working just fine for me). I had a couple of online chats with AT&T Yahoo tech support yesterday. Do you know if those are AT&T or Yahoo employees? I also talked on the phone to several techs at AT&T customer service. I'm wondering if they each have access to the others' case records. All of the techs were foreign and didn't seem to understand what I was saying at all. They seemingly just read from scripts and were no help at all. It's so very frustrating, I just want to tear my hair out. I spent the better part of the day on this issue to no avail. Tonyreo, I love that comment "the operation was a success but the patient died". Pretty much sums it up. A "Nerds On Site" acquaintance said he would check this issue out with his fellow nerds and report back to me. A friend said she sent me an email, which I never received and I haven't received any responses back from inquiries made to online companies recently. I highly suspect that the responses were gobbled up by the undiscriminating new spam filter. I think that a refund for the whole month of March to all affected customers would be fair, considering.

I seem to be spending a good portion of my life now talking with people in some foreign country who barely understand English trying to straighten out technical phone or computer issues. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was a victim of McAfee's auto renewal scam, where they charge your debit card one month before the expiration date of their internet security program, without any warning nor prior authorization (well, hidden in fine print in sneak wrap in an umpteen zillion page EULA maybe). Common thievery, as far as I'm concerned. I had actually uninstalled the program on the advice of a computer tech, because it was slowing my computer down so badly. Good thing I caught the debit in time and didn't go into overdraft, as many people did. I hope someone starts a class action lawsuit against them for this.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:36:18 EDT

tonyreo posted : I'm getting legitimate email "blocked" without any indication.
About 2 to 3 weeks ago email from my son, at college, started getting bounced back to him with no indication to me that it was bounced. It's a major university, (.edu address) so I can't see why it's happening..
I wonder how many legitimate emails I've been missing.
It's great that the spam has all but stopped but it looks like "the operation was a success but the patient died".

Re: Need help to understand

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:30:40 EDT

nwrickert posted :

Some posts mentioned AT&T servers versus Yahoo servers.

Let me try to explain.

AT&T (which includes SBCGLOBAL, SWBELL, BELLSOUTH, AMERITECH, PACBELL, SNET) is not part of Yahoo. Rather, AT&T and Yahoo are two separate independent corporations.

AT&T has contracted with Yahoo, for Yahoo to provide some services to their customers. In particular, Yahoo is providing a portal (basically a home page with links), and mail services.

Since your mail is addressed to "someuser@sbcglobal.net" the sending system will send it to an AT&T/SBCGLOBAL server. However, the AT&T server then connects to a Yahoo server, to transfer the message to Yahoo (because Yahoo is providing the mail services).

When sending mail, the official advice is to use a Yahoo outgoing mail server, though there are also some AT&T servers that work.

I hope that clarifies why there are two distinct sets of servers, those managed by AT&T and those managed by Yahoo.
--
AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.12

Re: Where did my spam go?

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:23:53 EDT

nwrickert posted :

About 10 days ago or so I went to the Yahoo web mail site to check my bulk mail folder as usual. A different screen altogether came up that required me to enter my password and then requested that I wait 5 minutes for it to process some sort of change. I can't recall the exact wording as to the reason for this process but I believe it said something about upgrading security. I had never seen this particular screen before. It was after this event that I suddenly stopped getting emails in my Yahoo bulk folder (except for 1 or 2 rarely).

I think those are two separate and unrelated things.

Yahoo has changed the interface of its web portal pages, and the processing delay was probably related to that. At about the same time AT&T has started a spam control program which has greatly cut the amount of spam coming in (and perhaps also interferes with some wanted mail).
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AT&T dsl; Westell 327w modem/router; SuSE 10.1; firefox 2.0.0.12

to TheDuck

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:08:41 EDT

anon posted : Nobody welcomes spam, but they're throwing the baby out with the bath water here. An alarmingly high percentage of legitimate non-spam emails are simply disappearing. I'd rather quickly scan a slew of junk mail for 30 seconds daily than never receive desired emails myself. I would just check off everything in my Yahoo bulk folder, and then just uncheck the legit emails, delete, and boom, boom it was done. A little annoying, but no biggie. Of course I was getting 10-15 suspected spam emails a day, not hundreds of them a day. The Yahoo SpamGuard was grabbing an awful lot of legit emails. I missed a birthday party invitation (and the party) due to that. The sender was even in my Outlook Express address book too. I don't understand why that happens. It doesn't seem to "learn" well either when I mark emails as "not spam". Not the smartest program around.

Need help to understand

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:12:30 EDT

anon posted : I'm not a techie by a longshot and I'm not really understanding the various factors involved here. Some posts mentioned AT&T servers versus Yahoo servers. When I go to check my sbcglobal.net bulk mail folder it says at the top "AT&T Yahoo Mail Classic". Sounds like one and the same company(?) Also, if I were to disable the Yahoo SpamGuard Plus, might that make any difference? I doubt it, because I've got it set to put spam in bulk mail anyway, so whatever little trickle of suspected spam is still coming in would probably just go into my Yahoo inbox or my Outlook Express inbox, right? I'm getting a headache...

Re: Where did my spam go?

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:22:47 EDT

anon posted : I haven't read every single posting in this thread, but nwrickert, you are definitely correct about there being a major change that occurred mid March, and that it is something internal with AT&T. (Please read the article at »www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/24···filters/ ). Everything you've written makes 100% total sense.

About 10 days ago or so I went to the Yahoo web mail site to check my bulk mail folder as usual. A different screen altogether came up that required me to enter my password and then requested that I wait 5 minutes for it to process some sort of change. I can't recall the exact wording as to the reason for this process but I believe it said something about upgrading security. I had never seen this particular screen before. It was after this event that I suddenly stopped getting emails in my Yahoo bulk folder (except for 1 or 2 rarely). I used to get 10-15 emails in my bulk mail folder per day. Oftentimes when I sent emails to online companies (questions about products, e.g.), their responses would end up in my bulk mail folder. I haven't been getting any responses to these type of inquiries since the event. Oftentimes online companies have a secure form for emailing that doesn't reveal their email address, so I can't put the company's email address into either of my address books to bypass the spam filter.

I have similar settings as you do in my Yahoo web mail account (I have an sbcglobal.net email address): it was set with the SpamGuard ON, to divert suspected spam into my bulk folder, and to keep it for one month. I also had it set not to block addresses on emails that I tagged as spam so that I wouldn't accidentally block friends, relatives or myself. I had checked off that "I don't want to receive any messages that SpamGuard thinks are spam" in the "More Bulk Folder Options for POP users" section. That kept the suspected spam from downloading into my Outlook Express inbox, but it was still going into my Yahoo bulk mail folder. I did not change any settings. I feel sure that I'm not receiving legitimate emails now because of this event, but I don't know if they're bouncing back or just being deleted. I've read a lot of reports of emails to the affected domains simply disappearing and not bouncing back. By the way, I did reset my Yahoo spam filter out of desperation thinking that might help, but actually with the settings I had, I shouldn't have had any blocked addresses anyway, at least not to my bulk folder.

I spent hours and hours today, with 4-5 different AT&T and Yahoo techs (live online chat and telephone) to no avail. They were all totally clueless and didn't speak (or write) English very well and didn't even seem to understand what I was telling them. I am furious at this point and feel helpless to fix this.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:38:15 EDT

Old_Grouch posted :

said by TheDuck:

It might not be pertinent to you but it is to me. I have never had a normal e-mail show up in the spam folder. Sorry I ruffled your feathers.

I don't want to get 'tween you lovers but there is a known problem with Spam Guard Plus and attYahoo!. Known to the call-for-help folks anyhow.

Some users who move to the new or beta e-mail service can encounter a problem where mail that used to arrive safely in the inbox now gets dumped into the spam folder. And, spam goes to the inbox.

When the nasties hit, messages that used to be delivered correctly and now go to the spam folder can not be correctly routed by clicking not spam...they keep going to the spam folder. And, the messages that are spam but find their way to the inbox (not all but some) can be clicked to be spam but the next one from the same sender goes right to the inbox folder.

The support folks had a set of instructions for what to do that they mailed me.

Again...didn't affect all but it did/does affect some.

'Scuse the interruption.
--
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.

Re: Where did my spam go?

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:25:35 EDT

Old_Grouch posted : When I called for support on Monday of this week, there was a message indicating that they were encountering some spam-rejections that sounded like yours. The recording gave information as to what to do about it whether you send a message or talk to a human.

You might want to pop in on the call for help line and listen...could knock some time off your trip to a fix.
--
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.