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AOL Blocks Telstra Bigpond Mail
frodmann writes "Australian IT reports here that AOL has been blocking email from Telstra bigpond mail accounts. This is possibly attributed to AOL's new white list policy as reported earlier on Slashdot.
Although this article is a few days old I can verify that this is still happening.
(For those outside of Australia, Telstra is one of our largest ISPs.)"
Australian ISPs block all mail from AOL, and NO ONE cares!
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Typically the service offered from Tesltra is Australia is terrible, but due to lack of competition in Australia they have been able to get away with shoddy service and gerneral non-compliance for years.
..but this sort of action is a hurting inocent third part (ie; the other, legitimate users of mailservers in question).
It would be like stopping to deliver snailmail from another city / nation, just because someone living there sends junkmail to your city / nation. Is this something we want?
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I mean I'm glad that the internet (AOL is the internet, right?), finally did something against these annoying aussies!
More and more, people are realizing that E-Mail and 'The Internet' are not services offered by AOL. They're realizing that AOL does not "own" the internet, and they're realizing that most companies don't pay AOL to host their content.
It's tough to explain to people what the internet is. AOL was a great simplification tool, in the "early days" of public access - you connect, and everything's set up for you.
Now, millions who use the internet do so from work, with their work providing the connection and their work providing their email address. What's going to happen when AOL customers get told that they can't communicate with the "outside" anymore? Easy - they shut off their AOL subscription, because it becomes meaningless. Instead of simplifying their lives, it starts hampering them.
I find it funny that AOL has adopted this policy, only because their market share has so dramatically decreaesd in the last few years. Sure, lots of people use AOL instant messenger, but if AOL starts charging for that, people will switch - I guarrentee it.
These millions of people using Kazaa, etc.? They all realize that AOL isn't providing that content. Blocking (whitelisting) email makes the fact that AOL doesn't provide the internet *extremely salient* to AOL customers: Which is, imho, a horrible, horrible business move.
America Online: So easy to overlook, no wonder it's gone bankrupt.
I understand that spam is a problem for AOL. But I fail to see how preventing people from sending mail to AOL customers is a smart business move.
What do they hope to gain? Are they really going to save that much money by stopping some spam?
Or, more likely they will annoy non-customers and current customers which is a lot worse than spam.
It takes 5 minutes to lose a customer and a lifetime to win them back.
No wonder AOL/Time Warner is having such problems, with flawed logic like this, I wouldn't doubt AOL soon stops accepting any internet e-mail traffic.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
" For those outside of Australia, Telstra is one of our largest ISPs. "
Telstra is Australia's largest ISP.
I'm not particularly surprised that this happened, seeing as how Telstra was almost blocked from Usenet not long ago. Fortunately for Telstra users, it seems to be trying to do something about it.
OLPC Australia
While I applaud AOL for trying to stop spam, cuting off a large ISP is just a bit overkill. I mean there are better ways such as tagging email though of as spam and letting the end user deleting them if wanted and only dumping them only if you are sure its spam.
Some IP blocks are nothing but spam so they are fine to block but you shouldn't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut
Rus
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I know for a fact that CompuServe Pacific has also blocked Telstra Bigpond email.
For those not in the know, AOL owns CompuServe, and I suspect they use the same anti-spam filters.
A close friend works on the CompuServe Pacific tech-support line and has been flat out answering complaining users about this problem.
Let's hope it gets cleared up soon!
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I'm Australian, and this comment hits the nail right on the head. Telstra is a govenment approved monopoly - they can and do get away with anything.
.ISO's.
We have tiny amounts of bandwidth given to us - nevermind more bandwidth costs them almost nothing. A typical plan is one gigabyte a month. I cry when I here people from other countires casually mentioning they downloaded a few
I'm not Seth.
These days open relay mail servers are just plain irresponsible. Maybe 99% of the users are responsible people, but the remaining 1% are a plague on what is otherwise a wonderful achievement. We just can't afford these open relays and if it takes major ISP's like AOL to start blocking large swaths of them to end this, more power to them!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Have a quick look at whirlpool broadband news and the number of "telstra is down" stories and anti-telstra sentiment in the comments. Remind you of anywhere else ;)
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...be sure to tell us about it again, three days from now. ...not...
Given that one out of every three spams that clogged up my Hotmail account for a while at least purported to be from BigPond, I can see the rationale behind the ban. However, I'm not happy with any ISP - especially AOL - deciding for me what e-mails I shall and shall not recieve. This is why I maintain my own set of filters.
Should BigPond tighten up the open relays, and go after offenders themselves? You betcha. Will they, especially after this? Hopefully. The solution to spam originating from BigPond (or anywhere else) should not involve the ISP playing Big Brother. Difficult as it might be to believe, BigPond (or Hotmail, or Yahoo) does have legitamate users who are innocent of broadcasting spam detailing how to enlarge body parts that you might not possess.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Telia, Sweden's largest ISP and the defacto telecoms monopoly (it was previously known as Televerket, the state monopoly telco, before it was "privatized"), was blocked by AOL a few months ago.
Personally, I think it wasn't all that bad. Apparently, the reason for the blocking was Telia's excessively poor abuse handling. This was very much due to Telia being the largest - and most arrogant - of the telcos in Sweden, and the realization that they weren't the biggest fish in the pond struck hard. Needless to say, their abuse management has improved significantly afterwards.
This only brings up the question, when will AOL realise that their pond is quite a lot bigger than they think? AOL is playing the very same arrogant I'm Holier Than Thou-game that Telia used to play on its local market. And, big as AOL might be, the Internet is a lot, lot larger.
I'm not surprised, to tell the truth. Two seconds of looking on Whirlpool (the Australian Broadband Users' Community) will highlight exactly how bodgy Bigpond can be. I'm sure their own spam procedures have been less than perfect (or even good) for a long time, so I'm not surprised that other ISP's have had to block them out.
As much as I hate AOL, I'm not sure that this situation is ALL their fault -- if Telstra took the spam problem more seriously themselves, then AOL may not have felt that they need to take this measure.
Still, that all said, I do find it amusing that one bodgy, overpriced major ISP has blocked another bodgy, overpriced major ISP....
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Q: What is Falun Dafa, or Falun Gong?
A: Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is an ancient practice for mind and body, originating in pre-historic China. The practice involves some slow, gentle movements and a meditation...
It's being cracked down on by China because of its spiritual nature.
It has absolutely nothing to do with spamming.
Spamkillers like this one are also based on whitelisting e-mail addresses (although with built-in mechanisms to enable automatic whitelisting of non-spammers):
http://a-s-k.sourceforge.net/
Since this method works much better than spamassassin, RBL and similar methods, we better get used to whitelisting. Telstra simply has to get onto the whitelist fast.
"You've lost mail"
Why not build some of their own sea lines, then? I'd bet a private AU company could probably afford, and profit from a huge pipe to Japan, or even the US. But would they be allowed to make money with Telstra around?
Also, wouldn't it make sense for them to allow unlimited in-country bandwidth while capping international traffic? At my school they have an outbound cap at 200 megs a day, but you can send as much as you want on campus.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A couple guys in australia are responsible for a huge amount of porno spam. Including the animal stuff...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...I've been blocking AOL for years. Only fair for them to reciprocate.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
This is an outrage!
I'm going to take this all the way to the Prime Minister!
Hey Mr. Prime Minister!
Andy!
to just disconnect AOL from the internet?
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I'm in NZ where we have the same thing. There's a finite amount of bandwidth so we get charged by the MB. Southern Cross cable. Under the water. I think they used standard telephone cable. Scary thing is that DSL here is fast as hell so you can go through your 1 GB/month in a couple of hours with no problem.
"Sender verification" is a good idea, but it won't work for most users.
Not all automated email is bad. A user who has "sender verification" on would not receive an Amazon.com sales receipt, for instance, because there is no way Amazon.com would go through the trouble to "authenticate" just for the AOL user.
I think the funny part is this, I have been led to believe that when AOL setup here in Australia, Telstra provided the dial in for AOL.
I think the dial-in lines are now being hosted by MCI Worldcom.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
The practice of automatically branding everyone having a dynamic IP and sending email via their own domains. Using non-ISP email servers is not a crime.
I own several domains, a few of them for almost 9 years. In that time I have used seven or eight IPs. Only for a year or so did I have a fixed IP. I don't send spam, my servers are not open relays, but I am penalized now because I can not get a fixed IP from Verizon.
First, Osirus starts using the wirelist to block dynamic IPs, now AOL is blocking dynamic IP.
Why should I be restricted to sending mail from a verizon address? I am a business owner who has domains representing my business. Why is it wrong to want my emails to come from _my_ domain and not from Verizon?
Don't even start with the pompous BS about doing SSH tunneling, or expecting business class service for consumer prices. I don't want to hear it. I'm paying business prices for my service. So sod off. Not everyone is in a position to physically host their own on-site server or afford their own OC-3.
Is any of this blocking really going to affect the spam situation? I don't think so. Spam is economically viable because consumers continue to shop from businesses that use spam as a marketing tool. Consumers continue to buy spammed products.
Spam is not a problem that will be solved by refucing email from entire IP blocks. Spam is a consumer education problem.
If people were as quick to boycott spammed product as they have been to pour french wine in the gutter, spam would be a thing of the past.
See Subject line.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Block inbound SMTP from AOL. Set a cutoff date, nofity all of your users, and stand firm. The further they get down this path the more accepted this practice will become. Once this practice becomes accepted, it is entirely likely that other protocols will begin being blocked for other reasons (suppose the RIAA suggests that AOL block all connections to non-commercial HTTP servers to avoid piracy liability).
It is not unreasonable to see this as the first step in the stratification of the Internet into corporate sanctioned, generally accessible servers and cordoned-off slums. This is every bit as dangerous, if not more so, than government censorship.
Note: it will anger your users. I know, because it angered my users. The biggest problem was that they did not understand why. I've posted a FAQ to address their most common questions.
If we give an inch now, later they will take a yard. Better to endure a little pain now than to try to stand against the tide in a year or two.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Most people say AOL is a monolithic shit-for-brains company that everyone with more than half-an-hour of experience on the net hates, cool. I have little if anything to do with them...
..but, to Australians, Telstra invokes a similar reaction. Many Americans would be surprised to see what this monopolistic company charges for local calls, mobile phone calls, internet access and cable tv (with foxtel).
s /
/ more4you.htm
Look at their internet broadband rates:
http://www.bigpond.com/broadband/access/ADSL/plan
Are you kidding me?
Just as bad are the costs of mobiles, text messages and calls:
http://www.telstra.com.au/mobilenet/price_options
25c a text message!? Wtf?
Australians might want to support Australian businesses, but this company doesn't deserve loyalty. I welcome any negative action against Telstra - especially from giant US corporations. Oh please - won't some US telco come in to Australia and NOT play by telstra's rules?!
Telstra are not loved in Australia.
However their Broadband service "Big Pond Advance" has been heavily promoted of late and is taking market share from AOL's dial up service. As are the ADSL providers. Fast is good, by the time you factor in local calls, the difference in cost for many is minimal.
AOL blocks all DSL ISP's and Telstra.
"Don't go elsewhere kids, you won't be able to email your mates on AOL anymore the world over."
Where are the watchdogs? Why shouldn't AOL be instructed to lift this rediculous practice or withdraw entirely from Australia.
(It's a great business move if they get away with it... Remember a little company called Microsoft?)
But maybe the competition don't spend as much on marketing. I find that bigpond is taken up by people who don't do any research of their own about the best ISP for them.
On the other hand Telstra is still choking the broadband adsl market all by itself. It is getting more difficult for it to get away with that. Everyone has to go thru Telstra one way or another for ADSL, but nearly every other ISP still manages to offer a better deal and better service even though they have to purchase thru Telstra. Except the ISPs with worse management than Telstra.
When my friends ask me who to sign up with I won't let them sign up with Telstra. Or Optus.
Look for the geeks running ISPs, who have just enough sense to hire a business manager to make sure they cover their costs. These guys aren't solely profit motivated, they have a great understanding of the technology and always keep up. Stay clear of the corporate monsters, or entrepreneur types, who don't care about anything except separating customers from their money. Service? what is that?.
My current favourite is internode.com.au. I also like adam.com.au although they're adelaide based. I like Goldweb in Canberra. iinet.com.au and ihug.com.au seem to be ok but I'd need to check a bit more. ihug seems a little secretive but iinet have the right kind of history. And yes I've been burned by isp mergers like dynamite.com.au -> eisa -> austar, thats why you have to steer clear of the entrepreneurs.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.