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Comcast Gets Tough on Spam
WeakGeek writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Comcast, the nation's largest broadband ISP, has started blocking port 25 to reduce Spam. Jeanne Russo said Comcast is not blocking port 25 for all its users because it does not want to remove the option for legitimate customers who process their own e-mail. So the company is monitoring traffic and picking out machines that look suspicious. By blocking port 25, they say they cut Spam by 20% last week." ZDnet has another article, with a nice statistic: Comcast generates 800 million email messages/day, but only about 100 million of those are sent through Comcast's SMTP servers.
How do you tell whether your machine is zombie spammer? Is running spybot enough?
And what if they make a mistake and block someone who just happens to send a lot of mail?
Is there a place to appeal?...as good as this could be, I think it's going to inconvenience a lot of people.
I still don't understand how spam exists economically. I guess people are dumber than I thought:
"Wow! I think I'll find out more about this Viiagraa! Thanks hf387hfjsd73@hotmail.com!"
... there's a back-channel for people whose email is legitimately disproportionately high to have it reinstated. I'd be a mite annoyed (read: bloody furious) if I wasn't doing anything wrong, but my internet access was suddenly curtailed... I send email from home (though never in any quantity likely to raise suspicion) and I don't see why I should use NTL (whose news and mail servers are crap) over my linux gateway.
:-) port to my co-lo machine and send from there...
....' always seems to send shivers down my spine these days because of the context I find it in. Sigh.
What I find more chilling is the number of people in the article who are recommending general blocking of the smtp port. Just because it makes life easier for large corporations is no excuse for using a blunt instrument where an elegant solution could be found - in this case, I think the dynamic monitoring and blocking is far more preferable. If NTL decide to block port 25, I guess I'll just have to tunnel outgoing port-25 traffic over a different (say: 2525
Aside: The phrase 'Microsoft is working with
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Now, if comcast would sell me a static IP address, I might care, but since they don't it's clearly not meant for servers. As long as I can come up with a way to get my mail out (presumably you could set up sendmail or another MTA to use smtp.comcast.net as a relay even though you need to authenticate to use it, but I've never looked into it) it doesn't seem like an issue to me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If they detect port 25 traffic over a certain threshold, do a quick dns blocklist check. If they're blacklisted, stop traffic on port 25 for that customer and contact them to let them know their machine may be infected.
I bet it would be a lot more effective to automatically open accounts with that port 25 blocked. If you want to use it, you give them a call and ask for it to be opened. I bet at least 95% of the spam being created is being created without the user knowing so closing port 25 won't affect them.
I don't know about the rest of you here, but since I use them as an ISP and run my own mail server, (exim on debian woody, and yes it's secure) I'm very, very glad that Comcast isn't blocking 25 for everyone.
Not only did they take effors to reduce spam, but for once, they actually listened to their own customers. Thanks Comcast.
At least they're aware some people run legit mail servers.
Just put these dickhead spammers in jail for 5-10 years for causing so much disruption and cost to the world. I was reading a few days ago (and feel free to correct me/link to the URL) that spam causes ~$1,900 in lost productivity per employee, per year, in the US. THAT is absurd!
On a side note, people with virus infected machines will now notice they can't send email to their external SMTP servers, and call Comcast, which they will reply that you have a mass mailing internet worm, and you've been spamming thousands of messages a day. Due to your incompetence, we have turned off your external access, forever.
http://www.fsckin.com/
...how about they start block ports 1080 and 2280? I often see horrific trolls invading the IRC networks and channels we inhabit, triggering mass K-lines by inviting people to juped channels, flooding, mass-noticing and trying to piss people off in general. And everytime I check these trolls' hostmasks, oh! - it's Comcast.
:-( Since SOCKS is also a generic relay protocol, it could be used for spamming too!
A lot of Comcast users seem to be running as SOCKS proxies for some reason.
This seems like the right way to do it, as long as they've got a reasonable way for you to ask for it to be unblocked.
Nice to see a large soulless corporation not just shaft its customers wholesale.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
Sounds like a great plan to me! I don't like the idea of outright port blocking (customers are paying for IP access, right) but it's very easy to locate the suspicious hosts, which means that once the automated systems are in place they can easily add port restrictions.
:) Easy.
We can watch to see how effective this is by seeing how many of comcast's IPs show up in real time spam blocklists. Take CBL and WPBL for instance, two of my favourite lists...
% grepcidr -c -e 68.80.0.0/13 1501
% grepcidr -c -e 68.80.0.0/13 351
Now we see if those numbers go down over time
I would have no problem with my ISP blocking port 25 unless I specifically request it to be open. And I would sleep much better at night knowing that my mother isn't unknowingly spamming me and my closest 25 million friends. The stipulation is that it not cost me extra to be able to use port 25. And that the ISP's support staff not be morons.
I never knew Comcast was the largest ISP in the UK.
Oh.. your nation.. not my nation?
Sorry, I forgot there was no other part of the world.
Hi, I received this spam from out of your network. I trust sending spam is in violation of your terms and conditions.
Please take appropriate measures.
I read recently that about 80% of spam is sent via hacked computers on broadband: http://www.sandvine.com/news/pr_detail.asp?ID=50
You might consider closing port 25 per default and only open it for customers who explicitly want to run their own mail servers.
Thanks,
Bellsouth is now blocking all port 25 traffic, whether or not they sell the customer a static IP.
I had a mail server running on static IP for over a year and they've just blocked it as of last night- Their third tier support claimed that it was because they were being threatened with being blocked by other ISPs.
"By blocking port 25, they say they cut Spam by 20% last week."
They're talking out of their asses. I have manually blacklisted their entire cablemodem space quite some time ago. Running a grep on the mail log files shows that this week I've already rejected approximately 20% more spam from Comcast than last week.
And the week ain't over yet. The log files rotate on Sundays.
I have concluded that Comcast is a lost cause. Damaged goods. The best thing to do is to blacklist their whole stinking sewer pit, and move on with your life.
SpamCop will take care of figuring out the origin and reporting spam for you.
By blocking port 25, they say they cut Spam by 20% last week.
And I say they're full of dog turds.
Any spammer with half a clue will just move to a different port system. I bet the IT managers can work the numbers so that if one of the flatulates loudly they can reduce spam by 20%.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Last year the company I'm working at experienced a massive DDoS attack mostly from Comcast hosts having open socks proxies. I think checking the customers for having such things could be effective also, not only against spam but hacking too. Having port 25 open does not mean that it's used for spam. Having a socks proxy world accessable, that's anything but acceptable IMO.
Before, I'd receive about a dozen spams a day, at least. I had started getting them right after i signed up for a PAYPAL account. In the past 2 days, i've received not one spam. Absolutely unreal.
For those who do operate home mail servers, why can't such people just configure their outgoing SMTP server to pass all outgoing mail through the ISP's SMTP server to get around such blocks, and therefore have a more "trustwrothy" and less likely to be blocked IP address in the headers?
"So the company is monitoring traffic and picking out machines that look suspicious."
Okay, isn't that what GMail is doing but to ADD a small advert, and everyone goes bonkers..
Comcast does it to 'stop spam' and they're a hero...?
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
... This is starting to worry me a little. I have been happily running my own mail server for over a year now. The reason being is that I want the ability to host all my own solutions and at the same time use the bandwidth i'm already paying for.
With wonderful dynamic DNS services like no-ip.org I am able to do this on any dynamic IP and I have no reason to worry about needing one of those pesky static IP addresses.
Hopefully if something were to happen where I'd start getting blocked I could just use my connections at work and contact their e-mail admins directly to resolve the issue. However this slash and burn tactic is just the wrong way to go about fighting spam. Hence one of the reasons I left Earthlink/Mindspring, who block e-mail from ALL Dynamic IP addresses and also block outbound port 25 on their networks.
I send out on average about 15 emails/day. None of my email traffic goes through comcast's SMTP servers.
Assuming that this is about average, it would only take 46666.67 customers using non-comcast servers to reach this number.
The following is only antidotal, but...
I have set up the cable modems of at least 18 friends and family members. In general I have found that parents tend to use work email addresses most, AOL accouts second most, Hotmail/other free providers, and comcast addresses least. Kids tend to use either AOL or a free email provider more often than using a comcast address.
Thats comes to about 8 comcast addresses that are actualy used out of the 50 or so email accounts used by these friends and family.
I am suprised the number is not much higher.
I have Bellsouth DSL and they're blocking port 25 incoming and outgoing for their DSL subscribers. I had a lengthy discussion with tech support about it and they said "thats just how it is". If you have Bellsouth DSL and you can still use port 25 - enjoy it now. The block is coming.
They can't just change the port system. Yes, there are some extra mail ports (465, 587, etc), but those ports require authentication most of the time (if they're even set up). Spammers want to get the most people possible, and that means port 25 99% of the time.
I've never understood why bocking a port would work. Aren't there thousands of ports? And if one gets blocked, is it simply a matter of just switching to another port? Someone please explain this in "Ports for Dummies" terms.
penis enlargement is dangerous and ineffective.
tell your small dicked friends!
All because I dont use Email....its hideous and such an "old" technology. What with IRC or IM why would someone need email? Maybe its cause I have no friends and no one would ever email me?
People are upset that Google is "looking" at their email to find appropriate ads. Comcast is just monitoring traffic, not the actual content being transferred. It's the difference between seeing cars on the road, and identifying people in them. (Personally, I think people that don't want GMail to do ads based on their email shouldn't use GMail.)
When a server is receiving traffic for SMTP (or HTTP or many other things), it listens on one standard port. For SMTP, the port is 25. The sender can pick any port to send FROM, but they can only send TO 25. If Comcast blocks outgoing connections to port 25, they stop anyone using a mail server from sending to almost all other mail servers.
If mail servers would start blocking all mail coming from dynamic IPs, they would block the vast majority of spam and block almost no legitimate mail. Yeah, I know that some folks running mail servers on dynamic IPs aren't going to like that, they can still send mail through their provider's mail servers. The arguments against blocking mail from dynamic IPs are pretty much the same as when people were arguing about open mail servers. This is just one mor ething that spammers have ruined.
What legal use could a person possibly have for needing 3 gigs per day of bandwidth, out of curiousity? I peak when I download or significantly update my systems, but even that rarely goes over a couple of gigs, and that's certainly not an every day thing.
When they're not #1 on senderbase.org, I'll believe it. Just outright block port 25 for end users and don't for businesses. Its not that tough to assign one cable modem a different config file than the others. People can use comcast's servers to send outgoing mail if they have to run their own SMTP or use a VPN tunnel instead. If you can't handle either one, perhaps you should get rid of your computer.
And even though they are not blocking port 25 for me, I've found that if I send from their network, a good portion of my email bounces because a lot of companies have all of comcast's network blacklisted.
I now relay my mail through another server and have no problems.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I generally don't like the idea of ISP's interfering with the network, but port 25 is the exception. I like the idea of them blocking 25 by default, but this plan of keeping an eye on their customers is the next best thing. Most people don't realize how much spam comes from broadband accounts. There is some legitimate mail, yes, but those people need to find a new way of life, because it's mostly spam. I use Sendmail at work, and realizing how things have changed on the spam front I updated my /etc/mail/access file so it now starts like this:
And it goes on, and on, and on, for well over a thousand lines. After implementing this I did some calculation and determined that I was blocking about 22% of our incoming mail. There have been some hiccups, but in general I'm really glad I did this. A few people have contacted me to complain that they can't send mail to my users, and I usually tell them to get a static IP address for their mail server or send through a designated relay. This inconvenience to cheap-o owners of SMTP servers with DHCP-assigned addresses has been a real shame, but my users have commented on how much less spam theiy've been getting recently. Blocking broadband users and using Spamcop have been a great combination. Perhaps one day if more ISPs follow Comcast we'll be able to trust those domains again.
I'm a comcast user and I thought you wouldn't let you get away with running anything that accepts inbound connections. Does this mean I can get away with openning up for inbound ssh?
Now, if people run servers, then let them sign up for a Static IP option. They pay $2 or $5/mo for an extra static IP, direct access to the internet. Then if there is spam from their IPs, their static IP gets disconnected and they would have to pay $50 or whatever to get it reinstated. If more spam comes from their IP afterwards, turned off their static again, and repeat.
*Everyone* would always get the NATed IP so no one would loose their internet even if they become a spam relay. They just loose access to their static IP.
This way comcast would not need that many nets, people that want static IP could get one, and spam and non-email viruses would be history. Hell, if they have a email virus scanner on their SMTP servers, almost all viruses are history.
1) What if I want to create a mailing list for a project that I (hypothetically) am making and host the e-mail server myself?
2) I have absolutely no idea what their virus filter du jour is. Nor do I have any influence on it. If it nukes a ZIP file that I was trying to send (or hoping to receive) then it's just bad luck I guess.
3) The performerance of smtp.mail.dk has been known to be abysmal at times... I wouldn't call it smart to force all e-mail to go through your server if it couldn't even handle the load when only some percentage of what your customers sent went through it earlier...
And I have to deal with this crud because some morons don't belong on the internet, aren't using a firewall and get infected with every single fscking e-mail "virus" [*] that is sent their way.
Not to mention how frustrating it was when my e-mail suddenly one day just stopped working.
[*]: Trojan of course. But noone ever seems to use the right terminology.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
I'm going to blame Comcast for never getting my World of Warcraft beta e-mail :) There was a big stink about that awhile back where Comcast blocked all of Blizzard's e-mails to their customers.
*LOGICAL FALACY ALERT* "i recieved more spam from them this week" does not translate into "they sent more spam". it is entirely possible for their spam numbers to go down and yours to go up, that just means someone else got 40% less spam from them this week.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
One thing I did not consider is throttling.
By forceing outgoing mail through an ISP's SMTP server the ISP could throttle the rate email is sent. The throttle could be based on messages over time instead of bits/second. Message throttling should be more effective at controlling spam then bandwidth throttling. However this type of throttling could also be done transparently without blocking outgoing port 25.
There is/was a simple STMP server that shipped with OpenBSD. It is a STMP proxy that did not spool email. It was designed to protect the real SMTP server from certain attacks. If not already a feature, message based throttling probably could be added to this SMTP proxy without too much difficulty.
The downside to STMP message throttling is that it limits a users ability to run a mailing list. I am sure I am not the only one who runs a mailing list to better keep in touch with my friends. Many of whom are now scattered about the globe.
I started reading slashdot a long time ago. One of the first things I did was read the FAQ. This is on it, just as a "for what it's worth", nothing personal, I know what you are saying.
It's primarily a US site, but anyone is free to participate and offer articles from anywhere, here is the reference:
Is slashdot US centric?
Bellsouth's address space is a cesspool. Their abuse department really doesn't give a shit about spammers/owned machines on their networks, and its about damn time they crack down on it. Sorry that they've made it harder for you to run your own mailserver, it really *does* suck that the stupid masses have ruined the fun for you and the other clued-in folks out there; but if I have to choose between people being able to run their own mailservers and the users of the network i help to run getting less spam...well, you're outta luck.
I like treating spam as a game. We bounce it back, we live longer. I don't like my game being taken away.
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
I've been running sendmail on debian woody for years without a hitch. I am *so* glad that Comcast has made an extra effort to accomodate a minority user base. I'm as cynical about oversized corporate oligarchies as anyone, but that kind of concern indicates that someone upstairs 'gets it'. Thank you.
;)
(Oh, and I'm a net/sys admin at a largish institution who is often asked what the local home connection options are...
This is an international site on the internet.
:-P
run $whois slashdot.org - it'll be enlightening for you.
This is an American site. Having links to international webpages doesn't make it any less American. The BBC is a British website, and swissinfo.org is Swiss, and although I frequently read their content, I don't bitch about how they refer to their respective countries. Unless you want to pay to move the servers to your country (I'm sure the admins wouldn't mind sharing the load), quit your bitching.
Considering how much spam has forged information, you're hurting a lot of innocent people. The best thing to do is reject spam at the mailer level. That way, you don't send any bounces, and there's less risk of innocents getting involved.
And do you think Comcast finally took this step because they decided to stop their spamming users?
Hell no!
The only reason they got off their asses is because admins started wholesale blacklisting of their IP space and their customers started complaining.
Blacklisting WORKS! It's the only way to force these ISPs to be responsible.
If you're running content-based filtering, you're part of the problem. If you refuse SMTP traffic from confirmed spam sites, you are part of the solution.
Serving their own (popular) web page? Hosting a busy mailing list for some obscure interest? Doing both at once?
I'm sure Slashdot has put more than 3gigs load on some of the websites it has linked to. Many are hosted out of somebody's basement. (Ok, so that is a one-day load.)
Do you really have to be a business to need to send stuff to other people?
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Here's how it works:
AOL user has a button in their email "this is spam" or "I don't want this" or somesuch.
When they hit the button, the message and headers are sent to some server.
The server automatically blocks the IP of the SMTP server that sent the message so it can no longer send email to AOL.
This works in theory, execpt many users treat this button as a way to muffle their annoying friends. So a "forwarded joke" can get flagged as spam even if it is from their cousin on a small local ISP. There is NO oversight in the process.
Utterly stupid.
I know this, because a local ISP that I help out sometimes coaxed the AOL people to foward the messages with headers so he could address the "problems" and get his mail server unblocked. The messages were personal emails, notes from friends, messages from people's own lawyers as well as normal span.
I am not sure if they have given up caring if AOL-bound emails are blocked. But that's just about the only thing they can do.
They are only going to block your port 25 if they notice something wrong, like you suddenly made 5,000 new friends to sell penis enlargers too. You will still be able to run a legitimate mail server. If your mail server is compromised, you will learn about it. People who spam deliberately will be stopped cold.
People who have their email blocked frequently will consider getting software that is not so easy to compromise. Windoze lusers who took the attitude, "If it does not interfer with my browsing, I don't care." are going to get what they deserve. Most of them are already using their ISP's SMTP server and will never notice anyway.
You can contrast this to Cox and other shitty ISPs that blocked everyone's port 25. First they blocked inbound, which made it difficult to run a mail server. Then they blocked outbound, which forced me to use their shitty SMTP server. They have had frequent problems. Had my own mail server been as unreliable as Cox's is, I'd have given up running one.
Comcast rocks.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What Microsoft told the Washington Post, based on what Cox told me, is clearly disingenuous:
Webb said he thinks port 25 should be blocked by default, and customers should be required to apply for an exception.
They don't want exceptions for anyone.
Comcast's policy, the best for the user and the net as a whole, is really bad for the Soft. Customers are going to learn just how bad M$ junk is when their mail is blocked. Credit is being given where credit is due.
I feel like dancing in the streets.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Note the DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL ADDRESS. .005 cents.
The fax address could also be faked.
At 20 million addresses, that makes my eyeballs worth
I am insulted!
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I, and many of my family member in other cable providers (whoever does Atlanta does the same thing) have had port 25 blocked. Took me awhile to figure out at first. Actually had to have a family membet telenet to blah:25 before i beleived what was happening.
The solution was to open up another port for SMTP access on our server.
This happened years ago, I never thought twice about it.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Let me add novel applications like Freenet to the list. That shifts a lot of data around.
Either use their real email server, or stick your email up your ass. I have all of Spamcast's cable IP blocks locked out of my mailserver anyway. And from looking through the logs on the mailserver, I'm calling bullshit on their claim that they blocked port 25. There's still thousands of attempts per day from Spamcast IPs.
On the other hand, serving ones own web page from a residential broadband connection is usually against the user policy of the ISP, hence making it not legal to do so.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Let be exact here.
Terms of service != Legal
Has anyone noticed that email which passes through Comcast's servers is delayed for an amazing amount of time? I had a customer that I consult for miss deadlines (and consequently sales) because of mail that was sent at 0800 and got recieved at 2200 the next day. I'm not exaggerating.
Hearing this and playing around with it a bit, it became obvious that the mail was simply lounging around on Comcast's servers.
Now, of course, I can talk to their tech support until I'm blue in the face and ask them what's going on, but I'd like to take this chance to appeal to the Slashdot community, who usually have a much better understanding of these matters than the droids at the Comcast call center.
If you do a couple quick searches around dslreports and newsgroups and so on, you'll see that there are in fact many people who have the precise same issue, and have recieved no significant reply.
Are there any Comcast insiders who know why these emails float around in limbo for 24 hour periods?
This from a guy that has something to do with Courier, a MTA? Do you not want people to be able to use your nice GPL'd software from Comcast's network? I don't get it.
I know that Microsoft would like to blacklist Comcast. What they have done will inconvenience people with who are running zombies, which are the real problem. Cox was threatened with a blacklist from them if they did not block, without recourse, all port 25. Comcast is brave to stand up to them.
What am I missing here?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I hope so. Before Cox blocked port 25, I started getting more and more bounces but Exim was still more reliable than Cox's SMTP server. Not being able to run a real mail server bothered me, but having to point my MTA at Cox's SMTP servers has been a real pain.
This inconvenience to cheap-o owners of SMTP servers with DHCP-assigned addresses has been a real shame ...
Do me a favor and tell Cox to get rid of their expensive and money losing DHCP infrastructure for their "always on" internet connection with a 1:1 IP to client ratio. I liked the static IP I got from AtHome and I paid for one from Cox when they started to charge for that "service". I dropped it when they wanted $70/month for service that was slower than DSL.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The first thing I could come up with: XDMCP over a VPN (or not.) That would chew up bandwidth rapidly (it's dog-slow when I access my home system from work through ssh over 384kbps upstream, to the point of unusability, you really need a megabit or two to get anything done) and is entirely legitimate.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A couple of yeras ago Juno did that to my daughter. I would send an email and be luck if she got it withing 60 hours. She spent the money and got a "real" ISP. End of problem.
Less expensive is nice, but you get what you pay for, most of the time,
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I mean, geez, there are still N-Gage commercials on TV.
Sometimes you just get the feeling that Novell marketing couldn't market their way out of a paper bag if you gave them a pair of scissors.
And don't be so egotistical to say "they should all speak English", the universe or even the Internet doesn't revolve around America.
Well, they should. Not every customer, obviously, but those in charge of some network. They should have one person who can answer abuse reports in English. Most network people do at least have a rudimentary understanding of English anyway because docs are often English only. Besides there's automated translation which often gives at least a good impression of what a text is about.
I say that as someone whose native language isn't English. The Net needs some lingua franca, and English seems to be a good choice.
Completely.
For all users.
luckily, I, along with some other students who enjoy being able to send out own mail and not use the webmail for sending, are also members of TriLUG, our local Linux User Group which operates a (secured) mail relay. Since it also runs on port 435 (or something like that, the *other* SMTP port), none of us have any trouble sending mail from our computers.
but its still a shitty solution to a shittier problem. seriously, they just need to start shutting off people's connections if you're spamming...damn humanities majors...
e to the pi i plus one equals zero
I'll grant that your premise is true, but how do you determine that an IP is actually dynamic. Several of the RBL's have blocked the entire Verizon netspace, including T1's that are definately not static. I know that from experience.
I hate Verizon, but until we can switch our internet access to another ISP, I'm stuck explaining to our employees why their emails are bouncing (and the conversation includes several references to the collective stupidity of the Verizon employees and the RBL maintainers). Yes, Verizon could get it fixed, but they have chosen to ignore our requests since their company motto seems to be "We don't care, We don't have to, We're the phone company".
Even if this post doesn't change anything, I suddenly feel better for having written it.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. I mean, this is an article about email disclaimers, right? The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx. WTF?
Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or this. Or this.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, twitter wants to be RMS, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FU
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. I mean, this is an article about email disclaimers, right? The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx. WTF?
Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or this. Or this.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, twitter wants to be RMS, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FU
you agree to the Terms of service when you signed up. If you don't agree with them, go somewhere else.
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
When my ISP (Aliant) started blocking port 25, it really screwed me up for a day or so (before I realized what was going on), but luckily my DNS registrar (EasyDNS) allowed me to be flexible and set my MX record to send mail to a different (unblocked) port.
As long as your registrar has a similar ability, you should be OK. They have a handy tutorial, which might prove helpful.
How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
I have to use my own mail server at my hosting company to process my outbound mail. My IP is in a "dialup" blacklist, so I can't send straight out of my cable modem connection. I used Comcast's own mail server for about a week, I was tired of their server being down so much and mail not going out in a timely manner.
Maybe they've improved, but I just don't have the time or patience to find out...
Do you have ESP?
some ISP already do this, for example optusnet and use.net block all mail from dynamic IP (from my ISP anyway)
when contacted they just say, use your ISP mail server, well yes, thats nice in theory, but in my case the ISP (tel$tra) mail server is totally fscked, and after 2 years my account is still broken
when tel$tra finally gets around to blocking cable users port 25, I am totally screwed, with no access to outgoing email
Even if your signal:noise ratio is as bad with postal mail as it is with email, "real" junk mail isn't nearly as bad as spam.
If you somehow get on The Sharper Image's mailing list, they'll send you catalogues for a year or two. If you never order anything, they'll stop sending you catalogues eventually, because it actually costs money to print and ship physical "junk"!
And at least you won't get completely burned by the likes of Capital One and MCI if you bite on their junk mail. They are, at least, somewhat reputable companies -- not wealthy Nigerian widows who want to help you make your dick grow three inches.
One day a while back, my outgoing email suddenly stopped functioning. Came to find out that Cox decided to block port 25 access to any but its own SMTP servers, and that if you want to send anything, it's got to go thru them. They said they'd remove that restriction if I wanted to "upgrade" my service to business class. For more money of course. This on top of an earlier fiasco in which they falsely accused me and a few hundred other people of running Napster servers, and threated to shut us down if we didn't desist. (They implemented a scanning script which was miscoded and thought a firewall was evidence of Napster for some reason. Evidently they didn't test it, so it automatically generated hundreds of nasty emails to customers. The resulting meltdown of their inbox and subsequent groveling apology was a glorious thing.)
From a Comcast Help Desk person who was on duty that night: no, your email wasn't blocked, but when 400,000 people apply for a beta spot and only 5,000 get in, it sure seems that way, doesn't it?
And to stay on topic - if you get wrongly blocked on port 25, just call in, we'll tell you how to get yourself off the blacklist. It's that easy.
Just curious, are you (or your customer) paying for the "business class" service? Comcast doesn't advertise that it would eliminate that delay, but it might. Then again, if support didn't already redirect you to sales, they may know it won't make a difference.
If it remains an issue, you could try smarthosting your mail through another ISP. It costs more, but if your business really depends upon email, you'd be crazy not to have a backup plan.
There are also plenty of people who need to use their employer's mail servers for work-related email.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Sure. Again, though, what would you be hosting or downloading from Freenet that's legal? Sure, there are examples, but your average user won't be hosting/downloading Linux distros.
Two points here:
1) It's a valid use. Read the subject though. You are not the average user.
2) Most ISPs have a clause against running servers. Debate about which is the server in this case aside, the ISP would almost certainly consider you to be running a server. If you turn it around and say you want to access your work machine from home, you run into the clause that several ISPs have against this sort of thing (it's considered business use, and they want to bump you up to a business class level of service).
Now I'm generally of the opinion that the ISP should just give you an IP address and let you run with it (throttling everyone's bandwidth as appropriate--I'm not saying they should HAVE to offer you 6mbps or anythihng). But MOST users have no use for 3gigs of download a day if they aren't commercial or accessing remote desktops. ISPs sell their broadband based on people violating copyright, and I'd say most people get broadband for that very reason.
(if you reply, remember I said MOST people. Obviously there are exceptions)
That has to be area specific. Roadrunner in my area does not block port 25 outgoing or incoming.
hmm...unless the blocking has something to do with whether you get cable service direct from them or pay for it through another ISP.
About users of comcast on their home servers (note, dynamic) are crying about no longer being able to host their mail servers.
And?
You are using the services of comcast as an ISP and thus are subject to their TOS. If comcast says "no, we don't want you to host a server" then quite simply, you can not host a server. However, as it may be, they have a yes/no look upon servers.
As many comcast users who run a httpd, I'm sure we've all noticed the massive script checking logs that probe how well our servers are secured. No, it isn't a million script kiddies, because comcast higher-up's comfirmed their security scanning. (gave them a call and spent a few good hours cutting heads off). Their primary concern isn't about pissing off the companies, as Comcast is primarily a dynamic IP home userbase. This means that they are more worried about the security of the home user's network as well as Comcast's network, and thus why they run security scans on the users servers.
If your server is secure, isn't spamming, or using an unusual amount of bandwidth, they won't lift a finger or say a word. If you are running an ancient server version, spamming, or using a ton of unusual bandwidth on incoming, they are going to notify you.
It's that simple guys.
"We're breaking out the ramen noodles. . . "
"Really? Is it someone's birthday?"
just too hard
Well if you run sendmail look in the sendmail.mc file with fedora and you will see this:
Have you thought about those that legally trade large music and video files?
I easily break 90gb a month on just unlicensed fansub anime. Not even counting listening to streaming mp3s.
The difference is, murder actually has a victim.
bell sympatico in .ca has been blocking outbound port 25 for ages.
it kind of bugged me at first to think "damn them for controlling my usage!"
but then I realized how much spam actually comes directly from idiot systems out there I changed my mind. My server doesn't process all that much mail; maybe 50,000 messages a week. But ever since I stopped allowing mail from unauthorized dynamic hosts (using securitysage's rules and postfix) I've been able to monitor where it comes from. (4400 or so messages/week from comcast hosts)
This type of thing shouldn't affect 'normal' users. For the clients I have that do use sympatico; I've setup an alternative method for them to still use my system as an outbound server -- with authentication, natrually.
It's a lot easier to control spam if email is channeled through an ISPs server rather than a bunch of rogue systems sending directly to destinations... lets see if my numbers on comcast mail rejections drop...
It's just Crap.
Don't forget:
Gaming server
IRC server
multiple VNC server
Internet radio
PHPnuke boards
Popular Blog
Popular Webcomic comic
Not so popular flavor of Linux you made yourself
Internet phone
Being a camgirl
Seriously, is your imagination so limited that you can't think of another way you use up a lot of uploading bandwidth legally?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Dude, N-Gage is Nokia not Novell.
its about time they just put up a brick wall against tcp25... i for one have gotten sick and tired of the 125-250ms roundtrip times that you can experience on their network in the evening hours. the performance usually follows worm trends predictably. and surely it is a simple matter for someone who can administer an email server to begin with to set an outbound mta in their configuration. you just know the next set of worms is going to probe the mta info somehow. but for now it will be a nice reprieve.
they can still send mail through their provider's mail servers.
If you operate more than one domain, using your provider's mail server is not always an option. Especially if your ISP is one of those big providers, you won't be able to convince them to accept mail for N domains (N > 1). Unless you buy more account with them, or use one of those prepackaged 5, 10, whatever user domains per account.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Carnivore. The amount of Spam and client machines slows it way down. All major ISP's have it installed and it routes all e-mail through it. Any e-mail that goes to the companies' server gets lower priority (due to holding on server), while mail that is sent from client machines is given priority due to realtime constraint (msn, aol, etc, all have the same problem).
Many of the more clued ISPs, mail filtering services, and corporate mail servers either block or mark incoming mail from dynamic IPs. I believe that more servers will block mail from dynamic IPs as time goes on unless all of the cable companies do something drastic to block spam from their users.
I am sorry to hear that your monopoly ISP provides such poor service. Perhaps you could get smart host mail service from another provider (perhaps via SSH or VPN to bypass port 25).
Amen! I'm from Holland. And before anyone starts shouting about the drug-policy in my country, please make sure you have read a bit about it.
Basically, "soft drugs" (drugs that are mentally, but not physically, addicting) are allowed for personal use. Now what happens?
The amount of adolescents (w.r.t. the population) that tries soft-drugs like Mariuana one or a couple of times is significantly higher than the US average. However, the amount of adolescents that actually uses soft-drugs regularly is much lower.
Adolescents are adolescents: they will piss off the world around them by doing things that are not allowed. And guess what: If you allow soft-drugs, it's not exciting for them to use them anymore. So most won't.
A second advantage of a liberal soft-drugs policy is that there actually is a certain quality-control out there. So if your kids will try Mariuana once, you as a parent can rest assured that it's a good quality, and doesn't contain any crap.
I'm not saying that a liberal drug policy is "the answer", but I do say that the American dogmatic "o-my-god-it's-bad-so-we-should-wage-war-on-it" attitude doesn't work at all. Try to see beyond the dogma, and be pragmatic, it works!
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
I of course meant this link.
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
The rbl's that list dynamic IPs will correct their listings if the DNS information for the IPs is correct and they are informed by the ISP that the listing is incorrect. The rbl's that list dynamic IP space are not listing all of Verizon's IP space, only the dynamic space.
The stament about some rbl's listing all of Verizon's IP space has nothing at all to do with the blocking of mail from dynamic space.
They are in fact blocking Verizon IP's that are not dynamic, I can prove that. The Verizon IP's they block are clearly wrong in some cases (checking the public WHOIS records would confirm that for them easily). Their correction mechanism is broken. They require the ISP to contct them to correct it, this works fine in most cases, but Verizon simply doesn't care, so the inaccuracies continue. This is a deficiancy on Verizon's part (see my rant in the previous post), but still it make for an inaccurate block list and no feasible way for the customer to correct it.
The stament about some rbl's listing all of Verizon's IP space has nothing at all to do with the blocking of mail from dynamic space.
Huh? It has everything to do with it. My point is that they are also blocking some static addresses. It's easy for you to say "well some collateral damage is acceptable", but if you can't receive some important email because the sender is a Verizon Business customer, then it does affect you. Of course, if your blocking that email, you won't know about any business you are missing, so I guess it's OK.
Let's get in the business of assuming people to be criminals when they're not like us. Surely that'll be fun.
For a company that's "getting tough on spam", they don't seem too interested in implementing one of the more common measures to reduce it...
One of the servers that I administer is on Comcast. I just set up SPF records for that domain, and I "include comcast.net" because we send most of our stuff through their SMTP server. Now if only Comcast would set up their SPF records, we could comply to this lovely standard.
Sorry to take this opportunity to rant about one of my pet peeves...
Show me any large database that is 100% accurate. The rbl's that list dynamic IPs accept corrections from ISPs (and sometimes from users), some will also accept entire lists of dynamic ports from ISPs. This means that an ISP can send a list of IP blocks for listing and the rbl will only list those blocks as being dynamic IPs (unless it is found that the ISPs are trying to scam them). If a provider provides shitty service, then the customers should either get their provider to change or the customer should change providers. Your original post indicated that there were rbl's that reported that all of Verizon's IP space was being reported as being dynamic. Now you are saying that there are ERRORS in the dynamic rbl lists, this is a big difference.
Keep in mind that this is broadband and upstream traffic is throttled. He may get 40-60kb/s upstream. I just don't seem someone hosting a busy web-site on their comcast cable modem. He's going to be downloading, and that being said, what would someone download 90GB/month of?
It's not email but how about all of their advertising that they would rather their customers see instead of a usable program guide? Atleast with email you can somwehat filter it out...
I'm saying it is an ERROR to list all of Verizon's IP space as dynamic. Is that not clear enough? What do you see as the difference?
Perhaps we should just drop this. At least we agree that moving off stupid ISP's like Verizon is the only solution. Unfortunately, my company won't be able to use an RBL because we have people using Verizon that want to send us email. Until they *all* migrate to other ISP's, and RBL that lists all of the Verizon IP space as synamic is usless to us.
Fortunately, we use a better Spam filter (CanIt) that doesn't need an RBL to be effective.
go invent your own network.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Yup, it is, in fact, the business class email, and the way we've gotten around it is by having our site (connected to XO) relay the mail for him.
We send a lot of email to AOL and are in AOL's feedback loop for spam reports.
You are right, pushing the button leads to a spam report being sent to AOL, who then keep statistics on file for the spam's origin. If your IP gets "too many" reports compared to the volume of email you are sending, you will be blocked. But it's not normally a 1-for-1 type of deal. And if you're in the feedback loop, you get a copy of the spam report.
We've had days where we've received as many as 20 spam reports, yet we haven't been blocked yet, presumably because our volume was high enough and our track record good enough to be left alone.
We don't send spam. All our users subscribe (yes, on purpose) to receive our email. Yet you get people pushing the "Report Spam" button for many reasons:
- In AOL 9.0, there is not even a warning or a window asking to confirm the button press. You push the button, and any email you have selected is instantly reported as spam.
- They don't tell their users that spam reports are filed and that this may have adverse affects on the person sending the email. All they know is "I don't want email like this anymore." We go out of our way to remind our users in every email where they can go to cancel their account. Doesn't matter. (Keep in mind these people actually requested our email.)
- The "Report Spam" button is DIRECTLY NEXT TO THE DELETE BUTTON. This is fucking retarded. Combined with no warning when a spam report is filed, half the people filing reports are aiming for the delete button. (We know because we've asked for info about these people.)
Here's the best part.
AOL sends these spam reports to you if you are in the feedback loop. The idea is that you will act on them since you are not supposed to send that person any more email once they report you. But they delete the person's email address so you're SOL in most cases! Luckily for us, we're using a good list server that lets us embed the member ID of the user so we can cancel their account. But lots of times we'll get reports on various automated emails from our website that have no other ID aside from the now-erased email address.
All in all, AOL has their head up their ass.
Dude, N-Gage is Nokia [nokia.com] not Novell.
Dude, it was a joke.
Here, I'll explain it to you: Novell used to have this flagship product called NetWare Directory Services [NDS]. Then Novell Marketing renamed it to Novell Directory Services [still NDS]. Then Novell Marketing renamed it to eDirectory [no longer "NDS," and with no apparent acronym]. Then they renamed the whole shebang to "Ngage, exteNd, Nsure, and Nterprise". No one has a clue what any of those things mean. By the way, this is the home page for Ngage.
So here's the joke: Novell, proud new owners of Ximian and SuSE, and brave, stalwart defenders of the System V trademark against the diabolical Santa Cruz Operation, is the object of Linux fanboy passion [albeit fleeting] the world over, and, as above, their flagship product has been renamed "Ngage" [in a move that nobody understands]. The great-grandparent post was about a product called "N-Gage," but of course none of the /. Linux fanboys thought of Novell when they heard the term "N-Gage" - instead they thought immediately of Nokia.
Well, like I said, that's the joke. I guess you'd have to be an old MCNE/MCNI like me to have gotten it, but that's okay: Goodness knows there aren't many of us left any more, so you young whippersnappers are forgiven. Enjoy your blissful ignorance while you can, and then watch Novell Marketing drive yet another industry leading product into utter oblivion and irrelevance.
How about classic British television. Given that the British Broadcasting Corporation is releasing a large chunk of their video archives to freely-downloadable content I can see using up 90 Gb's easily. And that's only ONE large source of legitimate, free content on the Internet. So be careful with assuming that just because you have limited reasons for using the Internet that the rest of us are equally limited. The assumption you're making is the same one that Comcast is making, that all people can be put into one of two categories. To wit, they are a. good, law-abiding citizens who can be intimidated into barely using their expensive "high-speed, broadband, unlimited always-on" service for nothing more than email and light browsing, and b. Network-abusing bandwidth hogs, i.e. those that simply want to use their "high-speed, broadband, unlimited always-on" service in the manner which they were promised. Why someone wants to download big files is irrelevant: Comcast heavily markets the speed of their service and people buy it for that reason alone. Comcast is a business, I understand that, but if they cannot actually provide the services that they are selling (even if it is only to a relatively small percentage of their customer base) they need to re-think their business plan. But Comcast's management is surely aware that a large segment of the population bought broadband for one reason: fast transfer of large amounts of data. If they succeed in eliminating that benefit in order to save costs they will find themselves much less competitive. I'm sure that terms like "bandwidth caps" sound appealing in the boardroom, but in reality this is the age of the downloader, and any ISP that wants to survive in that world had better be very, very careful.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
What Microsoft told the Washington Post, based on what Cox told me, is clearly disingenuous:
Webb said he thinks port 25 should be blocked by default, and customers should be required to apply for an exception.
They don't want exceptions for anyone.
Comcast's policy, the best for the user and the net as a whole, is really bad for the Soft. Customers are going to learn just how bad M$ junk is when their mail is blocked. Credit is being given where credit is due.
I feel like dancing in the streets.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Spam is a weapon that's being used to destroy conventional email and competitive ISPs. Connect the dots and follow the money. Spam is being used for more than promoting dubious products. Spam is a cheap DoS and some people have plenty of money and reason to buy it.
I imagine that Microsoft is a big spam purchaser but is not alone. Microsoft spent more than a billion dollars promoting XP and has been known to break competitor's service. It's easy to imagine them and other big ISPs paying spammers to bomb their competitor's mail. Microsoft also has a long record for astroturfing and disrespect of other people's property and business. Does anyone think they would shrink from using spam this way?
If that's not enough reason, Microsoft has also announced that they want to make money from new kinds of "secure" email. Schemes have been advocated where every user of email would pay them and everyone would need their software. They also would sell advertising to the same "respectable" businesses who have polluted TV, radio and billboards, the sky itself and every other place you might glance. Sounds like they would like real email to die, no?
The US Government agrees with Microsoft on that score. Their carnivore system will not work if people run their own mail servers and encrypt their mail. It's much easier for them to intercept and filter mail that has to go, unencrypted, through a few large ISP owned smpt servers.
To top it all off, Microsoft and AOL threatened my ISP with blacklisting if they did not block all port 25. My ISP complied. Another poster here has the same story about their ISP.
Comcast is fighting them. Good for them and everyone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I work at a small-to-middling isp, and we get almost daily reports from spamcop et al reporting one of our dsl customers. We're going to have to start blocking outgoing port 25 unless the customer requests it be unblocked simply in self-defense. It's a tiny, minute fraction that do actually run their own mail servers, and even they could still relay through our mail server. When SPF or something like it is widely deployed, then we'll be able to open things back up because few of these machines will be authorized mail servers.
eat me, bitch
Why did you post the same thing again? Are you pissed that it got moderated down?
I'm wasting your time and mod points, bitch. I know both cost Bill Gates money.
24 hours? That is nothing. When my ISP implemented their SPAM tagging/deletion scheme and virus scanning functions I would routinely get my mail up to 8 days later. It did not bother me, if I relied on my home address for business, it would probably cheese me off, but that is why I have back-up addresses.
I hate sigs.
Playing multiplayer videogames over the net. Downloading/streaming movies from subscription services. Streaming radio stations that you listen to, downloading porn from sites you've paid to access, backing up your remote colo server, serving bittorrents for popular open source projects.
The point is, if you offer unlimited accounts, you shouldn't be limiting them. Offer metered accounts instead.
I download a lot of high quality porn from subscription sites. Probably about 200 to 300gb per month. It's legal content I have paid to access through an ISP that I've paid to get bandwidth from, so why should there be a problem? My contract didn't say anything about "UNLIMITED 3.5mbps/256kbps for only $60/month... up to 90gb per month".
Why not push your mail through the verizon mail server? Just set the smart host and not worry about being blocked.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
little quibble... fansub anime is a copyvio. however, as ScrewMaster points out below, there are many places with free content on the intarweb. creativecommons.org links to many of them.
-Leigh
You know why? Because there is ALWAYS going to be someone complaining and fighting against it. How many users do you think a small local ISP needs threatening to cancel their service before they decide not to block ports, etc?
If people would take up the philosophy "You can please some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all the time." and just block the ports, the complaining would die down soon enough.
And I belive I am just rambling on here. I will go now.
ND
This statement is forty-five characters long.
It pissed me off because they didn't warn people they were doing it and my outgoing email just started getting blocked inexplicably (didn't find out for a while 'cuz qmail doesn't generate bounce messages immediately). I don't mind anymore 'cuz their SMTP servers let me send mail addressed from my domain instead of theirs so it's a one-liner in smtproutes, but I just wish I would have been alerted ahead of time!
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Being a game server for your friends.
Most games assume a 48kbps connection (which is a reasonable expectation for dial-up). Call it 4KB/s or 14MB/hr. If you have 8 people playing for 6 hours a day... that is 672 MB/day.
Newer games support up to 64 players per server, assuming that it's more like 32 players on average and 18 hours per day... the number is 8064 MB/day (over 8GB).
The numbers add up quick when you host multi-user games.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?