Slashdot Mirror
Verizon's Aggressive New Spam Filter Causing Problems
aviancarrier writes "Verizon DSL has turned on a very aggressive spam filter that is blocking lots of long-time legitimate emails. Emails get bounced with an error: 'XX@verizon.net: host relay.verizon.net[206.46.232.11] said: 550 Email from your Email Service Provider is currently blocked by Verizon Online's anti-spam system. The email "sender" or Email Service Provider may visit http://www.verizon.net/whitelist and request removal of the block.' That whitelist web page lets you request one address at a time to be whitelisted with no guarantee for their response time to process it. I have tested multiple email sources and only one got through. As a VZ customer, I just spent 28 minutes on a call to tech support, eventually got a supervisor who knows nothing about the new spam feature, and would only agree to email a manager who doesn't work weekends about it. I warned her that VZ has a public relations problem but she was too clueless to understand." Many users have submitted this problem so it seems to be a pretty far reaching problem. There is also a discussion going on over at Google about this problem.
I went to the referenced URL and it sure looks to me like, using the
ISP form, you can request multiple domains and multiple IP addrs in a
single request.
Also, the discussion over at Google currently has a whopping 6 entries.
Much ado about nothing?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Here's a trick for Verizon Online phone service: Call up, listen to menu items, then say -nothing-. Don't ask for an operator, don't enter in your phone number: just chill for about two minutes while the prompts repeat. In under three minutes, you'll be transfered to a live operator.
...you need to power-cycle your DSL modem, disconnect everything but a single ethernet cable from your modem to your PC, reboot your PC, count to 30 while hopping on one foot, and say the alphabet backwards first before anyone at Verizon will turn on their brains and acknowledge they have a problem. Plus...28 minutes on the phone?? Pffft. You don't get the "real" tech support until they keep you on the line for at least 60 minutes.
Don't you know how they troubleshoot already?
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
I ran a bulk-sending system (legitimate!) to email Frontier Airline's frequent flyer members, and Verizon was the biggest single problem getting mail through. I don't think I ever did get them to accept our runs at all.
The big thing they already had in place was that they want to connect back on port 25 to the sending system AND make sure it responds initially with the same name it's using to send mail out. Not a bad thing overall, I suppose, but I can see how it would block quite a few messages from providers that use separate sending servers from their receiving servers. I finally had to set up SMTPFWDD on both outgoing servers to accept connections and silently drop any emails they get, that helped, but I think they still rate-limited heavily.
I'd say if you depend on getting your email, Verizon's not a good ISP to use.
Verizon is a spam sewer itself.
r izon.net
http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings.lasso?isp=ve
Having worked in tech support for a large company, I can assure you that the position of supervisor for a tech support call centre really doesn't have nearly as much influence on coprorate public relations as you seem to think that it has.
Most of the people in her position would be surprised to find out that any one from the head office even knows that they exist, let alone cares about what they do or asks their opinion on issues like PR. It's normal to be annoyed when a company like Verizon screws up like this, but lashing out at the tech support staff just because they're the easist people to reach really doesn't help anybody.
Attempts to contact Verizon to verify claims have been met with resistance.
This sytem from Verizon is a step in the right direction. AT&T's spam blocking is totally lame, wish they would learn a thing or two from their competitors. I do admin my own domains but keep my at&t for special purposes. It is possible to filter over 99% of spam through a combination of techniques.
Sometime this morning two of my email addresses got whitelisted and could get through again to Verizon Online. Earlier in the morning I received form emails from Verizon's whitelist group saying they have attempted to contact the blocked company/domain.
Regarding the person who accused me of being a spammer: No. Just a husband trying to email my wife's VZ account.
Regarding the "lashing" out at the customer service supervisor: I was trying to get her to help her own company out. The fact that she was not told anything about a new level of spam filtering nor had (she claims) a way to contact a manager on a weekend about a PR problem may be a standard problem for that level of supervisor, but I wanted to give her a way to be a hero internally and stop a PR problem from getting worse.
Emails to Verizon to find out more information have gone unanswered...
This guy's the limit!
Seems like it.
I used to send all my email out of my own mailserver, out of my home firewall/router/"box-in-a-closet" machine.
Recently -- like within the last six months or so, I've noticed an alarming number of domains that aren't receiving my emails. And no, I haven't been blackholed or otherwise put on anyone's shit list, nor am I running an open relay. The mailserver is perfectly well-behaved, standards compliant, and only relays from within my home LAN.
I also don't mass-mail or do any other sort of sketchy activity, I just always liked having my own mailserver and never having to worry about when my ISPs (or Google's, or my web hosting providers') was going to flake out on me. But it's becoming nearly impractical to do. I'm never sure if an email that I sent out has actually gotten through, or if it's just been silently eaten by some spam filter somewhere.
The worst offender that I've found so far is Comcast; I haven't been able to get any messages through at all to Comcast subscribers, and they don't provide back any sort of acknowledgment that a message has been blocked. Every time I send anything to them, it's firing a shot into the darkness.
I hate spam as much as anybody else (probably more than some); I'm in favor of using some of those Federal "computer crimes" laws -- the ones that have harsher penalties for electronically violating a system than if you walked in and stole it in person -- against spammers. See what 20 years of pound-me-in-the-ass prison followed by another 10 or 15 of no-computer probation (and consequent unemployment) does for their attitude. Or there are the always popular vigilante death squads, I could find a warm place in my heart for them, too. Either of those would be preferable to the current patchwork system of blacklists, whitelists, greylists, RBLs, and unilateral policies on the part of ISPs that break up the nature of the network.
Sending an email shouldn't be like tossing a message in a bottle into the ocean, but that's how it's getting to be with some ISPs.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Just a quick note, I run an email service, and I've had the most problems getting past blocks from:
AOL
Excite
Comcast
The easiest was AOL, they have a number you can call 24 hours a day to get removed (but it takes 48 hours for the removal to take effect). The other two have been blocking mail from my servers for two weeks. I have filled out contact forms, and left voicemails to no avail.
I haven't recieved a complaint about Verizon yet, but that could be because I have SPF records.
Perhaps she was too jaded from hearing customers complain that Verizon has a PR problem.
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
From what I've heard (and what I experienced from having their service in the second half of 2000), this is nothing new for Verizon. They're only interested in the money-making aspects of the telecom business, and drag their feet on everything else. The setup of this aggressive new spam filter was probably one of those "money-making" items, since it means far less spam traffic and decreased accusations of hosting spam bots. Of course, when customers start complaining that they can't send email to specific addresses, they have to deal with Verizon's understaffed, undercapable customer service departments, who will most likely be faced with fierce opposition from the suits in opposing the "grand money-saving, liability-reducing spam filter".
Also, keep in mind that when Verizon acquired MCI, they acquired UUNet, a tier-1 ISP with some serious spam problems of their own. I wouldn't be surprised if taking on UUNet's elephant-on-their-back was part of the rationale behind the new spam filtering policies.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Saying a phone line tech support manager is bad at her job because she can't do anything about an engineering 'feature' in under two days is impossibly naive.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Why is Verizon blocking any of it's customers' mail by default and then putting the onus on them to fix any problems that arise in the first place? This should be an opt-in service for those who want to make sure they don't miss anything.
More and more ISPs are starting to implement the same compliance checks. Would any of these reject your system's mail? Several of our customers had misconfigured outbound servers and we helped them fix their systems. We were only early adopters, though; if we hadn't caught the problem then a major ISP or five would have started rejecting their email without being so helpful.
Maybe VZ is in the right this time. Are you sure they're not?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
...that I no longer work for the VZ mail team. And I can say, without a doubt that I'm VERY happy that I don't sit next to the Spam Cop... I know he reads /. and he would be VERY pissy for the next week or so.
I may be burried in work, but at least I'm not burried in public ire.
Yeah, this system from Verizon is junk. It blocks legitimate email constantly. We currently have 2 businesses in the same building. For some reason, Verizon is constantly blocking one of our business domains from the other business domain. And no amount of phone calls or emails or removal requests have done anything for us. We will shortly be moving to a new provider.
Can all fish swim?
It's the fact that there is nothing to distinguish his email server from any of the hundreds (thousands?) of zombies on that same network.
In cases such as this, the best solution is for the home user to over-comply. And that means learning about relaying and getting a relay account on a server that does not look like a zombie.This is not about anyone being an idiot.
This is about making it as easy as possible for the other competent email admins to see that you are not a zombie.
The more concessions you expect from all of them, the more problems you'll face.
Wow. A complete and total geek response. A totally useless geek response. It's very very obvious that's you've never dealt with large numbers of "ordinary" users. RSS means they have to a) install new software b) configure new software c) remember to launch the new software and check for new messages.
It's not a solution, it's just a new problem.
ObTagLine: The more you run over the 'possum, the flatter it gets.
Actually, no, the system from Verizon (VOL) is not a step in the right direction.
Imagine the impact to email in general if EVERY ISP and company use such a bonehead system. Everytime you sent email to a new person (customer / client,) you would have to *find*, then fill out some bizzaro web form. MAYBE in a week or so you will finally be able to send your email. Exactly how does this help things???
VOL's problem is that the group running their email service is a bunch of totally incompetant BOFH a-holes. Instead of deploying well known and effective anti-spam solutions, they are just blacklisting up a storm, and utilizing broken home-grown "sender verification" systems. Meanwhile, the spew of filth from VOL's own network continues to infest the rest of the internet unabated.
VOL's problem with unreliable email service is VERY VERY well known to its customers - check the internal Verizon newsgroups. VOL's customers continue to complain constantly, as they have for nearly 2 years now, about missing or delayed email - but nobody at VOL is listening (or cares.)
I've spent a fair amount of time tracking down the error that you're looking at. Its primarily caused by 2 things. Your server sends Verizon spam or its misconfigured.
1. Your server is a known open relay or has otherwise been responsible for sending spam to the Verizon network.
2. Your server is misconfigured. An improperly configured webserver will cause this problem every time. VOL, when receiving an email from a web server, attempts to check the validity and credentials of the sender on the originating SMTP server. If your server fails to respond with an appropriate timeframe or responds incorrectly, your server will be immediately placed on the "black list"
I'd like to note that Verizon has had this (exact same) anti-spam procedure in place for almost a year and a half. I'm still going to say this is "much ado about nothing".
Unfortunately, I probably shouldn't attach my name to this one. I'll post this AC and see if anyone cares to mod up the reason why you're receiving this error.
AC
You can't check the validity of the from address of mail. They blacklist people who's mail servers return tempfails for fuck's sake.