Ask Slashdot: Is There a War Against Small Mail Servers?

softegg writes "My company hosts our own mail server. We have high-speed business connections through Verizon and Comcast. Recently, Verizon and Comcast have been blocking port 25, causing our private mail server to stop functioning. Additionally, a lot of ISPs just started blocking any mail coming from any IP in the address block of cable modems. This caused us to start laundering our mail through a third-party service called DNSExit. Now, McAfee's MAPS anti-spam system tells us they are blocking DNSExit for spam. Essentially, we are finding ourselves increasingly cut off from sending any outgoing mail. What is a small company supposed to do if you want to host your own mail?"

Comments

This is a big deal for me. :-(

[Omnifarious]

I've run my own mailserver for over a decade. It's IP has changed every few years if I switch ISPs, but otherwise it remains stable. I have a static IP on a DSL line and have reverse mappings set up. I have SPF records. I've registered with a whitelist. I've done everything I can. And still nobody who uses hotmail gets email from me. And I have increasing difficulty getting email to anybody else.

And I do not believe a single spam message has ever made it out from my network. I even block outgoing port 25 for the network segment my roommates use (when I have roommates) unless I'm administrating their computers.

This whole trend is really upsetting to me, and totally broken. I never have a problem sending email to someone with a gmail.com address, and they have the best spam filtering of any email provider I've ever used. The shortcut of blocking any DSL IP is clearly unnecessary if Google can do such a good job without it.