Dreamhost.com, the company that hosts a website and e-mail for the bussiness I work for, has also had their forwards blocked by comcast this week. The funny thing is, gmail gets way more forwards from dreamhost and they don't have a problem filtering spam. Comcast said that the majority of the mail recieved from dreamhost is spam, which is not true.
Here is the message dreamhost users recieved...
Comcast forwards to be disabled, and AOL Update
Posted 21 hours, 36 minutes ago (August 30th, 2006 at 2:40 pm PST) by Karl
Today we have some good news, and bad news!
We've been contacted by someone very helpful at AOL and I think we have that problem squared away, at least for now. There have been no further blocks and the AOL contact has indicated that our thresholds for blocking are much higher now. We're waiting for a bit to see whether this will solve the problem long-term, and are looking at implementing some suggestions they have made in the meantime to ensure that we can hopefully stay on their good side. We still won't be allowing new AOL forwards or forwards that have been removed to be re-added, but the existing ones won't be disabled for the time being. I still recommend setting up a local mailbox rather than forwarding any mail if possible, as forwards of any type add a potential failure point in your email's path.
Now, for the bad news -- Comcast has become an increasing problem in the last two weeks and is now completely denying our unblock requests. As a result:
In 7 days, on Wednesday, September 6th, we will be disabling all forwards to @comcast.net addresses.
As a bit of background:
Comcast blocks are atypical from the others that we've been having problems with in that they last indefinitely until unblocked manually. Unlike AOL blocks (which phase out automatically after 24 hours - though may reappear) someone has to flip a switch over there for any future mail to go through. The unfortunate part is that they have zero human availability and all we get from their blacklist email address are auto-responses -- either the IP is automatically unblocked, or the unblock is denied and the phone number of their abuse/security department is given. Unfortunately, this phone number is a completely unmanned voicemail drop-box. We've left no less than six messages on their voicemail in the last couple months, and despite numerous requests we have never received a phone call back or an email response. We're not even asking that they remove the blacklist -- we're simply asking for more information on why the IPs were blocked, and for a sampling of the typical spam they are supposedly getting from us! In fact, the only response we can get from them (if we get one at all) is an automated form message saying that "most of the email" received from our IPs is spam, which we know, in fact, is false.
Again we regret that this decision had to be made, but we're currently wasting a great deal of time answering complaints regarding Comcast blacklists, not to mention calling and emailing Comcast to have those blacklists removed (unsucessfully) -- and they are a very small fraction of our total email forwards. For reference, our number of Comcast forwards is 1/12 of our GMail forwards, and GMail gives us zero problems while somehow managing to filter mail very well for its user base.
For the people who have Comcast forwards set up, I recommend that you remove them yourself and set up a local DreamHost user where mail can be downloaded via client software or checked via webmail. You can edit the destination of an email address by going to "Mail" -> "Manage Email" on the left-hand side in the DreamHost control panel, and click on "Edit" next to the email address in question. If you have difficulty with this, please contact support.
Next week, for those addresses that don't have an alternate recipient other than a Comcast forward, we will create a local email account for mail to be routed to, so that nothing is lost.
Posted in Email Changes
I will never sign up with comcast after seeing how much of this they are using. And to block The Well, that's too much.
Besides pushing for the different levels of internet, this is one more reason to drop comcast.
I think it's stupid that they would hold it back due to copy protection. Like all previous copy protection schemes, it too will be broken. The weakest of all copy protections will stop the average consumer. The strongest protection out there will still be broken by thoes who are detrmined to do so. The best they can hope for is that it takes a while for that to happen. But is the trade off of pushing back the release date really worth it?
The problem with these viruses is that they do not kill the victims. If they did, then at least we could look forward to the point when Darwinisim fixed the problem for us.:)
ahahahah
there is some truth to that. It's because there are so many stupid people out there that run this stuff in the first place that keeps these attacks so popular. Hey I would like to blame microsoft too, but if people didn't keep falling for this stuff there would be a lot less of them (imo) and they sure wouldn't spread like they do.
I didn't turn it off because there are a few legit sites that use, Microsoft updtaes being one of them. So I only use IE anymore for sites like that which require active-x. Several of the free online virus scanners also require it, unfortunatly.
Boycott companies who employ this rotten scheme. DO NOT purchase this crap. If no one buys them, they will drop it. Profits is all they care about. If we dont buy this, they won't make a profit... If they don't make a profit, their stocks will take a hit. We should organize a boycott plain and simple. Who's with me
I just don't get the big deal with google and microsoft. Aren't you still going to need an OS to access these web based services? Or do they plan on using some kind of boot rom in the NIC so you can access the web based apps.
I personaly believe that the activeX exploits are the nasty ones. I use to get so much crap on my system when I ran IE, even after the SP2 update. Since I use Firefox almost exclusively, I have had just about none. That's good enough for me.
Seems like I could build one of these for a fraction of the cost. Has anyone priced this out piece by piece to see what they could build one themself for?
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Dreamhost.com, the company that hosts a website and e-mail for the bussiness I work for, has also had their forwards blocked by comcast this week. The funny thing is, gmail gets way more forwards from dreamhost and they don't have a problem filtering spam. Comcast said that the majority of the mail recieved from dreamhost is spam, which is not true. Here is the message dreamhost users recieved... Comcast forwards to be disabled, and AOL Update Posted 21 hours, 36 minutes ago (August 30th, 2006 at 2:40 pm PST) by Karl Today we have some good news, and bad news! We've been contacted by someone very helpful at AOL and I think we have that problem squared away, at least for now. There have been no further blocks and the AOL contact has indicated that our thresholds for blocking are much higher now. We're waiting for a bit to see whether this will solve the problem long-term, and are looking at implementing some suggestions they have made in the meantime to ensure that we can hopefully stay on their good side. We still won't be allowing new AOL forwards or forwards that have been removed to be re-added, but the existing ones won't be disabled for the time being. I still recommend setting up a local mailbox rather than forwarding any mail if possible, as forwards of any type add a potential failure point in your email's path. Now, for the bad news -- Comcast has become an increasing problem in the last two weeks and is now completely denying our unblock requests. As a result: In 7 days, on Wednesday, September 6th, we will be disabling all forwards to @comcast.net addresses. As a bit of background: Comcast blocks are atypical from the others that we've been having problems with in that they last indefinitely until unblocked manually. Unlike AOL blocks (which phase out automatically after 24 hours - though may reappear) someone has to flip a switch over there for any future mail to go through. The unfortunate part is that they have zero human availability and all we get from their blacklist email address are auto-responses -- either the IP is automatically unblocked, or the unblock is denied and the phone number of their abuse/security department is given. Unfortunately, this phone number is a completely unmanned voicemail drop-box. We've left no less than six messages on their voicemail in the last couple months, and despite numerous requests we have never received a phone call back or an email response. We're not even asking that they remove the blacklist -- we're simply asking for more information on why the IPs were blocked, and for a sampling of the typical spam they are supposedly getting from us! In fact, the only response we can get from them (if we get one at all) is an automated form message saying that "most of the email" received from our IPs is spam, which we know, in fact, is false. Again we regret that this decision had to be made, but we're currently wasting a great deal of time answering complaints regarding Comcast blacklists, not to mention calling and emailing Comcast to have those blacklists removed (unsucessfully) -- and they are a very small fraction of our total email forwards. For reference, our number of Comcast forwards is 1/12 of our GMail forwards, and GMail gives us zero problems while somehow managing to filter mail very well for its user base. For the people who have Comcast forwards set up, I recommend that you remove them yourself and set up a local DreamHost user where mail can be downloaded via client software or checked via webmail. You can edit the destination of an email address by going to "Mail" -> "Manage Email" on the left-hand side in the DreamHost control panel, and click on "Edit" next to the email address in question. If you have difficulty with this, please contact support. Next week, for those addresses that don't have an alternate recipient other than a Comcast forward, we will create a local email account for mail to be routed to, so that nothing is lost. Posted in Email Changes I will never sign up with comcast after seeing how much of this they are using. And to block The Well, that's too much. Besides pushing for the different levels of internet, this is one more reason to drop comcast.
I think it's stupid that they would hold it back due to copy protection. Like all previous copy protection schemes, it too will be broken. The weakest of all copy protections will stop the average consumer. The strongest protection out there will still be broken by thoes who are detrmined to do so. The best they can hope for is that it takes a while for that to happen. But is the trade off of pushing back the release date really worth it?
Thank (insert supreme being or any name here) for John Barlow and The EFF! Atleast not all Americans have stuck there collective head in the sand.
The problem with these viruses is that they do not kill the victims. If they did, then at least we could look forward to the point when Darwinisim fixed the problem for us. :)
ahahahah
there is some truth to that. It's because there are so many stupid people out there that run this stuff in the first place that keeps these attacks so popular. Hey I would like to blame microsoft too, but if people didn't keep falling for this stuff there would be a lot less of them (imo) and they sure wouldn't spread like they do.
Imagine how much the RIAA would want if you filled it with MP3's!!!!!!!
its the best thing on TV1
I didn't turn it off because there are a few legit sites that use, Microsoft updtaes being one of them. So I only use IE anymore for sites like that which require active-x. Several of the free online virus scanners also require it, unfortunatly.
Boycott companies who employ this rotten scheme. DO NOT purchase this crap. If no one buys them, they will drop it. Profits is all they care about. If we dont buy this, they won't make a profit... If they don't make a profit, their stocks will take a hit. We should organize a boycott plain and simple. Who's with me
You have a point there. What if google was just doing this so they could sell out to M$ for big bucks in the end.
I just don't get the big deal with google and microsoft. Aren't you still going to need an OS to access these web based services? Or do they plan on using some kind of boot rom in the NIC so you can access the web based apps.
I personaly believe that the activeX exploits are the nasty ones. I use to get so much crap on my system when I ran IE, even after the SP2 update. Since I use Firefox almost exclusively, I have had just about none. That's good enough for me.
Seems like I could build one of these for a fraction of the cost. Has anyone priced this out piece by piece to see what they could build one themself for?