[SECC] Bellsouth

[Bill Coleman]

On Jan 14, 2008, at 5:50 PM, Tom Rauch wrote:

> For example BellSouth prevents anyone using QTH.com mail
> service from sending mail to any BellSouth subscriber.

Are you sure this is BellSouth's doing?

I ran into an issue a couple of years ago with the Elecraft list,  
which is run out of qth.net. Even though I am subscribed to the list,  
my postings were rejected out of hand, with no warning.

The problem had to do with a blacklisting service that qth.net was  
using. The blacklisting service set up a honeypot computer and then  
proceeded to blacklist the IP address of every mail server that  
carried spam.

While the blacklisting service was intended to block spammers, it  
unfortunately took a lot of innocent folks with it -- particularly  
from large ISPs such as BellSouth.

What basically happens is that someone has a 'bot computer on  
BellSouth.net that the spammer uses to send e-mail. This spam gets  
caught by the honeypot, and one of the BellSouth mail server IPs gets  
blacklisted. The poor customer doesn't know their computer is being  
remotely controlled, and thousands of innocent users of BellSouth.net  
find their e-mails blacklisted.

I hate spam as much as the next guy, but these techniques that harm  
innocent users really piss me off.

Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
             -- Wilbur Wright, 1901