Re: META: aol.com is blocking all mail from extropy.org

From: Dossy (dossy@panoptic.com)
Date: Fri Jul 04 2003 - 21:41:40 MDT

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    On 2003.07.04, Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> wrote:
    > Dossy wrote,
    > > David needs to contact Spots InterConnect and ask them what mail server
    > > he should be using as a relay host.
    >
    > This is a good idea, actually. Routing through Spots InterConnect's
    > mail relay would prevent us from being seen as directly sending mail.
    > This might actually work and be what AOL is trying to force.

    Certainly. It's the correct solution to the problem and is the best
    one.

    > > I think if enough customers report the same sender as sending offensive
    > > messages, then yes, that sender may be blocked from sending messages to
    > > any OTHER customers.
    >
    > This may indeed be what is happening. On a large e-mail list, it is
    > possible that offensive posts cause enough people to block it that the
    > entire list gets blocked. I understand that blocking offensive posts might
    > be desirable to some people, but I think overkill can end up blocking more
    > mail by mistake than it blocks intentionally. AOL blocks not only the
    > sender, but the entire list, the ISP used by the list, etc.

    It's pretty reasonable to assume that if the list owner or maintainer
    reports a false positive to the postmaster or abuse account for any
    particular service of reasonable size (AOL, Hotmail, etc.) about being
    blocked when they feel they shouldn't be, getting unblocked should be
    possible.

    The problem is, as you say, when a spammer signs up to an open list and
    sends a mail that a bunch of recipients report as unwanted email ... it
    can and sometimes does get the mailing list itself blocked or banned
    instead of the sender. No system is perfect ...

    -- Dossy

    -- 
    Dossy Shiobara                       mail: dossy@panoptic.com 
    Panoptic Computer Network             web: http://www.panoptic.com/ 
      "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
        folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)
    


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