Heads-up: AT&T apparently going to whitelist-only inbound mail

Tue Oct 21 21:46:14 UTC 2003

Wow, this sounds like a pretty extreme shotgun approach. (or is it April 
1st somewhere).  Is AT&T going to make this whitelist publicly available 
?  Perhaps if there was some global white list that everyone could consult 
against, it might be a little more useable.  Still, what do you do about 
multi-stage relays ?

         ---Mike

At 05:24 PM 21/10/2003, Jeff Wasilko wrote:

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>
>Return-Path: <rm-antiattspam at ems.att.com>
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>Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 20:21:50 UT
>Subject: *** ACTION: IP Address of Outbound SMTP Server Requested (Updated 
>10/21/03)
>From: rm-antiattspam at ems.att.com
>
>AT&T Business Partners & Customers
>
>AT&T has received many of the requested IP addresses in response to an
>e-mail originally broadcast yesterday to our business partners and
>clients.  However, we have also received many concerned responses to
>the original request.
>
>This 2nd e-mail is to let you know that this is a legitimate AT&T
>request asking for your cooperation, which will let us improve the
>service that AT&T offers you and that our partnership requires.   We
>have provided a toll-free number below to help you confirm the
>legitimacy of this request.
>
>We have assembled the distribution list for this e-mail by looking up
>the administrative contacts for each of the known e-mail domains we
>currently exchange e-mail with, referencing WHOIS and other such
>services available via the Internet.
>
>What AT&T is asking is for you to help AT&T to restrict incoming mail
>to just our known and trusted sources (e.g., business partners, clients
>and customers).  Therefore, we need to know which IP address(es) are
>used by your outbound e-mail service so we can selectively permit them.
>  Please send this information to the following e-mail address
>(rm-antiattspam at ems.att.com).
>
>If you need assistance determining what these IP addresses are, please
>contact your company's administrative e-mail server support / network
>administration personnel.   We regret that AT&T is burdening you with
>this request, but our AT&T security team is advising that we take this
>step to help safeguard our e-mail systems, which ultimately will help
>us serve you better.
>
>Please contact us with any concerns or questions:
>AT&T Security Help Desk 1-800-456-4230, prompt 4 (8am - 10pm est)
>
>Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.  We appreciate your
>cooperation.
>
>Sincerely,
>Brian Williams, IP Network Services
>Tim Scholl - District Manager, IP Network Services
>Kevin O'Connell - Division Manager, Information Technology Services
>Engineering
>Bill O'Hern - Division Manager, Network Security
>
>
>----- Original Message (Sent Monday, 10/20/03) -----
>AT&T has an urgent situation with our anti-spam list. In order to
>continue to allow email to AT&T you need to provide the IP addresses of
>all your outbound email gateways. If you do not respond immediately,
>your access may not continue. The required information should be sent
>to rm-antiattspam at ems.att.com.
>
>----- End forwarded message -----