209.68.1.140 (209.68.1.0 /24) blocked by bellsouth.net for SMTP

Sun Sep 25 12:22:35 UTC 2005

sigma at smx.pair.com wrote:

> 
> Yes, this is quite clearly the case; there are dozens of mutual customers
> who have forwarding rules setup.  We are not generating Spam to send to
> Bellsouth; it's coming from somewhere else and then being forwarded.
> 
> I imagine that at some time in the future, forwarding e-mail might become
> impractical, if receiving systems insist on parsing it as originated or
> relayed Spam.
> 
No, what will happen more and more is that parties who forward email 
will have to make a "best effort" to ensure that it is not spam.

Meaning a policy "unfiltered email does not get fowarded to external 
parties"

Its pretty simple. Its garbage and its coming from you. Block.

Happens to be it is not trivial (currently probably rarely possible) to 
guarantee that email is forwarded, rather than simply originated with 
forged headers.

Hopefully this will generate/increase a positive network effect for 
aggressive spam filtering, from blocklists, graylists, content filtering 
and so on.

Unfortunately the network effect is likely not to be a pleasant 
experience for many providers, as you have recently found out.

Customers may be entitled to request complete unfiltered access of their 
email account to the world, but they are not entitled in this day and 
age to expect that to carry over into a privelege for provider A to dump 
crap into provider B without a prior arrangement/understanding between 
provider A and B.

> 
>>This the first I've heard of BS having a 50/5 threshold limit.
> 
> 
> Bellsouth has given us no statistics, no logs, no headers, not even a
> timeframe for their vague claims.  We can clearly see from our side that we
> are not generating nor relaying Spam.  But our customers can no longer
> choose to forward their e-mail to Bellsouth.  It seems that Bellsouth is
> restricting its customers.
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 

This is a problem. Headers would go a long way to disabling the 
forwarding instances and/or mandating strict filtering for those customers.

That being said, assuming you have told bellsouth you were working on 
eliminating raw forwarding they should have worked immediately to lift 
the block and give you the benefit of the doubt.

In the absence of retained technical evidence, a "easy out" blocklist 
and an "easy in" whitelist should be the norm.

Joe