July 2003 - arrl-odv - reflector.arrl.org

[ARRL-ODV:8993] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net tra
by sysop＠bfdin.com 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Andy, You posted some good information regarding this issue. I run a small ISP, and about 2 years ago, we had a problem that our mail was getting blocked because of an open relay that we weren't aware of. Bernie Fuller was able to follow up with his ISP and get an answer for me as to why mail was blocked and we were able to fix it. I wonder if we would be able to run arrl.net from its own IP address to prevent our forwarding being blocked due to another "arrl.net" having spam sent out from it's domain under the same IP address. I use several email addresses on different ISP's and I use Mailwasher to filter out the spam. I think a spam washer is, and will conitnue to be as important as a virus detection program...the same as a spy ware detection/cleaning porgram is equally as important. Best wishes to all for a safe and happy July 4th! - Bill N3LLR AR>Since arrl.net runs on a shared server at an internet hosting service, and AR>since spam blacklisting is done by IP Address (there is only one of those AR>per server under normal circumstances), I think you are jumping to AR>conclusions when you state that "we got shut down". The IP Address was AR>blocked. But that could have been a reaction to other activity on that AR>shared server that had nothing to do with the arrl.net use of it. AR>We should get the facts of what happened and how it was resolved before we AR>start pressing for solutions. AR>Yes, the arrl.net e-mail address get their share of spam. But any e-mail AR>address that is published on a web page will be found by the spammers and AR>become a target.

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[ARRL-ODV:8992] Re: Morse requirement
by Tuck Miller NZ6T 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Might I suggest putting this as a poll question on the ARRL web site? This is a very important issue, and we might be able to get a gauge on how some of the members feel about the subject. 73, Tuck NZ6T W5JBP(a)aol.com wrote: > Yes, Dave, tomorrow we would not. I do have a question however, when > did you "abstain" on a vote regarding 25.5? I was not aware of such a > vote at the WRC. > > The question is to each of you on the board, what do you want to do? > You know as well as I, come Monday there will be a number of petitions > submitted to the FCC for elimination of element 1. > > This is another opportunity to be as popular as we were during the > implementation of incentive licensing. Damned if we do, damned if we > don't. Those who will be petitioning the FCC know that we will be > having a board meeting in a few weeks, and will have to deal with the > issue one way or the other. > > Time to put on the kevlar. > > Jim Haynie, W5JBP -- ************************************************ ARRL The national association for Amateur Radio Remember, Helping Others....Always Worthwhile!! Southwestern Division Vice Director Are you a member yet? If not, please join! Check out the Convention web site at: http://www.hamcon.org/ Personal Web Page: http://www.qsl.net/nz6t

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[ARRL-ODV:8991] Re: Morse requirement
by W5JBP＠aol.com 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Yes, Dave, tomorrow we would not. I do have a question however, when did you "abstain" on a vote regarding 25.5? I was not aware of such a vote at the WRC. The question is to each of you on the board, what do you want to do? You know as well as I, come Monday there will be a number of petitions submitted to the FCC for elimination of element 1. This is another opportunity to be as popular as we were during the implementation of incentive licensing. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Those who will be petitioning the FCC know that we will be having a board meeting in a few weeks, and will have to deal with the issue one way or the other. Time to put on the kevlar. Jim Haynie, W5JBP

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[ARRL-ODV:8990] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic
by Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Rick, I'd think the general philosophy in the Delta Division would be consistent with rejoicing that U.S. sovereignty has been restored. Today, the U.S. would be violating a treaty if it dropped the requirement. Tomorrow it wouldn't. 73, Dave K1ZZ -----Original Message----- From: Roderick, Rick (aol.com) Sent: Fri 7/4/2003 3:09 PM To: arrl-odv Cc: Subject: [ARRL-ODV:8989] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic In a message dated 7/4/03 5:57:02 AM Central Daylight Time, wt3p(a)comcast.net writes: << Just wait until the discussion starts for-real about deleting the domestic Morse code requirement. >> Yep, I've been waiting for that. As vocal as my Division is on this issue, I'm surprised my phone hasn't already been ringing after WARC's action re cw. I only know of one email someone in my Div sent to HQ so far. 73, K5UR

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[ARRL-ODV:8989] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic
by K5ur＠aol.com 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

In a message dated 7/4/03 5:57:02 AM Central Daylight Time, wt3p(a)comcast.net writes: << Just wait until the discussion starts for-real about deleting the domestic Morse code requirement. >> Yep, I've been waiting for that. As vocal as my Division is on this issue, I'm surprised my phone hasn't already been ringing after WARC's action re cw. I only know of one email someone in my Div sent to HQ so far. 73, K5UR

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[ARRL-ODV:8988] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic
by Kay Craigie 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

A local friend of mine says Comcast was also blocking mail relayed by bigfoot.com yesterday in addition to his Comcast arrl.net mail. He was double ticked-off. People in general are angry about spam, and they're going to beat on whoever their arms can reach. That's us, because they can't get after the real culprits who generate all the junk. Just wait until the discussion starts for-real about deleting the domestic Morse code requirement. Then some of us are going to yearn for the good ole days of just being snarled, bellowed, and screeched at about spam! Y'all have a good Fourth. 73 - Kay N3KN

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[ARRL-ODV:8987] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic
by Shelley, Barry, N1VXY 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Thanks Mike, Andy and Rick for your help and comments. I, too, spent a lot of time on the phone with Comcast yesterday and I've been contacted by several members who did so as well. As noted in everyone's messages here, there are almost as many opinions on spam and filtering as there are people giving you their opinion. Rick, we have discussed the spam situation with our provider, DCC (aka Corplink) and their answer is that its all a matter of money. I've personally gone out and gotten independent quotes. Quite honestly, the prices I got a while back were staggering. Maybe the market has changed and so I'll take another look. Some others have recently suggested that filtering is easy and is inexpensive. However, knowing that there are others with different opinions on this, I want to get other IT professionals' opinions and solutions as well. Andy is certainly knowledgable and Jim Haynie has suggested to that he has some other names as well. I will follow up with them. Mike also makes a good point regarding our becoming the "spam cop" for League members.No filtering solution is perfect and there will be "false positives". I read somewhere that it could be as high as 10% of valid messages don't get through because they've been inadvertently blocked by spam filters. This is something we want to take a look at before we would try and implement any spam filtering. I hope everyone has a Happy Fourth of July weekend. 73, Barry, N1VXY -----Original Message----- From: Mike Raisbeck [mailto:mike@mraisbeck.com] Sent: Thu 7/3/2003 3:40 PM To: arrl-odv; Shelley, Barry, N1VXY Cc: Subject: RE: [ARRL-ODV:8957] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic Hi Barry et al. arrl.net appears to be back up. Not sure if it had anything to do with a very contentious 45 minutes I spent on the phone with Comcast support (several management levels of it) and a variety of not very veiled threats to take my $1000 per year comcast business elsewhere, along with 160,000 other hams :-) Mike K1TWF -----Original Message----- From: Shelley, Barry, N1VXY [mailto:bshelley@arrl.org] Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 10:34 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:8957] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic Kay: It would help if you would try and contact Comcast directly, as I have done this morning already. I will admit, several members have already let me know that their "technical support" staff have been less than helpful, but if there are enough of their customers who complain, they're likely to react quicker. I just sent off a scathing e-mail to them. We'll see if we can get a ground-swell of our members going here. 73, Barry, N1VXY -----Original Message----- From: Craigie, Kay (2nd Vice President) Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 10:24 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:8956] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic Barry - I'm a Comcast subscriber. Please let me know if I can help by complaining about this ... I realized yesterday something wasn't working right. 73 - Kay N3KN

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[ARRL-ODV:8986] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic
by Shelley, Barry, N1VXY 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Andy: Thanks. Corplink was the first people I called. They are the outside vendor for the service. 73, Barry, N1VXY -----Original Message----- From: Oppel, Andy (Vice Dir, Pacific) Sent: Thu 7/3/2003 12:48 PM To: arrl-odv Cc: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:8958] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic Greetings to all, One of the things that will get you blacklisted is to have "open relay" enabled on your mail server. This allows anyone to use your e-mail server to relay e-mail to others. Spammers love this as they can hide their tracks (the IP address in the e-mail header shows is came from the "pigeon's" e-mail server instead of their own. I had our sharpest technician here in the office (he's a wizard at networks, all flavors of Unix and e-mail servers) try both the arrl.org and arrl.net e-mail servers. The good news for us is that those e-mail servers appear secure and do not allow open relay. However, I noticed that arrl.net e-mail is hosted by a third party called corplink.net. There are two e-mail servers out there with host names arrl-mx-01.corplink.net and arrl-mx-02.corplink.net. This is a very normal arrangement for small and medium sized organizations as the hosting service provides 24 hour security and monitoring, clean uninteruptable power, redundant connections to the internet backbone and the like. (In fact, I have a web site for the UC Extension course I teach and it is hosted by such a 3rd party hosting service. Since Spam black-listing is done by IP address (the physical internet address of the server), and since the server can have multiple e-mail servers running on it, we may not have been the target when comcast blocked us. It could very well be that there is another e-mail server on the same server that either allows open-relay or is, in fact, actively used by a spammer. Barry: You'll probably have more success contacting the hosting service (corplink.net) and pressing them to get their server off the Spam black-list. Usually this involves working with the party that black-listed you to demonstrate that either there was not real problem or that they have made the necessary corrections to their system configuration. Since the ARRL obviously has a service contract of some sort with corplink.net, you have some leverage in getting them to take action. 73, Andy Oppel, N6AJO Pacific Division Vice Director (and Database Designer, 1st Financial Bank USA) Shelley, Barry, N1VXY writes: > This note is to let you know of a situation with arrl.net and Comcast in case you begin to hear from members. > > Apparently, in an arbitrary decision, Comcast (the new owner of attbi.com) has decided to start blocking all e-mail traffic forwarded to them from the arrl.net server. Like others in the past, this is a type of "bully list" action to force other upstream providers to do something that they themselves refuse to do. At this exact moment, I'm not sure how many members are affected by this block, but I know of one for certain.....me! My arrl.net address is, effective Tuesday morning, now forwarded to my new comcast.net account. > > We, through the the arrl.net vendor, are trying to contact representatives at Comcast to resolve the situation but this is a difficult proposition at best. With the holiday weekend coming up it is likely to extend the time it will take to resolve this matter. As an aside, I read an article about the acquisition recently which noted that Comcast had always been known for their poor customer support. This isn't going to make contacting them any easier. > > We will keep you informed of any movement in the situation when it occurs. > > 73, > Barry, N1VXY

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[ARRL-ODV:8985] Re: Comcast Blocking arrl.net traffic
by K5ur＠aol.com 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

In a message dated 7/4/03 1:05:27 AM Central Daylight Time, andy(a)andyoppel.com writes: << And I tested arrl.net e-mail going to Comcast a few hours ago and found it working just fine. So, perhaps some headway was made today. >> Yeah, even my k5ur(a)arrl.net is working now on AOL and it wasn't earlier. 73, K5UR

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[ARRL-ODV:8984] Re: Washington trip
by K5ur＠aol.com 04 Jul '03

04 Jul '03

Jim: I was out of the country for over a week recently and am still getting caught up on email. I wanted to reply to this one you wrote about your Washington trip. I think it's really important, but just couldn't get back to it before now. Thanks for the info. _____________________ In a message dated 6/30/03 11:15:18 AM Central Daylight Time, W5JBP(a)aol.com writes: << What I need to share is two meetings that were at the FCC building. One was on June the 11th where I went by myself and visited with, shall we say, a high ranking staff person. It was an off the record meeting as I wanted to test the waters and express some disappointment on how our filings have just gone no where. This meeting was good and I felt that my complaints were well received, the question is will they do any good.>> .......... I've been on this Board long enough to talk like an old man. I've seen several ARRL Presidents and every one of them has had similar meetings, and they each got burned at one point or another and you know it. If I recall correctly, you even got burned once before, too. I don't put much stock in such meetings with the FCC. I don't trust them and this Board has heard me say that numerous time, and justifiably so. Nobody on this Board should be pleased with our relations with the FCC. Nobody. They pat the ARRL Presidents on the behind, give them some lip service, say things we want to hear, make us feel good, and send us on our way. We are like a pesky knat (sp?). I know you spend a lot of time on FCC matters, Jim, and I appreciate that, but ...... << The second meeting was with Chris Imlay and we met with D'Wana Terry, Chief of the Wireless Bureau. Both Chris and I brought up the fact that some of our stuff was over two and a half years old, and this was just not acceptable. Again, I have no way of knowing if this will be effective, but at least two people in high places know that we are not happy. I think that my private meeting the day before will produce more results than the latter.>> ..................................... What the heck took us so long to go knock on her door? We should have been pounding on it months ago. It reminds me of that time years ago the FCC sat on its butt on some important issue, and we danced around, was concerned about bothering them, and we waited and waited to the point it was just ridiculous. It was childish but you might recall, although you weren't Pres at the time, that I was wanting to publish the phone number, office and home, of the FCC contact person, whoever it was back then, and have all amateurs call him! I mean, don't ya ever just say enough is enough? We've been told one thing and then another about all our stuff sitting on a desk up there with D'Wana Terry. Uh, let's see..... anybody recall what our buddy Cross told us? Oh, but how many times has he changed his tune? And we just keep waiting and waiting. We're the nice guys. You did a good job on testimony on the hill. Recall that Congressman said we are a "communications militia." Maybe we ought to start publishing phone numbers and email addresses of some key FCC folks and turn that militia loose on them. Tork'em off? So, what have we got to lose? Some relationships? So? Good grief! If they were that good now we wouldn't be sucking wind and taking it on the chin. I'd like us to be more aggressive, professionally of course. I want to talk about this more at the Board meeting, too. 73, Rick - K5UR

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