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