Re: Advice wanted

Jonathan Ellis wrote on 07-02-2007:

> Since at least September, and possibly beforehand, I've been
> sending legitimate mail from my usual email address (a sub-domain
> of .freeserve.co.uk), and it sometimes hasn't been getting through.
>
> Now. I know that:
> (1) I do not send out spam.
> (2) My computer is not sending out spam.
> (3) As far as I have been able to detect, my account has not been
> compromised.
>
> BUT... I find that my sub-domain, and the entire ISP, is on a few
> DNSBL blacklists for some reason. I contacted one of them,
> dnsbl.sorbs.net, and they replied that it was their policy to
> blacklist the entire Freeserve server (once taken over by Wanadoo,
> later taken over by Orange) because it was viewed as a place from
> which spam was propagated.

Let me explain you briefly what happens in reality: That blacklist
called sorbs.net (operated by a Matthew Sullivan) demands that the
ISP coughs up 50 dollars ransom to listwash (remove) *each*
blacklisted IP address belonging to the ISP. If the ISP refuses to
pay up, he threatens to blacklist the _whole_ ISP. Freeserve (aka
Wanadoo, aka Orange) is one of those ISPs who have refused to submit
to Sullivan's blackmail. Blueyonder/Telewest/NTL is another one. The
result is totally innocent email users like yourself suffer.

There are some ignorant mail server admins in this world who reject
emails on the basis of its source IP address being included in a
blacklist. They often use those blacklists without questioning the
real motives of their operators. Another blackmail-oriented
blacklist, the notorious SPEWS, has now been destroyed and taken off
the net for
good. I can tell you that sorbs.net's days are equally numbered.

> This is costing me, an entirely legitimate user, real money and
> real business. I am a professional musician who relies on email to
> contact companies with which I deal, and for whom I provide music,
> but the mails I try to send to them are disappearing into nothing,
> and people who try to mail me are getting their mail bounced back
> to them.

Try to use a third party SMTP service. They are not too expensive.

> I repeat... I AM AN ENTIRELY LEGITIMATE USER. NO SPAM IS COMING
> FROM MY COMPUTER OR MY ACCOUNT. I do not believe either has been
> compromised.

I believe you 100%.

> (Although I have received bounced emails, over the last few months
> and couple of years, of hundreds of spam sent out with *clearly
> forged* headers which have been bounced back to my domain on the
> basis of these forged headers. My address is
> (E-Mail Removed): all these bounces are coming
> back to email addresses where the "jonathan" is replaced by a
> random collection of letters - however, since the entire subdomain
> is mine, it's all ending up in my inbox.)

Those emails are getting bounced back to you because you have been
JOE-JOBBED: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job

> Jonathan Ellis.




Moris - V2