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Thread ID: 125317 2012-06-20 05:46:00 XTra Blacklist pctek (84) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1282953 2012-06-20 05:46:00 www.stuff.co.nz

Hilarious, we at work have known this for weeks.
Telecom have been denying it for ages, we have had to show customers the blacklist.....

Google was on it today too
pctek (84)
1282954 2012-06-20 09:12:00 Which blacklist? fred_fish (15241)
1282955 2012-06-20 11:39:00 I have been told by my isp that xtra mail servers were blacklisted due to spam. I can confirm this because some business emails did not come through. notechyet (4479)
1282956 2012-06-20 20:44:00 The mail system needs to be revised, in the same way they are drafting an HTTP error for censorship there should be a error return if the server rejects mail due to spam. Otherwise the mail disappears and no one is any wiser The Error Guy (14052)
1282957 2012-06-21 01:16:00 Why would you totally block any of the local ISPs just because they were on a "blacklist" unless you had another problem? Seems to be a lazy way to manage things. PaulD (232)
1282958 2012-06-21 02:54:00 Why would you totally block any of the local ISPs just because they were on a "blacklist"...Because most of the time, blocking based on blacklist is automatic. It's not a case of seeing "that server's on a list, and belongs to X, so let's block them".

Most blacklisting of this type is implemented via DNS - essentially the receiving server uses the DNS system to check with a blacklist provider whether the sending server has been blocked, and this check is performed as soon as the sending server opens a connection. In most cases, if the sending server is blacklisted, the receiving server will reject with a 550 status before the sending server gets a chance to send the mail. The sending server is supposed to immediately bounce the message back to the user if this happens, but it sounds like Xtra isn't doing this.

Blacklist providers generally aggregate statistics from a large range of sources before deciding to block a server - see Spamhaus (http://www.spamhaus.org/) as an example; they're one of the most popular realtime providers.


Seems to be a lazy way to manage things.It's not lazy, it's efficient. If someone allows their servers to be used as a spam relay, then it becomes a problem for whoever operates that relay, and if the operator of that server cares about their users and keeps an eye on bounce stats, it should be obvious *very* quickly, and they will take corrective action to resolve the issue.

As the receiving server has no power to do anything about the problem, blocking the server is the most sensible course of action.
Erayd (23)
1282959 2012-06-21 03:58:00 If e-mails go astray and fail to be delivered from xtra, it could be weeks before anyone noticed the difference. ;) R2x1 (4628)
1282960 2012-06-22 01:39:00 Because most of the time, blocking based on blacklist is automatic.
The sending server is supposed to immediately bounce the message back to the user if this happens, but it sounds like Xtra isn't doing this.


It's not lazy, it's efficient. If someone allows their servers to be used as a spam relay, then it becomes a problem for whoever operates that relay, and if the operator of that server cares about their users and keeps an eye on bounce stats, it should be obvious *very* quickly, and they will take corrective action to resolve the issue.
.

+1
This is the case.

There have been a few things with Xtra lately. In one case traffic from Wgtn to Akld only was halted, something to do with routing. We had customer ring us about it, not that it was our issue, our engineer had to spend ages with Telecom getting them to look into it, they had the cheek to tell these people that it was our issue. Hah.
pctek (84)
1282961 2012-06-22 02:55:00 Why would you totally block any of the local ISPs just because they were on a "blacklist" unless you had another problem? Seems to be a lazy way to manage things.

It FORCES the ISP to start actually doing something about its customers who are spamming, these customers may not even now they are spamming after being hacked, viruses etc etc
The spam came from the ISP's 'email sever' , hence it got blocked. It not the job of the blacklist compilers to sort this out.
1101 (13337)
1282962 2012-06-22 02:58:00 I have never had emails from blacklisted ISPs bounce back. Even when we were blacklisted the emails never bounced back to the sender. Our ISP is Orcon Gobe1 (6290)
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