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Re: Salon article on excessive spam blocking at RR
From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh () hserus net>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 17:47:21 +0530
Dave - Roadrunner's spam filters are documented here - http://security.rr.com/mail_blocks.htm .They do have a fairly clear and well documented list of spam blocks, and their bounces return reasonably informative error messages.
A couple of general comments -Calling spam filtering censorship or branding it "fascistic" confuses and muddies the entire issue. Most spam filters are based on consent, rather than content - the consent of the user to receive mail. More on this at -
http://www.hserus.net/cindycohn-reply.txt http://www.hserus.net/brad-reply.txt[these two are replies to previous IP posts, looks like they never made it onto the list] :(
In other filters, a block on an IP address used to send out spam (an open relay / open proxy, say) can affect legitimate users behind that IP, till such time as the sysadmin fixes this.
I agree that Spam blocking does hurt when legitimate mail is bounced. However, once a block has been applied, most if not all ISPs will definitely ask that the mail systems admin responsible for the blocked server contact them.
Roadrunner does seem to have irritated Laura to no end though, right from their autoresponder :) However, they have been, as far as I am aware, doing this kind of filtering since a very long time indeed. It is, however, only when a person's mail gets blocked (rather than incoming spam to the person's address) are those spam filters noticed.
In these days, Laura would have to search hard for an ISP that refuses to filter spam, as a matter of fact.
tracks. So that meant that anybody -- anybody -- might have their domain name hijacked by spammers, then blocked by my service provider. And this could happen at any time. Geez.
Not their domain name - more often, their mailserver, if badly configured, can get hijacked. Yes, Geez, as the lady says. Even more Geez inducing is the fact that a single spammer hijacking an open / insecure mailserver can pump out as much spam through it in an hour as the rest of the legit users of that server would normally send out mail in a week, or even a month.
To conclude, ISPs want to block spam. However, they do hate seeing legit mail bounced. It is a thin line that they walk - all the time.
I am pretty sure the NYTimes admin can easily resolve whatever problem caused this block by contacting Roadrunner security.
srsps - I was the guy featured in the "related article" by Michele Delio that is linked to immediately below Laura's article, by the way.
Dave Farber wrote:
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 01:33:34 -0400 From: Baratunde R Thurston Hey Dave, This new Salon piece seems relevant to the ongoing spam discussion. If you post, please remove my email address. Thanks, \baratunde rafiq thurston comedian & writer www.baratunde.com gigs, writing, multimedia & more... ---------------------- >From http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/06/19/spamblockers/print.html When spam filters go bad Trying to block junk mail, my cable modem company installed a system thatprevented me from getting my REAL mail -- and when I complained, insisted itwas all for the good of the System. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Laura Miller June 19, 2003 | "The equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation": That's what Frank Zappa, testifying before a Senate committee in 1985, called the censorship plans of the Parents Music Resource Center. In theannals of overreaction, draconian measures tend to spring from mind-muddlingpassions -- in the case of the PMRC, parental desire to protect the young from nastiness. But when it comes to passion, even our darkest, most primal instincts can hardly compare to the raw fury that people have come to feel toward spam. So e-mail users, beware: It's time to watch your head. I cantestify from personal experience that the cure has finally become worse thanthe disease. In June, the company that provides my cable modem service, Road Runner, installed a superaggressive new set of spam blockers on its e-mail servers.Late in the first day of the blockers' activation, I suddenly noticed that Ihadn't gotten any e-mail at all in nearly three hours. No e-mail from Salon colleagues or from friends and, most puzzling of all, no e-mail from the editor at the New York Times with whom I'd been corresponding all morning about a freelance piece I was writing for her. I gave her a call. Turns out I'd never received several e-mails that she and other Times staffers had sent me. A few tests proved that I was still receiving e-mail from Salon addresses and a trickle of other messages, but not getting Times e-mail wasn't going to fly. So I poked around a bit more and found thee-mail address for Road Runner's security department. And that's when I felldown a rabbit hole into spam-blocker hell. My e-mail of complaint to Road Runner security elicited an autoreply that could have been composed by the Red Queen from "Alice in Wonderland": "ATTENTION PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE AUTORESPONSE IF YOU HAVE NEVER SENT MAIL HERE BEFORE, OR EVEN IF YOU HAVE. THIS MESSAGE DETAILS INFORMATION REQUIRED FOR US TO PROCESS YOUR REQUEST. IF YOU DID NOT INCLUDE THE INFORMATION THAT WE REQUIRE, YOUR MESSAGE WILL BE DELETED WITHOUT FURTHER REVIEW. YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE FURTHER COMMUNICATION FROM US ASKING FOR INFORMATION."The message went on to explain in somewhat confusing terms exactly what thisimperious personage demanded to see in order to deem my existence worthy of notice. The upshot, though, was that anyone whose e-mail to my Road Runner address was being blocked had to contact Road Runner Security directly,sending a copy of the error message they'd received when their e-mails to mebounced back. I wasn't about to ask a busy newspaper editor to hassle with the technical staff at my service provider, and I had a copy of the "bounce" message from the spam blocker that she'd sent to my Salon address. So I sent that off to Security with a note, hoping to correct the situation without having to involve the Times.But that's all I could do: hope. Suppose Security found the bounce message Ihad sent insufficiently informative? What if the message was adequate butthe fact that it had been forwarded by me and not by the original sender metwith the disapproval of these faceless, nameless, ALL-CAPS-spouting authorities? Off with its head! And I'd never know that my message had been summarily executed. I would "NOT RECEIVE FURTHER COMMUNICATION." My e-mail had gone to Camp X-Ray. I began to fret. Were there other people who'd sent me legitimate e-mailthat couldn't get through Road Runner's fascistic new spam blockers? If theydidn't have my phone number or one of my alternate e-mail addresses, how could they let me know about it? What if someone sent me an e-mail, got the bounce message in response, and then decided that tracking me down was too much trouble? What if that message was really, really important -- to me at least? A couple of persistent souls managed to get word to me that their e-mails had bounced back. Those e-mails were sent by 1) a venerable publisher oftrade magazines and 2) an even more venerable publisher of books. Along withthe New York Times, neither struck me as likely culprits of spam abuse, but Salon's own tech staff explained that they might seem to be, on account of something called relays used by crafty spam perps looking to cover their tracks. So that meant that anybody -- anybody -- might have their domain name hijacked by spammers, then blocked by my service provider. And this could happen at any time. Geez. Several pleasant but not very effective Road Runner customer service people explained to me that my only recourse was to ask these senders to petition Road Runner for the removal of the scarlet S. That meant asking the various senders for the names of their in-house network administrators (providingthey actually knew who this was, not a given in large organizations), makingsure each sender forwarded a copy of Road Runner's bounce message to the administrator, then contacting the administrator to ask that s/he ask Road Runner to be taken off the spammer list. Needless to say, this was a massive time suck. As the week drew to a close,it seemed I'd frittered away almost half my work hours trying to correct themess and taking phone calls from Road Runner's customer service people, who kept ringing up to ask if my concern had been addressed, listen to my nth rant about the situation, and then politely explain that they couldn't address my concern. This was taking a whole lot more time than the simple act of deleting unwanted spam -- and believe me, I get a lot of spam. And I still couldn't be sure that I was getting all my legitimate mail. No matter whom I managed to contact, I received robotically identicalresponses explaining the necessity of spam filters and reiterating that onlySecurity could lift a block and only the sender's network administrator could negotiate the unblocking. One rep did slip me a special customer service address where I sent a complaint about the inconvenience of the whole thing and suggested that Road Runner's spam blockers might be a tad excessive. Someone wrote back: "Our system has spam filters in place to protect our network from being overloaded by bulk unsolicited e-mail. Theend result benefits our subscribers, who can expect less downtime and higher service levels." When I suggested that the willy-nilly blocking of perfectlylegitimate e-mail necessary to one's livelihood didn't really seem like a"higher service level" to me, he replied that I shouldn't be using my e-mailaccount for "commercial, or revenue generating purposes."Somehow, my cheerful, speedy, efficient cable modem service had morphed intoevasive, officious martinets; Road Runner had turned into Ari Fleischer. I was trying to speak up on behalf of the unjustly stigmatized, but I was treated as if I were some kind of soft-headed liberal spam lover. Didn't I understand how important it was to protect the network? What were a few abused messages when the greater good was at stake? And what was I doing getting that kind of message, anyway? Broken, I reverted to using my Salon.com address as my main account.I have to admit that the policy of eradicating spam by blocking nearly every message has a breathtaking ambition to it, even if it pretty much eliminates the usefulness of e-mail altogether. Even so, it doesn't work. There's stilla handful of messages coming through on my Road Runner address every day. And they're almost all spam. - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Laura Miller is a senior writer for Salon. Sound Off Send us a Letter to the Editor Related stories A spam fighter's work is never done Suresh Ramasubramanian's job is to stop junk e-mail from ever getting to your in box. But for every spammer he blocks, a dozen more rise up. By Michelle Delio 03/27/03 Political spam: Get used to it An outraged constituent is suing Elizabeth Dole's campaign for sending junk e-mail. Is spam from politicians a crime -- or a vital First Amendment right? By Katharine Mieszkowski 11/20/02 Spam vs. spam The only way to stem the flood of unwanted e-mail may be to harness a million eyeballs and an army of open-source hackers. By Andrew Leonard 06/24/02 Salon.com >> Technology Salon Search About Salon Table Talk Advertise in Salon Investor Relations News & Politics | Opinion | Tech & Business | Arts & Entertainment Indie film | Books | Life | Sex | Comics | Audio | Dialogue Letters | Columnists | Salon Gear Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Copyright 2003 Salon.com Salon, 22 4th Street, 16th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 Telephone 415 645-9200 | Fax 415 645-9204 E-mail | Salon.com Privacy Policy | Terms of Service ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as suresh () hserus net To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Salon article on excessive spam blocking at RR Dave Farber (Jun 19)
- Re: Salon article on excessive spam blocking at RR Suresh Ramasubramanian (Jun 19)
- ip email ing Dave Farber (Jun 19)