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Balin64

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 23, 2002
772
1
In a Mauve Dream
I work in a small office for a Production company as part of my job... two hours ago, all our Mail apps stopped sending e-mail because our ISP number was blacklisted by Spamhaus.org. Who are these people? We have three Macs and 4 PC's and I assure you that none of us are Spammers. The PC users are very careful about security updates and are constantly updating their defenses. Has this happened to anyone else here?

I tried to get ourselves removed, but it's been nearly two hours and nothing has happened. Those bastards are killing our productivity! Even the webmail equivalent will not work. Who made these guys the CIA of the Internet?
 

clayj

macrumors 604
Jan 14, 2005
7,612
946
visiting from downstream
From what I've read, Spamhaus.org is quite well-respected by most people (but not spammers!) for doing a good job of monitoring the sources of spam and letting everyone know where it's coming from. They weren't "given" any sort of authority... they've earned it.

I'm assuming that you've visited their web site and read up on how they operate... all I can say is I hope you're able to get this resolved fairly quickly, and that you're able to find out from them WHY you ended up on their blacklist.
 

Balin64

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 23, 2002
772
1
In a Mauve Dream
Yes, Went through the motions

I visited, read and looked at all the options. I filed a request to have us removed. I don't get it.

We probably send 40-60 e-mails a day... a third of that is to each other. Who, or what could have reported us?

I wish there was a number I could call, but I didn't see one. Besides, the company is in the UK and it's almost 9pm there.

I hope their automated system takes uss off their damn list soon...
 

mduser63

macrumors 68040
Nov 9, 2004
3,042
31
Salt Lake City, UT
It's not you that was blocked, but rather your ISP that was blocked (or blacklisted anyway). It's most likely because a spammer has been sending spam through your ISP's mail servers, and the ISP hasn't done anything about it yet (for whatever reason). Your ISP will have to take action to stop the spam and get themselves removed from the blacklist. If my ISP was blacklisted for allowing spam to be sent on their servers, I'd seriously consider changing ISPs.

Spamhaus is a good organization, and they do a lot to reduce the problem with spam. It's unfortunate that innocent customers like you have to deal with the consequences, but if your ISP was blacklisted by Spamhaus, they most likely deserved it.
 

Balin64

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 23, 2002
772
1
In a Mauve Dream
mduser63 said:
It's not you that was blocked, but rather your ISP that was blocked (or blacklisted anyway). It's most likely because a spammer has been sending spam through your ISP's mail servers, and the ISP hasn't done anything about it yet (for whatever reason). Your ISP will have to take action to stop the spam and get themselves removed from the blacklist. If my ISP was blacklisted for allowing spam to be sent on their servers, I'd seriously consider changing ISPs.

Spamhaus is a good organization, and they do a lot to reduce the problem with spam. It's unfortunate that innocent customers like you have to deal with the consequences, but if your ISP was blacklisted by Spamhaus, they most likely deserved it.

Thanks!

We use a reputable ISP: they host most major corporations in the Twin Cities area. I am surprised they would let something like this happen. As of 4pm CST, we still can't send e-mail... I am not affected because I can send through .Mac, but my co-workers are furious.
 

CanadaRAM

macrumors G5
To elaborate on the previous post:

You are not blocked from sending, but some of your recipients may be blocked from receiving (a subtle but important difference).

Spamhaus (and others) run blacklists (not a block lists) of mail *servers* that have been reported as sending spam (as defined by that BL's individual criteria).

Your recipient's Internet Service Provider (ISP) can subscribe to one or more blacklists, and at their option either flag mail as suspected spam if it originates from a mailserver on the BL, or reject mail outright if from a BL'd mail server address. Note: that it is each recipient's own ISP that makes the choice to block or not for their accounts, it is not the BL operator somehow blocking mail on the Internet.

Hopefully, the customer of that ISP (your intended receiver) has some control over the spam filtering on their mail account, and can choose whether flagging or blocking is used. Your recipient may also have the ability to add your email address and/or your mail server's IP address to a personal "whitelist" or "Friends list" to ensure your email gets through to them.

Why are YOU blacklisted? Simple answer - YOU are not - it's not personal. The Internet email system has no way of knowing WHO sent an email, only that the email originated at the IP address of a specific mail SERVER - which is probably your ISP's mailserver. If someone, anyone, using the same ISP as you breaks the "rules" of the BL, your ISP's mail server IP address will be enrolled in the BL, and ALL mail from that IP will be affected, including yours. If the rulebreaking continues, it is likely to remain BL'd forever. If it was a one-time incident, there may be an appeals process or an automatic process that will get your ISP off the BL in days. Your ISP must initiate this.

If your ISP does not get the problem solved, your only option is to change your mail services to a totally different ISP that uses different mail servers.

One additional thing about broadband accounts and mailservers:
If you have broadband (Cable or DSL) service, and you run your own mailserver or mailserver-like programs, you may find yourself blocked out of hand -- this is because some BL's automatically consider any mailservers within a "dial-up" or home broadband block of IP addresses to be rogue mailservers (spammers or zombied machines) or virii.

Sometimes, commerical DSL/Cable netblocks get improperly identified as "dial-up". The key differentiator is whether your broadband connection has a static or a dynamic address. If you have a dynamic IP address, there is probably nothing you can do about being blocked by this method and your should use your ISP's mailserver. If you have a legitimate static (or "business" ) IP address, your ISP can probably appeal to get that block of addresses removed from the BL.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
 
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