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Comcast Blocks Yet Another ISPs E-Mail
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Aug 31, 2006 02:13 PM
from the i-can't-heeeeear-youuuu dept.
from the i-can't-heeeeear-youuuu dept.
Nom du Keyboard writes, "Last week Comcast shutdown e-mail forwarding from NameZero entirely. People who have bought private domain names (i.e. yourname@yourdomain.com) and have e-mail forwarding to their current Comcast e-mail account through NameZero aren't receiving it any longer. No warnings — no e-mail. Now, again without warning, they've blocked out The Well, one of the oldest ISPs on the net. And nobody can get through to the Comcast people in charge of this to discuss the issue with them. Not the ISPs being blocked. Not the customers who pay Comcast to deliver e-mail to them. Comcast says they're protecting 10M customers from spam. I am a current Comcast broadband customer and I feel I should have the right to whitelist and receive e-mail from whomever I designate. I don't want as much protection as Comcast is giving me. Is it a basic right to be allowed to receive e-mail from whomever I desire, or does Comcast have the right to censor as they wish?" Last week Comcast was also blocking mail from alum.mit.edu. I (probably among many others) left a complaint on the phone line identified in bounce messages; the block was eventually lifted.
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Ask Slashdot: How Pervasive is ISP Outbound Email Filtering? 281 comments
Erris writes "A member of the Baton Rouge LUG noticed that Cox checks the text of outgoing email and rejects mail containing key phrases. I was aware of forced inbox filtering that has caused problems and been abused by other ISPs in China and in the US. I've also read about forced use of ISP SMTP and outbound throttling, but did not know they outbound filtered as well. How prevalent and justified is this practice? Wouldn't it be better to cut off people with infected computers than to censor the internet?"
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I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:5, Informative)
Mr. Anonymous sez:
Not to be snarky, but there's your problem right there.
Hopefully, you have some sort of alternative broadband provider. I humbly suggest you show Comcast what you think of them with your dollars and avail yourself of one of the alternatives.
I myself put up with Comcast's antics for quite a while (longer than I intended, actually):
When I first resolved to switch to WOW, I waited all day for the installer, who was a no-show. When I called to complain, I was told that the installer had in fact shown up, and I was the no-show. I knew this was a lie since not only was I in the house the entire day, the installer failed to tag the door as a no-show (you cable installers out there know what I'm talking about). I was so incensed by this that I cancelled my order, and remained with Comcast for another three whole months. But, eventually, I was forced to switch, after Comcast upped its rates yet again, and tried to make me pay for a service call to replace one of their defective converters.
I'm with WOW now, and I haven't looked back. Service is far superior, and I'm paying $40 less per month. Ditch Comcast...you'll feel better.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:5, Informative)
"I've NEVER used an email address I've had with an ISP, and would not reccomend it to anyone." And your reasoning behind this is??
I can't speak for the previous poster, but I can provide you with my reason for doing the same. An ISP provides internet access. If they bundle a mail service and I become dependent upon it, I have just given myself a vendor lock-in that makes it harder for me to move to a better internet provider should one come along. Since e-mail services are dirt cheap and/or free, it makes sense to decouple the two. I've had the same e-mail address for a good 7 years now, ever since I bought a domain. I've redirected it, forwarded it, and hosted my own mail server at various times. Because I'm able to keep the same address, moving to different ISPs in different parts of the country, or even in different countries is a lot easier and I still have all my mail going back 7 years when I need to look something up. It also means, if the ISP is being dumb and uses excessive filtering or places crazy restrictions on it, I don't have to worry, even if they are the only ISP I can access in a given geographic location.
Parent
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I generally use my ISP provided email as my "junk" address when I need to give an email but don't want to or don't trust who I am giving it to to keep it secret. Best of both world...
...better, but not the best. I create a series of temporary e-mail addresses I hand out to untrusted parties. something like "spam343forusername@domain.net" and send all messages with that format to a bulk mail folder. Then, if I start to receive spam from any given one of them, I can not only delete that alias and stop the
why use isp's email? (Score:3, Interesting)
It also means, if the ISP is being dumb and uses excessive filtering or places crazy restrictions on it, I don't have to worry, even if they are the only ISP I can access in a given geographic location.
Filtering is one reason I like using my isp's email. First they allow you to identify email as spam, which they then block the addies it came from. Then they allow to divert all email from addies that are not in your online addressbook, instead of it going to your inbox it is placed inside a suspicious f
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Personally I can't come up with a good reason to EVER use an ISP's e-mail address unless you're a total newb or an idiot that requires their tech support to explain how to use e-mail. I can see using their outgoing mail server, but that's a different story altogether. People, wake up: the main reason ISPs provide e-mail addresses is to make it more annoying for you to leave their service.
Re:I think I may have identified your problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw the comcast guy pull up so I go to the door but he ran upstairs to another apartment..
I'm thinking ok he'll stop by when he's done up there.
Nope.. 5 min later the van was gone..
I called comcast and they said I wasn't home.. ARGH!!
I finally got them to come back 3 days later and a free install..
Then to top it off, the install was on my bill the next month then a credit the month after..
Parent
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But as far as the charges, they've charged me 3 times my normal rate every other month since thi
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OHMYGOSH!!!! World of Warcraft provides broadband now?!?!?! How do I switch to them? Please, please, please give me the phone number!!!!! If I sign up will they let me into the Burning Crusade Beta? That would be so sweet. I have sent Blizzard like a million emails explaining to them how totally awesome of a PVP'er that I am, and how great of a contribution I would make t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully, you have some sort of alternative broadband provider.
Dear Mr. Snarky,
Don't you think if I had a good, other alternative that I would have just gone to them instead of complaining to Slashdot. I don't have a good alternative. My other ISP, AT&T, pulled exactly the same crap a few months ago and that's why I left them. This is the problem with a monopoly. I'm 27,000 feet from the Qwest CO, and until someone magically drops a DSLAM
If you think that's bad... (Score:3, Interesting)
I had recently cancelled Comcast, and checking through my bank records I found that I had paid them for an extra month. I called up, gave my old account number, and said that I overpaid and would like a refund. They rattled off some number that was only about half of what I paid, but I didn't want to deal with the hastle of pushing the issue and accepted it. Soon thereafter, I moved, complet
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I called up BellSouth, got
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It is amazing how many people still don't get it into whatever they have for brains that this is not a realistic option for many people. No, dialup is not a realistic option in quite a few cases, no matter how much you want to believe it is, and many people simply have no other alternative.
And yes, having internet access is a requirement for my job, and is used for so many things nowadays that not having Internet access is not a realistic o
Say What? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for blocking spam, but this doesn't sound like a way to reduce spam - it sounds like runaway stupidity. Spamcop makes a lot more sense. Maybe they do that already, and it wasen't enough.
They may want to adjust that "10M customers" figure in the near future.
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Re:Say What? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about protecting the rest of us from spam being sent through zombie hosts on their network!?
I read an article about a year ago that said that over 60% of the mail leaving Comcast's network was spam, Comcast knew it, but said the problem was "too expensive" for them to fix.
I think they need to turn their spam filters around the other way. Block all outgoing mail. That'll fix the spam problem!
Parent
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The Net Neutrality Debate in a Nutshell (Score:3, Interesting)
For all we know, Comcast is just fed up with people who are getting their 'net access from a less powerful competitor. They are saying "Sign up with us or this is what happens". Do you know who's the biggest ISP in the area that is served by The Well? Comcast, that's who.
An Internet without Net Neutrali
Gotta Love Comcast... (Score:3, Informative)
A list? (Score:3)
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
e-mail is not a 'right'.
You are free to terminate your service contract with Comcast and stop paying them, of course.
FYI (Score:5, Interesting)
When you form a contract with another party, you earn a "right" to receive the consideration from them that you bargained for.
Amazingly enough, courts will actually enforce this right. I'll be around in case you need any more corrections of your obviously wrong assumptions. Thank you.
Parent
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Of course, if you suffered harm (economic or otherwise) because they breached the contract, you can sue them for those damages, because you relied on their contracted promise, and they breached that contract, but if your only harm was not getting an e-mail from your grandma, the judge is g
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You typically earn the right to receive that consideration for a fixed period of time, not indefinitely.
If one party becomes unable or unwilling to provide that consideration, the resolution is usually to free both parties from the contract as per its dissolution terms. It is rare for a party to be FORCED to continue providing consideration unwillingly, beyond the contractual term (
Dreamhost got blocked too (Score:5, Informative)
This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used. (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is why ISP's can't send me an email every few days listing the subject lines and senders of everything they've blocked, with a link to click on to retrieve the blocked messages.
Re:This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the really effective anti-spam systems rely on "blackhole" lists (like Spamhaus), and greylisting. Both of which simply drop the message before it is even delivered to your inbox.
I work for an ISP, and the spam problem is so bad that if you have to block a non-trivial amount of legitimate mail in order to block a HUGE amount of spam, then that's a more than fair trade-off. There is simp
Re:This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used (Score:4, Insightful)
I am absolutely sure that a large proportion of your customers would vehemently disagree with you. Recieving junk mail is an annoyance. Not receiving non-trivial amounts of potential important legitimate mail is a show-stopper.
I take it you give your customers the ability to opt in and out of your shonky anti-spam system?
Parent
Re:This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand is why ISP's can't send me an email every few days listing the subject lines and senders of everything they've blocked, with a link to click on to retrieve the blocked messages
Because ISPs don't block IP blocks because they're trying to protect you from spam. They block IP blocks because they're trying to reduce the load on their incoming mail server (and save costs). Implementing a system that tags spam and sends you subject lines would cost money.
The real problem is that email is seen as a loss leader. Everyone expects an ISP to provide email, but they can't charge really anything for it as it's become a commodity. Thus many ISPs try to chince out and provide the bare minimum service. Basically if you want good email service sign up with a service that only does email. I run my own mail server, but I've had good luck with fastmail.fm. Let the ISP provide internet connectivity only and let someone that knows how to do email provide email service.
Parent
Re:This is a problem with every ISP I've ever used (Score:3, Informative)
The blacklists are good, but not perfect - and it can be really difficult to get your domain removed from one once it's mistakenly put there.
For example, my workplace started having problems with customers reporting their emails to us were getting bounced back as undeliverable. It turned out it was because the consulting firm that sells us our T1 line and spam filtering
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For my private company mail servers, they end up averaging about 60%-80% of all incoming mail is SPAM. I'd expect with larger ISPs, such as AOL and Comcast, this ratio is even worse -- perhaps 4 spam
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Email is never blocked, but simply cleaned and labeled.
- If it contains some sort of known malware, that file is quarantined before sending on the email.
- If it's "obviously" spam, then *******SPAM******* is prepended to the subject.
- If an html link appears to be a phishing attempt (tagged url doesn't match href url
COMCast (Score:3, Insightful)
Did anybody actually read TFA?? (Score:3, Informative)
Moreover, why forward backwards? (Score:3, Interesting)
My mail gets forwarded via Godaddy to Gmail. Godaddy does a halfway decent job filtering out most of the junk and Gmail handles the rest. The idea being to forward TO the agent with the most effective spam filtering.
The Well ha
Your Rights (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it a basic right to be allowed to receive e-mail from whomever I desire, or does Comcast have the right to censor as they wish?"
Comcast has the right to do whatever the fuck they want with their own network, as long as it is within the TOS contract you signed (which it probably was since it likely said they can change it at will with little to no notice). Also, you as a consumer have the right to ditch Comcast for any other ISP you want (assuming again you weren't locked into a TOS contract). Welcome to capitalism.
What you say? You have no other options for high speed in your area, or you have to keep your @comcast.com email address since it is not portable? Welcome to monopolies.
How to use comcast without using comcast.... (Score:3, Informative)
But, Earthlink (which doesn't suck mostly
The only problem's I've encountered were when Comcast "forgot" and (I assume) caused the DHCP server to give me a comcast IP address instead of a Earthlink one. Then, I couldn't connect to the earthlink email server...
BTW, I also have an alum.mit.edu email address that is set to forward to my
earthlink address; AFAIK, there were no bounces or glitches.
They're blocking Yahoo mail for godssakes (Score:3, Interesting)
Comcast is blocking a whole range of yahoo IP addresses. I've emailed them three times asking them to open up the whole block, but they won't do it, they'll only open up each IP i send them individually.
Simple solution to these situations (Score:5, Interesting)
That will teach them to play king maker.
This sort of thing really pisses me off (Score:3, Interesting)
And, hell if I'm going to pay GoodMail for beans. Sigh...
How comcast does things (Score:3, Interesting)
They have a unique way of dealing with their customers.
One day after I got home from work and wanted to check the news I found my internet was down. This was upsetting as my phones were going through the cable modem and I had recently gotten vongo. I didn't think it too out of the ordinary their reliability wasn't great. I got out the cell phone and started calling customer support. Half an hour later I managed to get that there was positively no technical problems in my area. 20 Minutes and 2 supervisors later I found out my account was blocked. In order to do anything to fix my account I had to call the abuse dept. Aptly named that it was, the abuse dept abuses you. Calling them got me a tape recording telling me to leave a message and they would get back to me in one to 3 days. A day later I get a call from them. The abuse people, tell me I have been using the service too much. This was based on the average use in my area. No mention was made of this when I had it installed, nor in the advertising when I bought their "Always on service". Anyway I was told my account would be back in half an hour and I should curb my usage. Oddly enough my account didn't come back.
The following is not moral or ethical but it was immensely enjoyable. I called direct tv and had them install a system with a tivo at the earliest. I let comcast run up their bill to the max and when the direct tv was installed I took comcasts equipment down to the recycling center.
Comcast treats its customers like crap. They do so because they have a monopoly. If you can attend a Public service meeting town council or whatever your municipality uses to call them to task.
A Precedent Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Get the affected ISP's admins, and who ever is sympathetic to their cause, and black hole * from Comcast.
Don't just do it, tell them you're doing it, and tell the press. When the press gets word that an ISP is being shunned as a bad neighbor, they climb all over it.
It took a dozen people issuing cancels for all messages originating from UUNet, and 3 people talking to the press about it, 4 days to force Worldcom to change their corporate policy with regards to their downstream customers' behavior. I'll always treasure the 10 minute fabulously obscene rant I got from John Sidgemore over it. Nor will I forget his VP and cheif scientist literally crying on the phone asking us to lift it. Sidgemore must have been a bitch to work for.
That was a 4.5 G$ US company. They live on their profit and loss statements, and how those affect their stock prices. Those stock prices are extremely sensitive to loud blasts of bad news.
Dangerous Precedence (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that Roadrunner blocks email from all of the static IP addresses from my local cable provider without even sending anyone a message, poof - the email just disappears into the ether without so much as a by your leave.
Maybe Comcast has crappy service and/or incompetant technicians but what they are doing amounts to the regulation of free speech. If we all just accept this then how can we trust that we are getting all of the email that is destined for our mailboxes? If we can't trust that all email sent to us through our ISP is getting to us then how can anyone depend on email at all? We might as well go back to using the telephone or physically meeting with people. And I hate dealing with people.
Is it possible that Comcast could be limiting our freedom to associate with whomever we want? I mean, I trust my phone company, I know they wouldn't limit my ability to call other people or give away all of my calling details to say the government despite it being a federal offense or expressly against my wishes. Maybe someone has asked Comcast to just stop emails from certain domains, like nytimes.com or truthout.org, iraq.com or nasa.com. Would we really know?
Can anyone here really tell me that an email they didn't know they were getting didn't get to their inbox? Maybe this has been happening for a while now? Maybe I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist, but if someone was censoring what email gets to people's inboxes wouldn't you think this was how it would start?
Yeah, I'm sure it's Comcast's incompetence and not a freedom of speech thing. Anyone seen where I left my shiny new hat?
JtK
It's COMCASTIC! (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem isn't what Comcast does, it's what they don't do: Provide humans.
Every try reaching someone with any authority at Comcast? It's impossible.
Not difficult: Impossible.
I'm beginning to suspect Comcast some sort of outsourced Vogon corporation and their offices are full of large green lumbering creatures, and anyone human is simply a hired shill, I mean, lobbyist.
Want to test? Try calling and asking a support monkey for the address of their ntp server(s). Not "nntp" (they have that in their keyword scripts), not usenet news, rather ntp as in time. It's a whose-on-first comedy routine trying to convince them that ntp != nntp and when you do, they escalate it, say someone will call you back, and nobody does. Ever.
That's a trivial geeky example but emblematic.
Every aspect of Comcast: Front line without power, whose only recourse is to ditch and run, and no second level. Nobody accountable, nobody responsable, just useless monkeys.
Heck, for two years after Comcast bought out ATT BI my net address from Comcast resolved to "maggard.ne.attbi.net". Who to call to get this updated? Nobody knew. Ever. Utter clulessness, absolute uselessness. Eventually my vanity setting went away entirely with nobody to talk to about reinstating it under comcast.net (so much for an easy VPN address!)
Email routing problems: Nobody to report to. False spam blocking: No recourse. Wonky DNS servers: Tough luck.
If anyone ever does get a phone number of a bipedal hominid at Comcast, with some degree of authority, please post it!
In the meantime the next time Comcasts license comes up in this town I'll be there recounting my stories with them, the outtages, blocked ports, the service people who never show up, the email problems, their own spam, etc. Oh, and 2 weeks ago Verizon ran fiber to my property line. At least I'll have a choice of scoundrels now - who it worse, the cable company or the phone company?
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Fucking editors.