How Pervasive is ISP Outbound Email Filtering? 281
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?"
Not Comcast (Score:2)
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Re:Not Comcast (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of all people wouldn't need it anyway(except the bots on their machines) and the ones who do, would know how to open it. Of course it is a not the ideal way to solve the problem, but it's all we got for now.
Re:Not Comcast (Score:4, Insightful)
That way there is no way for a bot to automate it (ok maybe if they still have a analog modem but unlikely) and its pretty easy to unblock yourself while keeping the ISP's workload low.
That would cut out a lot of the net's problems overnight and make it extremely difficult to bypass.
Re:Not Comcast (Score:4, Informative)
In the past few years with the increase in teleworking, remote access of email, and personal domain names, as well as the evolution of the spam-virus, that ISP's have moved to allow access to port 25 outside their network, instead doing IP access controls on their outgoing SMTP server, and using SMTP Auth to allow people to connect from outside their network.
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For a certain segment of the ISP market, ie your "home users who have no choice anyway". Maybe its more widespread in your country. I've never had an ISP that blocks any port. I have no need for a filtered part of the Internet. I'm a grown up and I can take and demand access to the whole thing.
Down here, the big ISPs block lots of things (email, servers, ftp, etc): Telstra, Optus, Dodo, etc. But they are aiming at a mark
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Oooh, yeah let's regulate it. What would be the mechanism to open it up?
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This isn't just theory -- at an ISP
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Re:Not Comcast (Score:5, Interesting)
I had to call their very rude Security Something Department, they said my options were
1. 'Use a different port because other ports can be secured while port 25 cannot be secured.'
2. Use the Comcast alternate port SMTP-AUTH Server (of which I don't know my login/password for)
I told them I wanted option 3:
3. Re-open port 25.
They decided to tell me that they could as a ONE TIME courtesy re-open the port, but 'it will probably be blocked again because the problem that caused it to be blocked probably wasn't fixed' (even after I told them that I had found the problem and fixed it, in addition to monitored all transmissions over port 25 for an hour)... So I fixed my OpenBSD firewall pf rules to only allow 'trusted' computers to only be able to contact MY email server, and access the whole internet unfettered, the 'guest' machines have access to web and a handful of other ports (none of which is 25)...
Moral of the story: Stop using windows...
Re:Not Comcast (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Comcast (Score:4)
Not possible to secure Windows. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that Windows (XP at least) can be made secure today. Yes, people can use it securely, but I don't think it is possible to make it inherently secure. I saw a recent exmple of a machine that got infected while it was configured with a major anti-virus (fully updated) and Windows was set to auto-update. Yes, I suspect that using
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on any bright shiny item they come across.
One place had a check printing computer - completely disconnected from the network just a computer and a laser printer... It got virused..?? I had to un-virus it. Someone wanted the latest technology in screensavers, employed a floppy disk.
Re:Not Comcast (Score:5, Informative)
I got tired of fighting with them (and after the headaches they caused with my overpriced business class connection when they took over for the ISP they bought out I was not going to pay for that service again), and discovered DynDNS's mailhop outbound and mailhop relay services. Problem solved. You can have stuff forwarded in on a nonstandard port and sent out that way too.
http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/outbound.html [dyndns.com]
http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/relay.html [dyndns.com]
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I subscribe to Cox business accounts...I get a static IP address, a low level SLA, and no bandwidth caps, or ports blocked...and pretty good speeds. I've been VERY happy with it.
I switched to them years back when I was with Bellsouth trying to upgrade my DSL to get a static IP etc. They said they didn't have any to give out (after over a month waiting on the answer)...I found that Cox cable would do what I wa
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Profit comes first (Score:5, Insightful)
If they did that, it would lower their income and cut into their profits. Filtering outbound email costs less, at least in the short run and that's all the typical MBA is interested in. Their idea is to move to a new company before the long-term damage they've caused becomes evident. (I'm not just wanking, here; I asked an MBA about it once and that's what he told me.)
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You forgot about the US government (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer I have to that is "9/11 Changed Everything".
Seriously -- when the US government asked the telcos to commit surveillance crimes against the US citizens, only Qwest refused. Usually, breaking the law is a bad thing, but the US government was offering lots of money to the telcos, and presumably the promise not to prosecute. So the only company that got in trouble was the one following the law. And somehow the Qwest CEO that refused the deal ended up in jail. Meanwhile Dick Cheney is desperately trying to get immunity for the cooperating telcos for their crimes. See how that works?
So on the surface of things scanning and filtering our email might seem to be a bad busines move. But if the same US Government that got illegal telephone surveillance of US Citizens is also going for illegal surveillance of our emails, email filtering starts to make much more business sense.
It used to be that the idea of the US government secretly finding out what was in your emails was in the tin-foil hat realm. But the illegal surveillance of telephone calls would have been as well, along with secretly torturing people in secret overseas prisons. As well as "constitution-free" zones such as Gitmo that are paid for by US taxpayer dollars.
So if you have a government that scans your telephone calls, email, and web-surfing habits, you get very close to a goal of "total information awareness", which was one of the government's programs that was renamed and shuffled around after the public got very upset.
Re:Profit comes first (Score:4, Insightful)
That's assuming they actually close the customer's account or credit for the time out. Some ISPs do not, since the issue is generally a virus or other malware on the customer's PC (in other words, not the ISP's fault).
But you response overall is still correct. If they keep mucking around with the email, they still save money because eventually the customer gets sick of it and gets a Yahoo account instead. Now Comcast is still getting the same $40/month, but without having to provide mail services.
If you don't filter, you get blocked. (Score:3, Interesting)
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dude, spamassassin-users [apache.org] isn't that secret.
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Looking further... (Score:5, Informative)
I tried to send an email. The email only contained text. The text Cox
objected to was "http://my_homebox_IP_number/"
I haven't checked the Cox TOS lately, but don't they prohibit running a home web server like all the other residential internet providers? Hasn't this been the case since for essentially the same length of time that the Internet has been a commercial venture?
Prohibited (Score:3, Informative)
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I wonder if they just filter emails with addresses in their netblock? That would actually make sense.
If they just filtered mails with any numeric URL in them it'd be bad though.
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About 99% of emails containing an url with a numerical IP are spams. I certainly would not fault cox for blocking those outgoing spams.
Cox certainly has a certain number of customers whose PCs are routinely infected with spam sending trojans. The filter was probably enabled by a scruffy looking unix admin, muttering about how clueless those Windows users are, rather than a pointy-haired boss trying to limit the use of home s
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No, I strongly expect that they are:
1) filtering URLs with their IP range in it.
2) Resolving URLs to the IP address (then following 1)
Item # 2 is trivial to do... SpamAssassin has plenty of body text checkers looking for URLs (see URIBL_* plugins). It would be trivial to fork one of these applets to look for their cable user IP space.
It's also trivial to get around eith
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Whether or not you're running a home server, sending an email containing a URL certainly shouldn't breach the ToS. They're not going to filter emails referring to a breaching server, they'd contact you about the server or terminate your service.
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I haven't checked the Cox TOS lately, but don't they prohibit running a home web server like all the other residential internet providers?
They might. What does that have to do with this situation? It's very unlikely Cox has some kind of filter that looks for specific references to their own IP address pool, and filters out email with that criteria. It's just not worth the effort.
What's MUCH more likely is they have a spam filter that looks for email that looks like spam, i.e. "http://some-ip-address:some
inline virus filtering (Score:3, Insightful)
Text of posting (TFA) (Score:3, Informative)
rejects such messages as spam. The message given when I try is:
Sending failed:
Could not write file The message content was not accepted.
The server responded: "ID_INTENTIONALLY_REMOVED This message was
undeliverable. This message has been found to be a potential spam message,
and has therefore been blocked. Please visit http://coxagainstspam.cox.net/ [cox.net]
for more information.".
Disk full.
The message will stay in the 'outbox' folder until you either fix the problem
(e.g. a broken address) or remove the message from the 'outbox' folder.
The following transport protocol was used:
smtp.east.cox.net
. . .
I could care less that their disk is stuffed and suspect it is misdirection.
This censorship is only a minor inconvenience but the message it sends is
ugly. It says, in so many words, that the internet is for your consumption
not participation. Changing messages to point to my physics page gets around
the immediate problem, but most people do not have such a thing nor should
they be forced to host things on someone else's computers. I'm paying for my
bandwith, why can't I use it for what I want? Finally, subscribers now know
that every word of every message sent is filtered. Will they filter my IM
conversations next?
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I couldn't care less = I don't care
merged with
I could give a damn = I could care but I don't
and became
I could care less.
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Except that you're just wrong. The phrase "I could care less" is usually only about a notch above saying "fuck you, and the horse you rode in on." As the GP said, it's a colloquial expression and unless you've been exposed to it in the proper context you probably just won't get it. Attempting to analyze such expressions in any language using the kind of logic you were trying to apply is a fruitless exercise. Like a lot of other things in America
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Congratulations. You read his post backwards.
-:sigma.SB
Where, exactly, is the story? (Score:5, Informative)
I also note that Cox's TOS specifically prohibits the hosting of servers:
A more accurate title for this story would be: "User in violation of Cox TOS upset over Cox efforts to enforce TOS."
My advice to said user? Buck up and get business-level service, or find yourself a real hosting service for your mail server.
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They are not enforcing their TOS; they are blocking legitimate traffic. Does their TOS say "You will not send an email with a URL to your own IP address"? Put another way, should the police be able to block you bragging in an email that you did 100 MPH on the freeway?
Sounds like one of those useless ISPs that block/fake BitTorrenting and force you to use their email servers. ISPs that ar
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I think that comment pretty much sums this up as a non-story about a petulant user who is pissed that he can't get around Cox's roadblocks. I won't say it's been a waste of my time, though, as I'm sitting here posting a response. I find it amusing that
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I agree with you. You're not bying a real internet connection when you buy through someone like Cox so you shouldn't complain. Just up and leave - if you can - or shut up and take it if you can't. Else go dark. The real Net is still hear for the rest of us.
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A more accurate title for this story would be: "User in violation of Cox TOS upset over Cox efforts to enforce TOS."
The problem is that the TOS are bogus, and there's absolutely nothing the customer can do about it. It's not as though we have a half dozen other cable subscribers to choose from and to keep each other honest; aside from the phone company, Cox is the only game in town for many folks. The theoretical benefits and corrective effects of free-market competition do not operate in such an environment.
Seriously, "servers of any type [...] server like functionality"? Congratulations, you've just described an
Yep (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference, of course, is that I pay a good bit more. I'm not sure what a consumer level cable connection costs for 10mb/1mb but my understanding is it is somewhere in the range of $50/month. I pay more like $150/month for the business grade with 8 static IPs (the IPs do add a good portion of that).
However I'm ok with that. My usage is much in excess of what you'd get from a normal consumer, I'm ok with the fact that I have to pay for that. It's still not a bad price all things considered.
If you want the cheap consumer connections, then you need to deal with the consumer restrictions which usually include "no servers". It isn't as though they are being assholes and saying "No you can't ever do this," they are just saying "If you want to do this, you need a more pricey service."
Servers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or server-like functionality?
So, what exactly, defines a server? When you think about it, there's just traffic between two points. From a semantic perspective, posting to /. could be seen as "serving" text to a remote computer...
But, I think this kind of highlights the apparent Cox conceptual model of the internet:
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How about; A computing device that accepts random, unsolicited connection from other computing devices". It's generally the kind of connection that a NAT router prevents unless especially set up to allow that. As part of the service, many ISPs supply a wireless NAT router which blocks incoming traffic from the local network.
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Define "real hosting". Not everything requires a data centre; I define hosting as "fit for purpose", if my home mail server sends out 20MB of email a month I can hardly see why I need to pay for an entirely different server and internet connection that I upload the same 20MB to, which then uploads the 20MB elsewhere. Here was me thinking the internet was all about multiple different n
Holy WTF?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can understand and am sympathetic to ISPs who force outbound traffic to go through their servers. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I really do get what they're trying to accomplish. I also understand ISPs having spam filters on their outbounds, and think that's actually a pretty good idea. If you really need to send a virus so someone, then you should be technically competent to encrypt it or otherwise shield it from a scanner.
But never in a million years can I even remotely condone actually scanning the text of emails and rejecting ones an ISP doesn't like. That's just Evil.
Re:Holy WTF?!? (Score:4, Funny)
I recommend that the phrase "Cox Blocked" be granted status as the official 'net jargon for any message blocked by an outgoing content filter.
We've had our eye on you for sometime now.... (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be better to cut off people with infected computers than to censor the internet?
Yeah, that's great until MSFT convinces one of them that Linux is a virus.
But we're prepared to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. And all you have to do is install Windows.
Not just ISPs-- antivirus software too (Score:3, Interesting)
These limitations wouldn't be hit by your normal 1-or-2 emails at a time users. But for the rare legitimate high volume senders, like us, it was a problem. IT wouldn't let us turn off Norton alltogether (and rightly so, as we'd seen virii on our network in the past), and there was no way to selectively disable that "feature". Eventually we forced to make our outbound mail server listen on a different port, so that Norton wouldn't scan/lose the data.
At least with COX you get a notification saying that the message couldn't be sent, with Norton, the messages might just quietly disappear.
Kudos to Cox Communications (Score:5, Informative)
I can say without question that the amount of spam we get from cox is almost NIL. I constantly see spam coming out of Comscat's network, also Verizon and from time to time Time Warner but RARELY Cox. In fact I can't remember the last spam I received that originated from their network.
I don't mind that my egress SMTP port is blocked forcing me to use a MSA (mine is configured to use SMTP AUTH with TLS, which works nicely). The fact is that Cox has their act together in my opinion. The fact that they are a white hat in the abuse category makes me want to continue doing business with them. I don't think what you're seeing here is intentional censorship. It would actually be irresponsible for Cox not to filter outbound mail traffic, since they are bound to have customers that run malware infected / zombied host computers.
Anyway, I say "good job Cox"
P.S. I work for an ISP that is NOT Cox--which one might think after reading my glowing statements (in fact we compete against Cox)
Re:Kudos to Cox Communications (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, I'm getting sick of the prevailing attitude that ISPs and other "institutions" should limit legitimate activities with a technology and filter everybody's behaviour because some customers are bad apples (either intentially or through ignorance).
Don't penalise me and limit my activities - limit those who are adversly behaving. ie, block those that do have malware infected machines not mine! I do the right thing and protect my systems. Why should I should I be penalised by the highest common ignorance factor?
You are promoting this attitude by saying "We will do business with them because they bottled up their customers nicely and it saves us work" instead of "They have lower quality customers and have to bottle them. Not going to touch that crowd".
What am I saying? We live in a moddle-coddled world where nobody takes responsibility for they're own actions but instead focuses on fretting and controlling everybody else's actions. Arse above tit. With liberty comes responsibility.
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If your mail situation is that important, buy a business-class account.
Re:Kudos to Cox Communications (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Kill the connection of those computers. Don't block and filter my computer because Joe Idiot has malware. Cut him off and make it his responsiblity to clean his property. If I had a spiking phone that was causing disruption to the telephone network they'd disconnect my phone not start filtering your phone conversations. If my car was a defect I wouldn't be allowed to drive.
Come on, are you telling me sending an email is an add on to the basic funtionality of the internet, and optional extra? "Oh, you want "clean" water? Well I suggest you upgrade to our business service. Our residential water pipes only deliver untreated effluent."
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In principle I agree, except they're not trying to limit legitimate activity but the illegitimate. In this case malware infected computers sending out massive amounts of garbage isn't filtering behavior of a person, but automated abuse. Perhaps as an tech
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Not such a bad analogy and I take your point. Except they are filtering my traffic not theirs. And that's the crux I think. My data is considered their data if it goes through their wires! In the sewer example, ownership of the sew
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Point taken, I meant overall a good job for being good net neighbors. Agreed that their system might have some problems, but keep in mind that e-mail is not really considered a realiable medium for important communications. It is, at its own definition a "best effort" delivery mechanism.
ISP != Evil (not necessarily, anyway) (Score:4, Informative)
We do not use spy on our customers phone calls or throttle their P2P traffic. We are not considering monitoring their Internet traffic for copyrighted (or any other) data.
Maybe some of the big boys are out there using these draconian tactics, but your average, everyday, garden variety, small ISP is just trying to make a living providing a quality alternative to the behemoths out there.
Please don't lump us in with those guys.
All that said... We *do* filter inbound email traffic for viruses and SPAM. We do block inbound port 25 to our dynamic IPs.
We view these actions as our duty to our customers and to the rest of the Internet to do our small part to help at least slow down the rampant propagation of SPAM on the Internet.
We currently block about 95% of the email that hits our domains - and that number is slowly climbing. Do we occasionally throw out the baby with the bath water? Probably so, but it is rare. I can't even remember the last complaint we have gotten about this, so this tells me that our filters are highly effective.
As for blocking port 25, we do this to guard our address space against our own customers being irresponsible with their PC's and not keeping virus software up to date. Getting our address space blacklisted would effect ALL of our customers.
It is not about getting rich. Hardly so. Email is the probably the biggest drain on resources that any ISP faces. If we didn't take these steps, we probably would not be in business.
Everyone wishes we had the less evil Internet of yesteryear back, but it isn't going to happen. The Internet is a cesspool. We have to defend ourselves in the best way we know how.
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We do block inbound port 25 to our dynamic IPs.
How is that supposed to stop spam ending up in the user's mailbox, exactly? If the user has a server running on port 25 to receive those messages, then clearly he understands the concept of spam and would presumably have weighed the pros and cons of any such configuration for himself. It seems pretty overbearing that you would presume to protect the user from himself in this fashion.
If you're blocking this particular type of traffic for price/performance reasons, then be upfront about it (although in
ILOVEYOU (Score:4, Funny)
The error message from Comcast -- something about rejection -- was pretty classic.
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MOD PARENT FUNNY (Score:2)
What? You don't remember? Okay then, GIT OF MA LAWN!
Godaddy anecdotal... (Score:2)
This might or might not be a good thing... dunno.
Links (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I've started to get accustomed to dealing with this (strip out links & resend individual
Comcast sucks too. (Score:3, Insightful)
First its port 25, because of spam. Then it will be P2P because of copyright. Then it will be ssh because of terrorism. Then it will be, inspired from the new york story yesterday, filtering web content to prevent false alarms.
Fuckers. Bury your head america.
When people talk about fascist Germany, they focus on the extermination of jews and the holocaust, and while those were horrific acts, they are not what the Nazi party was about. They were the result of the acts of fanatical and arguably insane men who had gained power in the Nazi party, not the Nazi party, per se'
The Nazi party was about power and the exercise of it. It was about bringing pressure on the citizens from all aspects of society to conform to it. It used social structures and industries and laws to bring people under control. It is EXACTLY what is happening in america today. Its all the little things slowly picking away at the big things, until the big things crumble. Freedom of speech? Nope, now we have "free speech zones," where no one will hear you. I could go on, but the
Just like the Reichstag fire in 1933, the world trade center in 2001 gave the neocons the ability to enact limits on freedom. After that, industries which were once regulated in order to protect the citizens are now deregulated and destroying citizens who do not conform, RIAA, MPIAA, walmart, etc.
ISP censorship is just one more piece of it. The internet is becoming the primary conduit of communication and fascist america must have its citizens controlled, just lake Nazi Germany needed its citizens controlled.
All this isn't a conspiracy theory either. No conspiracy theory need exist. Our government (of the people, by the people, bla bla) is supposed to protect us. If it stops protecting us from big companies, those companies will naturally do the work for their own gain.
Now everyone in the USA is afraid. Some of terrorists, some of losing heath care, some of losing their job, their house, what ever. Fear, as the nazi's will tell you is a powerful tool to harness.
Welcome to neocon amaerica where companies sue their customers because they can. Companies dictate what you can do with your property, because they can, and if you do anything about it or protest, you can lose your job which means your house and health care.
Sorry for the rant, but I can't be the only one who sees this whole thing in this way
Mid-sized ISP (Score:2)
This might explain .... (Score:2)
Earthlink Does It Too (Score:2)
Earthlink cannot provide me with a static IP which is easy enough to blame on the telco.
Simple solution: GMail+SSL (Score:2)
http://mail.google.com/ [google.com]
to:
https://mail.google.com/ [google.com]
Problem solved!
Time Warner Cable did this too. (Score:2)
AOL does it (Score:2)
Comcast blocking shortened URLs in emails (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, that block actually sounds reasonable... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Try an alternate port service ... (Score:3, Informative)
Please that's not 1/2 as bad (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Phrases (Score:5, Funny)
Cialis vincit disfunctio penilis!
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No, you're both wrong! (Score:2)
disfunctio does not exist, nor does erectilis; although erecta and flaccida would give you what you expect (the common words for "penis" are usually feminine), I do not think that it was ever used with respect to that part of the anatomy. However, I do know the word which is closer in sense to "hard-on" but would probably be used in spam, and I have used that word above.
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I fell into the English-language trap of using the present to stand in for the future. verba praematura eiecta sunt.
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I'm typically fairly terse in emails. For a number of my friends I have to write in a deliberately pompus or circuitous manner in order the get past their spam filters who assume a short message is spam. *sigh*
Re:Phrases (Score:4, Informative)
Thank you for your e-mail. I understand you are experiencing
difficulties sending e-mails stating messages are being rejected by the
server. I am really sorry for this inconvenience.
Our messaging team is adding functionality to the email platform that
will have the ability to detect spam emails and notify the you that you
are attempting to send spam, and that it will not be sent. Therefore,
when a your email has been identified as a spam, you will see an error
message. Please visit the link below for more information:
http://coxagainstspam.cox.net/ [cox.net]
I hope you have found the information above useful. If the difficulty
persists or if there are any further inquiries you would like to
address, do not hesitate to contact our dedicated department for further
assistance.
Have you tried our customer support site? Visit
http://support.cox.com/ [cox.com]
to find answers to many of your Cox High Speed Internet questions FAST,
including "click to fix" automated solutions and LIVE online chat
support 24/7!
Thank you for choosing Cox Communications as your friend in the digital
age.
I was able to get around the problem by sending my resume as an attached RTF instead of DOC (both created with OpenOffice.) I'm guessing this change was enough to convince their filter that the messages with RTFs attached were not the same as the previous ones with DOC files.
Eventually the problem went away, and happily I did find a job. Still, I was pretty dismayed at how dismissive and unhelpful their "dedicated department" was.
Amen (Score:4, Insightful)
"I'm a normal user, let me have what normal users get"
"I'm a power user, please turn on ___, ____, and ___"
"I'm a power user and I really really really know what I'm asking for, please turn on everything."
Then let them change it at any time, either permanently or, if they only need it for awhile, for an hour, a day, or a week.
Once you do that you can hold customers responsible for things like letting bots run loose spamming the planet over an available outgoing port 25.
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My ISP blocks all non-SSL ports but doesn't block the SSL ports.. which is perfect, since I much rather use SSL when sending/receiving emails..
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Further down the thread [brlug.net] you find the important detail:
and a few more mess [brlug.net]
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I use Cox, and just sent to a friend a test message containing a numerical IP address. Went thru perfectly.