06-18-2004, 10:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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ISPs Blocking Port 25 To Curb Spam Hurts The Honest Guy
This morning I woke up, logged into my laptop and started taking care of a number of emails in my various accounts. I have one work account and 4 personal accounts. Three of those personal accounts are using other SMTP servers, including my Pocket PC Thoughts account. Do do this, you need access to port 25. Why are ISPs blocking these? Because of ignorant people. They never run Windows Update, they installed a virus scanner in 2001 and haven't run a single update and click on every attachment in their inbox. Their computers are zombies sending out hundreds of millions of emails a day. Comcast admits "We're the biggest spammer on the Internet" because of these users.
Did Bellsouth.net, my ISP, warn me? Did they send out and email telling me port 25 would no longer be available? No! (Please note: the rest of this post can best be appreciated it you print it off and read it while storming around the room, occasionally giving a stilted kick or two at nothing in particular, and, of course, a bit of spittle can't hurt either.) So after about 30 minutes of figuring out why most of my emails weren't sending through various accounts and 3 different email clients, it dawned on me that port 25 was probably blocked. I called their customer service department and after getting bounced around to 4 people, I finally got someone that knew what was going on. "Yup. 25 has been blocked and we aren't unblocking it for anyone. Period."
AAARGGGHHH!!! I've been with them nearly three years and they took away my ability to send emails through my other email servers. I have a laptop and can't reconfigure all of my accounts to send through their servers because when I am on the road or connected through another network, their email server is unavailable to me. They allow no external access to their SMTP server. Idiots. So, the solution to the spam problem cause by a few ignorant people with zombie machines and the occasional intentional spammer is to block everyone?!? What IT genius at Bellsouth.net's made this decision? And who's decision was it to not open that port back up for customers that need it and haven't been accused of spamming?
With this logic, I can also fix the prostitution problem. Let's just block driving up and down the roads ladies of the evening hang out at. Never mind the thousands of drivers that use those same roads daily for legitimate reasons. For those few offenders, we'll inconvenience everyone. :evil:
I do have a potential alternative that many don't. I could theoretically always VPN into my corporate LAN and send through there, but there is one small problem, and I am not going to beat around the bush on this. Connection Manager for the Pocket PC sucks! It has been broken since Pocket PC 2002 and is still broken in Pocket PC 2003 SE. You cannot VPN into a LAN and send "internet" traffic through that connection unless you have a Proxy Server installed, so this solution would be for my laptop only and on my wireless LAN, that just isn't good enough.
So now I have an $80/month business account, which does open port 25, instead of a $47/month home account. :bad-words: Totally insane. All because of some knee-jerk reaction to a valid problem solved with wrong-headed thinking, and as far as computing goes, that is the most evil thing that can happen. And in dealing with evil, Jules may said it best:
Jules said:  "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
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06-18-2004, 10:06 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 864
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Same thing happened to me this week with Charter no notice port 25 just stopped. So now I am running my SMTP through SSL as a work around (since they won't be blocking SSL any time soon  ...) I was pretty ticked off the least they could have done was warn me and even then I would have been ticked! :evil:
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06-18-2004, 10:15 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 35
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One almost solution to this problem is to move your SMTP server to a different port, then use a mailhop provider such as DynDNS to relay your mail through their port 25 server to your non-standard server. I used this for a while when Cox suddenly pulled the same nasty trick. Fortunately I've been able to move my domains to a DSL line at the office, but this got me by for a while. The only problem is with email clients that don't let you adjust the port they connect to for outgoing mail.
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06-18-2004, 10:18 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 602
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Ed, don't hold that kind of fury in. You might hurt yourself! Come on and tell us how you really feel! :wink:
On a more serious note, I ill have to check on access to my CalgaryPPC acvount when I get home.
Not that it matters, Telus has pissed me off so much lately that I started the process of switching over to Shaw. Installation should be on the 28th!
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06-18-2004, 10:42 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 593
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Anyone notice that Ed's posts have been reduced to two categories: angry and saying bluetooth is dead?
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06-18-2004, 10:47 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 291
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The problem is its not a few people with Zombie PCs its millions of them!
I'd guess 7 in 10 are compromised PCs
Microsoft need to include all the tools to keep this problem away but they have a problem:
Leave the tools out and you are compromising security
Put them in and they are monopolising the market.
I don't doubt Norton/Mcafee etc make great software but the people who buy and install them are the people who already behave carefully
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06-18-2004, 11:11 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Gremmie
Anyone notice that Ed's posts have been reduced to two categories: angry and saying bluetooth is dead?
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But he's so GOOD at them. :way to go:
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06-18-2004, 11:17 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 164
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Frontiernet.net, aka Frontier Communications, did the same thing to all of its users without any notice at all. :evil: I won't even bother calling them to see if they will open things up for me, their customer service reps are pretty useless.
Unfortunately, a situation I will have to live with; they are the only high speed provider in our area. :bad-words:
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06-18-2004, 11:21 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 841
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Why not use commercial SMTP servers? When using GPRS this problem is even more common and a few of our users came up with a list. The ones I think should be investigated are www.smtp.com and www.fastmail.fm. They both provide SMTP services for a few, which is great for road warriors. Have you ever tried sending e-mails from your Pocket PC while roaming in another country?
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06-18-2004, 11:25 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 161
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working for a ISP
I work for a local cable company here in San Diego, and I can say from personal experience that the port 25 blocking is a necessary part of our business. Without it we would have to add hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware to keep up with multitude of crap that flows from internal users. We are not catering to a few bad eggs, we are dealing with a fact of life in our times. Spam is out there, and it is our responsibility to do something about it. Keep in mind that we field less that 1% of our customer base in calls concerning this matter. So the vast majority of our users could care less about port 25 blocking. The extra money that you pay now for your commercial account is one way to ensure the proper use of the service. by moving people who need this access to a different account, we can better serve them in other ways. For instance... if your cable modem goes out the typical commercial trouble call is less than 4 hours to respond (someone calls back) and fixed within 24 hours. The residential product is 2-5 days (an entertainment service). While you may not need this level of service all the time, I can almost gurantee that if you call in because your modem doesn't work and someone quotes you 5 days to get a repairman out to fix it, you would be fried. :?
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