Thanks to everyone who helped persuade Comcast to fix their error.
Particular thanks should go to the Comcast managers and technicians on
Politech who replied to me privately and said they were working internally
to fix the problem.
It's good that Comcast backed down. But not all sites that are wrongly
blocked by large ISPs are going to be able to get the attention of senior
managers at the ISP and fix the problem that way.
The Hippocratic Oath requires doctors to pledge not to use their skills to
harm others. Wouldn't it be wonderful if companies providing mail service
voluntarily pledged to adhere to a similar set of principles for dealing
with spam? ("I pledge not to blacklist entire Internet service providers."
And so on.)
Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04919.html
-Declan
---
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 14:49:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: WELL Help Desk <helpdeskat_private>
To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
Subject: Re: Comcast plugs up The Well, bounces legitimate email
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20030703004315.039a35b0at_private>
I just wanted to let you know that we've gotten email from Comcast telling
us they've unblocked mail from us.
Thanks for your help.
Kathy Branstetter <kathyb>
WELL Helpdesk
helpdeskat_private
(415) 645-9300
---
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 09:53:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gail Ann Williams <gailat_private>
To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
cc: politechat_private, <corporate_communicationsat_private>,
<jim_gordonat_private>, <calif_pressat_private>,
<supportat_private>
Subject: Re: Comcast plugs up The Well, bounces legitimate email
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20030703004315.039a35b0at_private>
Thanks, Declan.
We've called and emailed Comcast repeatedly, and will continue to do so.
If anyone has a direct phone number to someone ther who has a clue about
email, WELL support would appreciate it!
-Gail
----
Gail Ann Williams
Director of Communities, Salon.com
Home of Table Talk & The WELL
gwilliamsat_private or gailat_private 415-645-9304
---
From: Harry Hochheiser <hshat_private>
Organization: U. Maryland., Department of Computer Science
To: declanat_private
Subject: Re: FC: Comcast plugs up The Well, bounces legitimate email
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 11:16:58 -0400
Declan:
Maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to see what's so new about
this. I've known of domains that have been inncoently caught in RBL
or SPEWS blacklists just because they've been hosted by a facility
that also hosts spammers. Maybe AOL and/or Comcast have been getting
lots of spam from the Well, or forged to look like it's from the Well?
The real problem here is not with AOL and/or Comcast, but with
vigilante policing of spam.
-harry
---
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 02:24:57 -0400
From: Meng Weng Wong <mengwongat_private>
To: declanat_private
Subject: Re: [Fwd: FC: Comcast plugs up The Well, bounces legitimate email]
You're not alone; Comcast is also bouncing pobox.com mail. We're
holding all mail for about 1300 common customers at comcast.net,
att.net, and attbi.com right now and we're CC'ing it into
mailstore.pobox.com for them to retrieve using their pobox logins.
I contacted Joe O'Brien at Comcast around 8pm EDT about this. He said
he'd pass on my report to the mail team, but "they may have gone home
for the day."
To think I first posted about this sort of thing more than two years
ago; nothing's changed.
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200104/msg00042.html
---
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 00:53:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Bartley <johnbartley3at_private>
Reply-To: k7aayat_private
Subject: Re: FC: Comcast plugs up The Well, bounces legitimate email
To: declanat_private, politechat_private
Cc: corporate_communicationsat_private, jim_gordonat_private,
calif_pressat_private, gailat_private, supportat_private
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20030703004315.039a35b0at_private>
Same thing is happening to e-mail from the Americal Radio Relay LEague
(arrl.net) the nonprofit amateur radio society.
---
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 06:01:42 -0500
From: dgowanat_private
To: declanat_private
Subject: Fwd: Comcast plugs up The Well, etc
Declan, apparently ComCast is having some bad customer relations problems here
in Tallahassee. Lots of complaints in town, I wonder if some of their
problems
may be causing them to be more aggressive about anything like spam eating up
bandwidth? Comcast engineers here are telling customers that comcast uses the
AT&T backbone...
A couple of interesting links:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,6518241~root=comcast~mode=flat
http://www.petitiononline.com/castfsu/petition.html
Dave Gowan
---
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 09:13:26 -0400
To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
From: Neil Schwartzman <neilat_private>
Subject: you are not alone: ARRL.NET Traffic Blocked by Comcast
ARRL.NET Traffic Blocked by Comcast
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/07/03/1/?nc=1
NEWINGTON, CT, Jul 3, 2003--League members with Comcast.net Internet
service are currently having their arrl.net e-mail forwarding service
blocked by Comcast. As a result of Comcast's recent acquisition of AT&T
Broadband, those with attbi.com e-mail addresses may also be affected.
Approximately 5100 League members who are Comcast and AT&T Broadband
customers are affected.
"At this point, we have not been able to reach representatives of Comcast
directly," said ARRL Chief Financial Officer Barry Shelley, N1VXY. "This
situation is, in part, their solution to the Internet-wide problem of spam.
The ARRL, through the vendor for the arrl.net server, is currently working
to resolve this matter, but an immediate solution does not appear to be
imminent. Until the matter is resolved, the League cannot deliver e-mail
through the arrl.net server to users of the Comcast e-mail services."
Last autumn, e-mail servers at Hotmail.com, MSN.com and Juno.com also
temporarily blocked arrl.net forwarded e-mails for a few days. Shelley said
that given past experience, large ISPs are more likely to respond to their
customers. As this situation is a result of a decision by Comcast, ARRL
urges its affected members to contact Comcast directly via e-mail at
abuseat_private . Comcast requests that members include their Comcast
user name in the body of the message. Explain that you do not want your
arrl.net forwarded e-mail to be blocked.
</fair use>
--
Neil Schwartzman - Editor & Publisher
peteMOSS Publications, Industry & Trade Journals
<http://spamFLAMES.com><http://peteMOSS.com>
spamNEWS is now a daily BLOG & RSS Feed: <http://spamnews.com/blog/>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Internet access providers, companies that engage in the business of
connecting people to the Internet for profit ... assume the role of
Internet censors, arbitrarily closing accounts of those of whom they
disapprove." - Martha (C&S) Siegel
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