[ NNSquad ] Catch-22 for sending email

[Dave Kristol <dmk-nnsquad@kristol.org>]

Thursday night.  Marji tries to send email, but it doesn't go.  Maybe the SMTP 
server is down.  It happens occasionally.  Try again in the morning.

Friday morning.  Same thing.  I call Comcast tech. support.  They redirect me to 
Comcast security.

Talk to security.  They tell me they've blocked port 25 for us because they 
think we've sent spam.  They instruct me to use an alternate port for SMTP and 
to enable authentication, which I do.  (My port 25 SMTP email already required 
authentication.)

I want to know why they think I'm a spammer.  I have a firewall/router.  I run 
Linux, Marji runs MacOS.  Our machines are off most of the day.  How could I be 
a spammer?

They say we sent email that someone reported as spam.  Huh?  After a little more 
probing, they say the message has something to do with a party.  (So, I've been 
 blacklisted on the basis of a single message!)  Hmmm.  Marji sent email to a 
bunch of friends to invite them to a party.  There were maybe 20 recipients. 
Me: Is that it?  Comcast: Can't say.  Me: Too many recipients?  Comcast: No, 20 
is okay.  Me: Well, who complained?  Comcast: Can't say, but I should try 
pruning the recipient list to avoid future problems.

Eh?  Catch-22.  They won't tell me who complained about the message, but I 
should eliminate them from the recipient list!

The whole thing is truly weird.  I know each of the people who was invited 
personally, and they know me.  I can't imagine any of them complaining about the 
email.  The only other possibility is that an ISP or, more likely, a company (I 
used the work addresses of three recipients) passed the message along to the 
recipient but, seeing that the subject mentioned a party, decided ... what? 
None of the recipients has said anything to me, like "Our IT security people 
tagged your email as spam."

I feel a bit like the people held at Gitmo:  You've been bad, we can't tell you 
who said so, and we won't give you any information that you could use to clear 
your name.

It would be nice if Comcast were a bit more transparent in this case.  I'll be 
interested to get other ISPs' side of this.

Dave Kristol