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[ NNSquad ] Re: Catch-22 for sending email

This is the kind of story that makes me think someone responsible needs to codify what is acceptable behavior for ISPs. Comcast truly seems to think it's OK to block a port with out first consulting with the customer!

The most offensive ISPs seem to be cable & phone companies that branched into Internet services. Their history as monopolies which dictate terms to their users is antithetical to the very nature of the Internet. As long as there is no written standard, they can do this sort of thing and then say "what's wrong with that?". Most of their customers don't even know what consitutes abuse by their ISP. A formal standard would serve as a guideline for honest ISPs, and announcing that adherence would give them a marketing edge in competitive markets.

Short term, a written standard would help the NN Working Group to focus our efforts. We all know NN when we see it (or when it's missing), but now that I'm writing code I'd like to know what the goals are with more precision than I've seen yet. We can't advance until we know which way is forward.

I advocated a similar idea earlier as an "Internet User Bill of Rights", but having Googled that meme I see it's already been hijacked by many others, some of whom I don't want to be confused with, like Senator Ted "Tubes" Stevens. "ISP Code of Conduct" is even more tainted. Maybe we could just call it "NN Squad guidelines".

Does anyone here know of something that could serve a a starting point? A short, precise, well thought out description of what makes NN? If not, I'll try to work the flaws out of my previous ideas.

-JB-

[ I've been working along the same lines myself, but this is really outside the defined scope of NNSquad. However, PFIR
more generally is definitely interested in such efforts.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]



Dave Kristol wrote:
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