Spam/virus filtering ????

[Toto]

Originally Posted by andyl

Cheers Toto, impressively comprehensive answer. Following on, so is NTL: Business's email just as spasmodically unreliable as NTL: Home's? That seems pretty incredible (although my capacity to be surprised by NTL is severely diminished these days).

I'm assuming that some business customers get the same issue, however I think that those customers on fixed IP addresses, with fully qualified Domain Names use their own SMTP servers, and are carefull not to get themselves listed.

It isn't good to be honest, but I have to say in ntl's defence that they are by no means the worst out there.

I have friends struggling to run businesses on rather expensive ADSL or leased line solutions, and get poor email services also. Sadly, they do not have that many options available to them, and muddle on as best they can.

Sadly, ntl fail to grasp a market by having a completely reliable email service that works for residential and business customers, otherwise we would not be discussing this, and everybody would be beating a path to their door.

I hope that this will change in the future, I also hope that Teri Hatcher will no longer be a desparate housewife, gain 10Lbs and make me her toy boy

Originally Posted by Toto

Sadly, ntl fail to grasp a market by having a completely reliable email service that works for residential and business customers, otherwise we would not be discussing this, and everybody would be beating a path to their door.

I hope that this will change in the future, I also hope that Teri Hatcher will no longer be a desparate housewife, gain 10Lbs and make me her toy boy

I'm with you there. Toto for President!

I have had no spam for two days.I'm stunned!! And after I've paid for antispam software too.

Perhaps they have managed to extend it to everyone after all.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Incognitas

I have had no spam for two days.I'm stunned!! And after I've paid for antispam software too.

Perhaps they have managed to extend it to everyone after all.

Hope so

I'm still getting spam though, sometimes small amounts, sometimes large.

[Toreador]

Originally Posted by Incognitas

I have had no spam for two days.I'm stunned!! And after I've paid for antispam software too.

Perhaps they have managed to extend it to everyone after all.

That would be everyone except for me then. I received 78 Spam emails yesterday, which is pretty much in the middle of the normal range of 60-100 per day. I've no idea how many Spams I've had today as webmail hasn't been working all day. Again

On the plus side though I haven't received any viruses recently, which either means NTL are doing something right, or no-one's sent me any

It was a blip.I just got 30 in one go.Better than the usual 50 though.

[jonbr]

When I first started this thread I never expected it to generate so much discussion

Up until recently I was getting in excess of 100 spam emails a night (lets disconnect the US from the internet I say ). For the last couple of weeks that has dropped to 10 to 15 a night. As for viruses, I've only recevied two in the last several years, both of which were caught by my own virus/spam software.

As an experienced computer user who has worked in the industry for over 20 years I would like to see NTL be more user friendly with the filtering. At present it seems that they just stop what they think is a spam/virus email, and, as others have pointed out, some of them may well be legitimate.

This may well be good for the bandwith problems spam/viruses cause but will not be good for customer satisfaction. I would like to see spam and virus emails marked as such, so that us users can filter them into the relevant folder and do what we would like to with them. However, I can also see the point for those who are not computer literate and would just like to stop receiving them at all. Perhaps they could give users the option of marking or droping the spam/virus emails?????

[soneill]

I quite like Plusnet's solution (which I have at work). Virus emails are dropped entirely BUT you get a notification from the server that "a message from xxx had a virus and if you actually want to see it contact support with yyyy information".
Spam is handled differently and you get a [SPAM] prefix on the subject and can then set a rule in your email client to junk it all automatically. At least that gives you the option to double check for things that you don't class as spam.

[Ian Goldby]

I had a major problem with NTL dropping legitimate email that I needed to receive late last year. I got the the line from 1st level technical support that it was because the emails contained viruses. I knew this wasn't the case.

It was only when I got through to 2nd level technical support that they admitted that they are using the SORBS realtime blacklist (RBL).

The problem with RBLs is that they generate a lot of 'collateral damage'. A RBL is a list of servers that have been noted by the RBL administrators as having been used to send spam at some time in the past. That means one spammer using a server can make that server useless for all the other legitimate customers.

SORBS is particularly problematic in that they consider themselves to be completely unaccountable to those who use their lists. They make a point of saying that they provide these lists on an 'as is' basis and do not stipulate in any way what the lists should be used for. In other words, you are free to use these lists to block email, but they might not do what you want. It is up to you to decide if they serve your purpose.

This is really why I think it is so irresponsible of NTL to be using SORBS at the moment, and as the sole criterion in blocking emails from SORBS-listed servers.

Anyway, I'm currently in dispute with NTL over this issue. So far they have been less than forthcoming in offering a resolution. If they don't soon, it will go to OTELO. If you can really be bothered, you can read about it on my web site.

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by Ian Goldby

If you can really be bothered, you can read about it on my web site.

I did and it was quite interesting....

SORBS are nowt but out of control vigilantes. Interesting to hear about Otelo - never mentioned to me by CS in my many conversations with them. Any help I can provide, just ask,

Andy

Thinking on, we all should complain to NTL about SORBS (I've mentioned it to Tech Supp but the suggestion was NTL couldn;t do owt about it). This is a denial of a service we have all paid for. Could we get a petition going?

[Toreador]

If this is true, how come I continue to receive emails from SORBS blacklisted addresses? In the last 8 hours I have received 3 on the SORBS list, plus another 4 on SpamCop. I have these flagged by MailWasher.
If NTL are using SORBS, is it only on some accounts? Or is it some cut-down version? Or what?
Interestingly, one of the addresses that is on the SORBS list is an ntlworld address

[Ian Goldby]

There is absolutely no doubt that NTL were using SORBS on my incoming mail back in November/December last year. I know this because email started coming through again from a certain ISP immediately that ISP was removed from the SORBS blacklist. They also admitted it in a letter to me (copy on my web site) and said categorically they they would not stop using SORBS.

I can't be certain that they are still using it, or that the blacklist was applied on all NTL incoming mail servers though.

Does anyone know of a free email service that is consistently blacklisted by SORBS so we can test this?

(And yes, it is quite amusing that some of NTL's own outbound email servers are also blacklisted by SORBS. Blacklisted by their own blacklist.)

[Toreador]

Any idea if they were using the complete SORBS list or just selected sub-lists? If anyone knows I can set MailWasher to use the same lists to see if stuff still gets through.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Toreador

If this is true, how come I continue to receive emails from SORBS blacklisted addresses? In the last 8 hours I have received 3 on the SORBS list, plus another 4 on SpamCop. I have these flagged by MailWasher.
If NTL are using SORBS, is it only on some accounts? Or is it some cut-down version? Or what?
Interestingly, one of the addresses that is on the SORBS list is an ntlworld address

I believe that as long as you point your SMTP server to smtp.ntlworld.com (assuming of course you are using the ntl network) having your IP address listed in SORBS will not be an issue, as most blocking is based on dynamic IP's running their own smtp servers, which is something that should not really happen. So ntl will not bloock the email if it is listed in the SORBS dynamic IP listing, as long as the server sending the email is the official server for the MX listing of that network.

I'm not a great fan of SORBS for that reason, but I hate spam too, so if a network wil not tackle the spam issue, by allowing rouge SMTP servers to run amock, then they can expect to have problems.

It's intersting that there is an upside to this kind of reporting. Many viruses use their own SMTP engine to propagate themselves, so if a network is using SORBS to filter mail, they can potentially reduce the number of email distributed viruses that do not go through the official MX servers of the infected network. ntl by and large then offer an indirect measure to counter virus infected emails.

To be honest, it could be worse. ntl could use the SPEWS block lists, and they are known for their militant attitude for IP listing. It will often take threats of legal action before thy will remove an IP address. I understand that a number of networks have removed their SPEWS checking scripts because of the massive amount of complaints they have received.

But its not all bad, take a look here , and be thankfull you are not a Verizon customer.