AT&T's Spam Filter Gets A Bit Too Aggressive
from the why-no-recourse? dept
You can certainly understand why ISPs offer spam filters. It's a service for users who don't want to be totally bombarded with spam. But what I've never understood is that these ISPs rarely give the user a chance to circumvent the spam filter themselves. If most people want to ignore it and assume all spam is spam, then so be it. But what if some users want to make sure no legit emails are getting through? Witness the latest chatter about AT&T's "upgraded" spam filter that is apparently eating up a ton of legitimate emails with no indication to the receiving party. It's surprising that AT&T would do this, knowing (as it must) that back when Verizon became too aggressive with its spam filters, it lost a class action lawsuit and had to pay out a few million dollars to annoyed users. Either way, it's a reminder not to use your ISP's email solution.
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It blocked our outbound Sneakemail...
~ me
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Re: It blocked our outbound Sneakemail...
Now I know that AT&T Will allow it, but you must tell them to Remove Port 25 Blocking.
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Might this have been written a little more clearly?
Like "but what if some users want to make sure legit emails are not being filtered out?"
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It's not just the biggies
And I was thinking that AT&T was my ISP. Actually, it was, but AT&T sold the whole smear to Comcast for Craptastic service.
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More Please. Good Stuff
I suggest more of that, do not fear telling what we already know (some will always know) but tell us to remind us, and inform, as you really ARE (whoa!) more informed than average tech-joe. Therefore you enlighten many with your little added views, as long as they are not turned into "You should" but left nice and general, just what you are familiar with.
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ISP Mail is not a bad thing.
As an ISP, I've got to relay that I'm insulted. I work VERY hard to ensure our spam filters are as accurate as possible while maintaining a low false positive rate. I also feel very strongly that automatic spam deletion should ALWAYS be OPT IN ONLY.
Perhaps using a large ISP's mail solution may be problematic, but if you have a small ISP don't just ignore their mail solution.
We are a small ISP, but we spend a lot of money on anti-spam software & subscriptions; and find that our filtering is often more accurate than that provided by hotmail & yahoo mail - yet end users insist on using poorly filtered "freemail" services because "it has good spam filtering".
Half the battle is in choosing the right software. Here's a tip: it isn't Spam Assassin. SA is quite possibly the *worst* choice you can make for anti-spam. It's terribly inaccurate, and the learning procedures don't work very well. On top of that, it requires gobs of CPU to run.
The biggest shortcoming of SA is that it's open source. While I am a big supporter of open source, what is normally a good thing works against SA. The spammers have programmers too. They go to the same site that mail server admins use, download the same source, then figure out how to worm their way right through the tests.
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at$t
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ORDB
Couldn't you just see AT&T having used ORDB for their filtering but never bothered to remove it when it was retired?
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Yep...
I finally told one of the tech support reps that *he* was the AT&T customer I was trying to send mail to. Even that tactic failed.
Part of the problem is that even though mail was failing to *all* AT&T domains (swbell.net, sbcglobal.net, att.net,etc), they kept insisting that all those domains had their own individual mail server systems. If that's the case, how come all the bounce messages refer to att.net?
Morons.
Their employees have absolutely no sense of customer service.
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Re: Yep...
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Look for another provider or even a free service like Gmail.
Admitted world high volume emailer Scott Richter is some how linked to scamming people into so called free ringtones and collecting his money through who??? you Guessed it verison, at$t, sprint after they take their cut. Alleged by CBS news
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/22/eveningnews/main3867197.shtml
http://www.yout ube.com/watch?v=FVfIKsummxo
Have a happy
-Abusive
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Same problem here
I've submitted this to ATT and they tell me that we are unblocked and in fact have never been blocked.
Then another message gets bounced 20 min later!!!! Argh... They really need to start communicating across their own domains to solve these problems. I've got frustrated users and no suggestions for them at this time.
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Also if spamguard is checking your mail you can turn it off in the mail preferences.
You can also log into your webmail account at yahoomail.com and check the bulk folder to make sure your mail isnt in there. If it is, check the check box to the left and click "Mark" which will mark it as not spam
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Not sure if you were responding to me or the world, but I did fill out one of those forms @ http://www.att.net/bls_rbl. That's how I got an emailed response from them telling me I had never been blocked. Interesting thing is that the email they sent me only referred to bellsouth.net and att.net, while my bounces have been coming from ameritech.net and sbcglobal.net addresses.
Sounds to me like someone at AT&T pressed the wrong button.
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Re:
I finally got off AT&T's draconic blacklist for their internal domains (such as swbell.net, att.net, etc.), but customers who have their domains hosted by at-at are still rejecting our email. Why can't this mega corporation get their act together? I swear I'm about to go postal.
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Comcast does the same thing.
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AT&T Spam Filter
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AT&T (attglobal.net)
1. Use the ISP auto-filtering or opt out of it
1.a. if yes, deliver spam stamped with *Suspected Spam* or
1.b. move to an accessible spam folder for a 2 day retention
2. Create a few filters of my own based on From, To, Subject, Received, Message body - contains/does not contain - test value
[AND size restraints]
[AND date after / before]
Then various actions
3. Create a block list for blacklisting
4. Create an accept list for whitelisting
5. Out of Office message
The user accessible spam folder has options to report false positives and move them to the inbox.
Now I don't know if all that applies across the board to all AT&T offerings - I know there are several - but I thought it would be useful to inject a few deflationary facts into the hot air.
(Of course, I also use MailWasher as a front end to mop up any spam that evades the filters, but that is under 1%).
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Anti spam webinar
Today’s spam filters are not accurate and spam volumes are increasing rapidly. This will cost $42 billion for US alone. Spammers are using more innovation technology to send spam mails & Today’s spam filters are blocking only 80% of spam mails.
Register for a complimentary Webinar conducted by Abaca and Ferris research to know more about the spammers behind the black market. To register please click the link below:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=LPFKkdkFwOYltiQZtM_2bttw_3d_3d
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AT&T BS!
I had a dedicated dial up line for years First they throttle the data from 56k to 28.8 (on a good day) then the line got static & cut out. The service was so messed up I couldn't even pay my bill online at home. After trip after trip by service who couldn't find the noise. I finally just had them cut the lines & I am now using Verizon wireless Broadband (At&t has no DSL in my area either)
They just all around SuCK!
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Spam-blocking filter
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Spam-blocking filter
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Re: Spam-blocking filter
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How can we get our junk mail back??
What can we do? When I call them they don't seem to know what I'm talking about, although they have tried to be helpful.
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Blocking legitimate emails
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make ordres
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ATT SUCKS UP Emails with disregard.
the HUGE question here is
WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?
I amtelling everyone I know to change thier ATT/Bellsouth services to something completely els.
still angry. T
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ATT Blocking legit emails worse now!
Problem is, I don't know what I am not getting since I get no notification! I am losing business because of this and can't ask all my clients and employers to go through a process to 'approve' their email accounts. Egads!
How can we as consumers stop this?
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Their RBL removal form is broken!
I tried using their form today. When they sent their response back, they had put a "1" in front of the IP address I entered. So this IP address:
66.77.88.199
Turns into:
166.77.88.199
That's why they say they can't find you IP address, because their form is reporting it wrong.
I sent them an email to their abuse email address and told them that their form is defective. I haven't heard back from them yet (it's only been a few minutes).
So don't waste your time on their from! Just send them an email at abuse_rbl@abuse-att.net.
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ATT Blocked emails
Does anyone know of a fix for this?
Thanks
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AT&T
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AT&T
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AT&T still blocking
We host our own email servers, and no other domains are rejecting our emails. I also took the step of checking DNSBL's website and our IP shows as clean for the dozens and dozens of abuse lists they check.
Seems like AT&T just blocked us for no reason what so ever and refuses to reply to requests for information.
If anyone finds an actual phone number for a non-customer to speak to someone, please let me know.
This is costing our company business and our owners are not happy.
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still blocking after all these years
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ATT blocked emails
Today is 10.03.09
We have about 20,000 people whom we have dealt with in the last 11 years in business.
With all the changes in Healthcare "reform" occuring we send out a periodical newslater. If someone wants to be removed, we do that.
We've dealt with them on this in the past. Trying to get a staight answer out of them is about impossible, but our understanding was that as long as we didn't send more than 2000 emails per hour we were being "anti spam compliant."
We don't even send 1000 per hour when we send and after about 11/2 to 2 hours of sending they block us for an hour.
$400 per month to them for this?
If anybody has a real suggestion we are open to it. We have an 800 # also to deal with.
ATT now provides the 2 landlines (one used to forward the 800 #) and the other for a fax and the dsl internet connection.
ins.dave@yahoo.com
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ATT SPAM
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Agressive Blockign or Business Plan?
http://rbl.att.net/block_guidelines.html
hmmm wonder why?
They are blocking our law firm's ISP...can't wait to go after these guys.
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Mail washer
It is very necessary to protect your emails, as if you are a webmaster or a web developer you should aware of it that why it is very important , let me explain the very important thing that for increasing your SEO you should save your mails that out comes from different spammers
mail washer
6 THINGS TO DO OR DO NOT FIGHT AGAINST SPAM!
1- Never buy anything, do not use any service that spam is the pub!
Spamming spammers to make money. If we refrain from them to save in this way, it is we who will win and we will release the spam! More spam is now clearly and explicitly illegal in France and in many countries around the world. The rule is opt-in, ie the prior consent of the internet, before you can send them by email commercial or advertising requests.
2- Never respond to spam.
Of course, they say they'll keep safe their email lists. This is wrong! All they want is to know if your mail is valid. If you answer, knowing that there is someone at the end of this email , they sell it to all the spammers of the world and you would be more spammed!
3- Do not put your email address in plain text on your web sites.
Encode with the script above! Spammers or companies selling email address lists to spammers, scan the web with the "robots" (software scripts) and collect all the addresses they can then sell and / or spam! Read this page to find out how and why you need to encode your email addresses on your websites!
4- Use a different email address on the web (blogs, forums etc..).
As before, the spammers are harvesting email addresses on these blogs, forums etc.. So you create a "public" email address from a free provider and keep your personal email protected from spam (only for friends, characters contacts, work etc ...). You can change and public address when you want, when it has been spammed.
5- Do not give your email address without knowing how it will be used.
If a website asks for your email address is that it has to do something! Read the Terms of use and the records privacy statements on web sites before giving them your address. If you can not find these instructions on the sites, especially not give out your address.
6-Use a spam filter.mail washer
Anti-spam software can help them better manage their email software to automatically sort through your emails and spam, or even delete many spam even before they arrive in your box!s
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