Venting on E-Mail Blockage issues...

[IKraus]

Pardon me for venting a bit, but this has got to be the most frustrating 6 weeks I've gone through in quite a while... Around April 1, all of the local ISPs in my area went to using this new filtering service called iBlock by ISP Services. From what I understand, they are running their own kind of 'blacklisting' service in conjunction with other kinds of services. However, determining who is on their 'naughty' list is impossible. Nor do they offer any clear instructions on their 'redemption' process.

At issue is the fact I can't reach any of the users on these local ISPs who use their filtering system via our user group's e-mail account. No, the user group has never been accused of sending out spam. Rather, the reason appears to be the mention of anything 'naughty' within the message or even a file attached to a message. It will bounce. Even worse, they are bouncing messages that mention the domain of major software and book publishers.

Needless to say, this has grown into a very nasty situation. Members of my group are mad because I'm not sending them information they want. Vendors are mad because they blame me for blocking their messages. ISPs are mad because I'm directing EVERYONE back to them. Guess who's caught in the middle!

There's a lot of irony in this situation... By tradition, groups are a neutral meeting ground for business and consumer. A primary facet of our missions is education, with the basics of Internet security & safety being something we seem to touch on at EVERY meeting. So, why there is this sudden shift to advisories is beyond me. I certainly didn't cause it, and - as an unpaid volunteer for my group - I'm certainly not earning enough to listen to anyone's rants. (Nor will I take this quietly for too much longer!)

About the only ray of sunshine in this mix is that it has finally helped me move the group on obtaining paid hosting. I've spent the better part of this past week figuring out how to get PHPBB setup on my own website. At our meeting tonight, that will be the prime demonstration and I know it is going to be a big hit! Even better, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to export those forum postings so they can go to the new site once I have that established. (Where ever that will be!)

I also find some humor in this too. After all, I've been filtering my own mail now for at least 4 years using commercial products. I've never liked one-size-fits-all filtering schemes, and I've been saying that in the group for years. This is the first time many of them have seen just what kind of impact that approach can have on communications. I guess I should summarize that for you here... If you take too much control away from the user, you cross that line between filtering and censorship.

Thanks for listening everyone... Gotta run...

[IKraus]

Pardon me for venting a bit, but this has got to be the most frustrating 6 weeks I've gone through in quite a while... Around April 1, all of the local ISPs in my area went to using this new filtering service called iBlock by ISP Services. From what I understand, they are running their own kind of 'blacklisting' service in conjunction with other kinds of services. However, determining who is on their 'naughty' list is impossible. Nor do they offer any clear instructions on their 'redemption' process.

At issue is the fact I can't reach any of the users on these local ISPs who use their filtering system via our user group's e-mail account. No, the user group has never been accused of sending out spam. Rather, the reason appears to be the mention of anything 'naughty' within the message or even a file attached to a message. It will bounce. Even worse, they are bouncing messages that mention the domain of major software and book publishers.

Needless to say, this has grown into a very nasty situation. Members of my group are mad because I'm not sending them information they want. Vendors are mad because they blame me for blocking their messages. ISPs are mad because I'm directing EVERYONE back to them. Guess who's caught in the middle!

There's a lot of irony in this situation... By tradition, groups are a neutral meeting ground for business and consumer. A primary facet of our missions is education, with the basics of Internet security & safety being something we seem to touch on at EVERY meeting. So, why there is this sudden shift to advisories is beyond me. I certainly didn't cause it, and - as an unpaid volunteer for my group - I'm certainly not earning enough to listen to anyone's rants. (Nor will I take this quietly for too much longer!)

About the only ray of sunshine in this mix is that it has finally helped me move the group on obtaining paid hosting. I've spent the better part of this past week figuring out how to get PHPBB setup on my own website. At our meeting tonight, that will be the prime demonstration and I know it is going to be a big hit! Even better, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to export those forum postings so they can go to the new site once I have that established. (Where ever that will be!)

I also find some humor in this too. After all, I've been filtering my own mail now for at least 4 years using commercial products. I've never liked one-size-fits-all filtering schemes, and I've been saying that in the group for years. This is the first time many of them have seen just what kind of impact that approach can have on communications. I guess I should summarize that for you here... If you take too much control away from the user, you cross that line between filtering and censorship.

Thanks for listening everyone... Gotta run...

[raynerj]

You are only getting the tip of the iceberg. The ISPs are really the ones being yelled at. The only problenm is, if they stop filtering this instant, they will be accused of it by every constumer from here on out as soon as they get a lull in traffic.

They are scrambling now to fix whatever problem they think they have. But the loss in trust is gone.

[jens g.r. benthien]

Irene,

if you should have been put on a black list, send the operators a mail stating that you don't spam and request a mail server check. But before doing so make sure that you don't have one single open relay on your server - if you should have an open relay while they check your server, you will be listed on 90% of the black lists very soon.

Being a partner of a relatively large NOC at the East Coast, I'm pretty aware of the problem. We have to manage to filter out some half million spam mails, virus infected mails and hacker attacks - per day!

All this stuff costs our bandwidth (=money), or the funds of the customers. So in part I really can understand that some ISPs block complete domains or IP address ranges.

If they won't take this action, their networks would be down pretty soon, with the result that the honest customers would complain and sign a contract with another ISP.

[IKraus]

First off... No, I'm not on any blacklist now. I've had to change my hosting companies a few times because they weren't policing their users very well; but then that's what you've got to do in those situations. Once you're on those blacklists, it is next to impossible to get off. Really speaking from experience on this point! However, I'd rather not get off too far on a rant against blacklists. Suffice to say in my opinion they are an imperfect solution...

The filtering service is called iBlock by ISP Services [http://www.ispservices.com/]. From what I understand, they are running their own kind of 'blacklisting' service in conjunction with other kinds of services. The domain names for LOTS of vendors of various products (software & books) appear to be listed. Some that I know of include: O'Reilly (software/book publishing company - all of their domains) and HP. So, any message that I forwarded to my members that mentions a 'naughty' domain gets bounced.

Adding even more frustration into the mix is that we've started to conduct hosting reviews, so we can make a determination as to what company we're going to use. It is very important to remember, this is a nonprofit organization we're talking about. That means decision making by committee! I may be the President & Webmaster, but I'm only supposed to cast tie-breaking votes. Even further, we're the 'regional' hub for several other user groups that depend on us for publicity about their events, etc...

What I finally decided to do as a solution to all of this is to setup our very own forums on my own website. (PHPBB) Getting that setup has been a bit of a challenge, as there were a lot of security issues to work out. That being: how to setup levels of access, how to define forum areas as being open to certain groups of people, writing policy statements so as to explain how usage of the board is going to be restricted, etc. This is not finished yet, but it is finally far enough along that I could post a notice and link of the main website for CEBUG.

Those who've seen the forums even in their rough state are really excited. I thought I might have to do a hard sell on how this will be a benefit to the organization, but I guess they've picked up on that very quickly. After all, I'll be able to move the SQL database for this forum pretty much as-is over to our new site once that is setup.

However, one side-effect emerged that I had not anticipated. Apparently, we have a LOT of people in the group who've never used a forum or BBS in their life! (Don't ask me where they've been...) They are rather confused by what I've shown them, and want a detailed 'walk-through' of how to use the board and create their profile.

So, that's where things stand right now with my tiger by the tail! I'm working on short videos to provide the overview and instructions on how you fill out the profile. Think I can cover all of that in under 5 minutes, so it shouldn't become too large. Those will be offered in both streaming (WMV - Windows Media Player), and downloadable (MOV - QuickTime) formats. To be honest, the best quality is in AVI. However, those really aren't suited for running from a web site due to their size.

I keep telling myself this will be a good thing, it will be a GOOD thing! Most of the group understand that I am doing all of this AS A VOLUNTEER, and that work on this comes AFTER work for paying customers. Not everyone seems to get that point either, but I'm plugging away. It really is amazing how much you can accomplish by spending only an hour or so on something every day over a couple of weeks!

[raynerj]

Wow!... Are laser beams shooting out your eyes, besides the steam coming out of your ears? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

You seem ticked off!... Now, how are you going to get your members to log in once a month for their newsletter? Send them an email maybe? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[IKraus]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JohnR:
Wow!... Are laser beams shooting out your eyes, besides the steam coming out of your ears? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

You seem ticked off!... Now, how are you going to get your members to log in once a month for their newsletter? Send them an email maybe? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As to being ticked off, you've got that right! The site has become a bone to be picked over in the past by these ISPs, and some of that is still going on. But, when we want to add services, its always a campaign to see if we can get them donated. Moving to paid hosting will get us out from under that too. So, it will be a GOOD thing, if I ever get to that point!

On the newsletter, I've been holding that job for over 10 years too. I told the group last year that I did not have the free time to do both the site management & a newsletter. So far, no one has volunteered to take that over. Every so often someone wants to know where it is, and they get THE LOOK (as my kids call it).

We're still allowing members to do reviews & stuff. Those are being published on the site in HTML now instead of print. Saves us that cost of doing it though...

[raynerj]

You know Irene,

If you keep the frown on all the time...


you just mind end up wearing it constantly...


and that isn't good. You gotta find something to turn your frown upside down. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif