Matt, > A few years ago, I setup a web-based event management system > that emailed clients when they had booked. It was hosted in-house > and the connection was a BT openworld ADSL line. Because AOL had > recieved SPAM from the BT Openworld IP block, all emails sent to > clients with AOL addresses were bounced back, and we then had to > send them manually.
Sounds like either (a) AOL were blocking mail.btinternet.com, or (b) you were using sendmail or Exchange or something like that at the client's site, sending directly via SMTP, and AOL were blocking you. (a) seems unlikely to me as I used Openworld for several years and never had a problem sending to AOL, but even if it was the case then a request from one of the millions of their users who wouldn't have been receiving mail from BT should have sorted the problem out. If it was (b) and you were in BT's standard xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.in-addr.btopenworld.com netspace then I'm not surprised the messages didn't reach AOL; they would have been refused by many other networks, including ours. Not many admins will accept email from an SMTP server located in the middle of a DHCP pool for residential broadband users, as the probability of this mail being anything other than spam from a compromised machine is vanishingly small. If was (b) but you were paying BT for a business-grade connection and static IP, you may have been the victim of a SPEWS-type escalation. The logic behind this is that in the beginning, only the IP belonging to a spammer is blocked, but if the ISP refuses to cut them off them the blocks increase to cover more and more of their address range. I have no idea if AOL use this type of blocking, though. Whatever it was, hope you got it sorted out :-) > The best bet, as has already been mentioned, is to get some sort of > filtering software. The *best* bet is to run your own server, where you can have whatever blocks you like. For those who don't have the time, money, equipment or inclination to do this (running a mail server 24/7/365 is a fairly big undertaking, particularly as you need at least two of them to do it properly), client-side side filtering is a very effective solution. BTW, junk email is "spam", not "SPAM" (it's not an acronym for Smutty Product Advertising Messages or anything like that). The uppercase version is in fact the name of a tinned meat product made by Hormel - read all about it at http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm. Cheers Jon ____ The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM ____ To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk ________________ http://www.wdvl.com _______________________ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: unknown lmsubst tag argument: '' To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
