[Techtalk] Over-zealous spam filtering (by Raven's ISP?)

[Maria Blackmore]

On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, James wrote:

> As you can probably tell from my email address, I try to filter out as 
> much spam as I can - however, it's easy to get "friendly fire". 

hmm, yes :)

> Among others, they have blocked ALL mail from: Chello, the largest cable
> ISP in Holland; Rogers cable; CharterPipeline; *.co.jp;  Eudoramail.com;
> GMX; the University of Waterloo, Canada; Wanadoo, France's broadband ISP -
> with filters like that, does ANY mail get through?!

How ironic that they've blocked wanadoo.

I run the mail servers where I work, and for some reason we have been
blacklisted by wanadoo (with the message "550 We do not accept mail from
spammers!"

I tried to contact them about it, by emailing postmaster .. that was
bounced too.  What on earth is going on here?  We've never had so much as
a complaint about spam from anyone using wanadoo, yet we've been
blacklisted.  With no attempt to contact us or anything.  So I tried to
call them, and spent about 6 hours attempting to find a way to get through
to them with no luck.

I feel very disappointed.

I am (amongst my other duties) the abuse contact where I work, and I take
it very seriously.

*sigh*

I try, whereever possible, not to block spam using the source address or
netblocks, it affects too many innocents.  Filtering on content and
pattern matching is surely the way forward.

It's a real shame.

Maria