IP: When your service provider blocks your IP address

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Naoki Yamamoto <naoki@matatabi.com>
Organization: Matatabi.Com Inc.
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 22:07:33 +0900
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: When your service provider blocks your IP address


Dave,

I would like to share my experience with IPers. Until today, I was on
the side of blocking the Spam with strong means, but when I became the
victim of Spam block, I realized it was not that easy.

My business is rely heavily on email communications and it is
vital for me to keep connected with my clients and associates in the
U.S. and Europe. It would not be possible for me to make living if my
email connections are refused just because I send messages from the
Asian IP address block.

I would appreciate any suggestions. Please remember you would be
blocked too.

Recently, there has been several articles about U.S. Internet
providers blocking SMTP connections from Asia to fight against Spam.

I live in Japan and access the Internet using DSL connection provided
by a Japanese ISP in Tokyo. However, my small company's domain is
hosted by an U.S. hosting company and I sent and receive most of my
email via its mail server in Silicon Valley. I have been with this
hosting company since 1994 when I first built my web site. Even after
I returned to Yokohama from L.A. in 1999, I've been using it as my
primary web and mail service provider.

I never thought my Japanese provider could be in the blocked Asian IP
address list. But, it happened on this Monday. I was awaken by a phone
call from one of my clients. She was furious at me about the returned
email messages. She was trying to send me the page proof of an article
that should be taken care of within a couple of hours.

I tested the mail server by sending a message to myself. It refused
the connection from my ISP in Tokyo.

<naoki@matatbi.com>: host mail.xxxxx.com refused to talk to me: 571
    You do not have permission

(I deleted the real domain name of my hosting company and IP address.)

At this point, I suspected my hosting company had blocked connections
from a range of IP addresses, possibly as the last resort to keep
their mail server from going down by Spam. The problem was that I
could not even reach the tech support at the hosting company reporting
the problem. It was like getting a death sentence without a
trial. Unable to contact the support, my email services was
interrupted more than 10 hours on Monday.

On Tuesday, the mail service was restored. I sent a message to the
support and got the following reply:

    Thank you for contacting XXXXX technical support. The issue
    you experienced was caused by a block our Systems
    Administrators put on a number of IP addresses within the Asia
    region. The block was put in place to stop spam from being
    sent to our system. We apologize for the interruption in
    service you experienced.  It was not our intention to prevent
    any of our users from being able to connect to our mail
    servers.

I replied to this message asking if they repeat the same thing in the
future to fight againt spam.

    I suspected that you blocked connections from Asia. I read an
    article on Wired News about blocking the Spam from Asia a
    couple of week ago and I understand the spam problem from
    China and the other parts of Asia is getting out of control. I
    hope your sys-ad did block those IP addresses as the last
    resort and emergency action for a short time.

    However, it is vital for me and my business to have reliable
    mail communications with the clients. I believe that
    unannounced and intentional interruption of mail services to
    the legitimate customers are not acceptable.

    I would like to know if your Systems Administrators plan to
    block the IP addresses from the suspected spam origins again
    when your servers are attacked in the future. Do you plan to
    implement any new mail policy to fight spammers such as POP
    before SMTP?

I have not got any answer to my question yet.


Best,

Naoki
--
Naoki Yamamoto <naoki@matatabi.com> in Yokohama, Japan
Matatabi Digital Industry Report <http://www.matatabi.com>
Gpg Fingerprint = B2A7 2A11 C50B DCC4 83EB  9311 607A FAE9 386B F070
Public Key available from <http://www.matatabi.com/naoki_pubkey.html>


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