Earthlink's anti-spam "solution"

From: Randall Rensch <randy_at_rensch.com>
Date: Mon 20 Nov 2000 16:44:17 -0500

Interesting advice offered by two writers in
today's digest:

A:> You also need to have a public and private email,

vs.

B:>A yahoo account? ... he's using a yahoo account?

Last I looked, Online Ads was a "public" forum, so
maybe that's why a Yahoo account?

Anyway, here's something more timely to hang on the
"spam" hook...

Earthlink, to prevent spammers from misusing their
servers, began blocking SMTP port 25 this week. I don't
know what that means, but apparently if a
Sprint/Earthlink ISP customer has a site at another
hosting service, and has been sending mail from that
host's mail server, the method won't work anymore. I'm
associated with several domains, and all day Wednesday,
all my outgoing mail mysteriously produced error
messages instead of getting sent.

The solution was to go to my mail program's Outgoing
Mail (SMTP) field and replace the domain's SMTP server
reference with "mail.earthlink.net". That should
enable you to send mail that outwardly looks like it
came from your domain. However the header will show
that it originated at an Earthlink account. (Does
anybody know if this complicates any security issues,
such as proving to your domain registrar that you're
who you say you are? Or is it just vanity to want your
mail look like it came from your own server?)



Received on Mon Nov 20 2000 - 15:44:17 CST