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Additional Text for the 12/06/05 Alumni Sandstorm
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Problems With Email Distribution Of The Alumni Sandstorm
December 5, 2005
By Richard Anderson, Deputy Editor


Subscribers to the Richland High School Alumni Sandstorm whose
ISP is a cable/internet provider; specifically, Comcast
Corporation and Cox Communications are not receiving the
newsletter each day as they expect.


Why?

The reason is simple: the two ISPs refuse ALL email traffic from
the email list service that we use to distribute the Sandstorm.
We use the services of a company in Massachusetts, Net Atlantic,
which provides service to hundreds, if not thousands, of email
list customers.  Some of their customers send email which is
widely regarded as the reviled spam.  These emails are reported
to services which collect information about, and provide lists
of, spammers for use by ISPs which wish to block spam emails.
ISPs are free to use this information as they see fit.

Comcast and Cox appear to use the following rule: if ANY email
alleged to be spam comes from a listed address, then ALL email
coming from that address is blocked.  (By "address", I mean
address in a broad sense: think, "anything from California" or
"anything from Brazil".)  The totalitarian regimes of China and
Iran and -- well, think of the totalitarian regime of your
choice -- employ the same sort of email blocking philosophy.
They give you no choice about what email will be delivered to
you.


What Can Be Done?

In the long term the solution is legislative: the Congress must
enact laws proscribing ISPs from arbitrarily blocking delivery
of email addressed to their customers.  (The ISPs may -- indeed,
they ought to be encouraged to -- identify email which is likely
to be spam; but, they cannot just discard the email (with one
exception: email which contains content which can compromise the
integrity of your computer -- a fancy way of saying "spyware" or
a "virus").)

In the short term you can:

1) see if Comcast or Cox allows you to "whitelist" certain sites
   to ensure that ALL email from there makes it to you [my
   analysis of the "reject slips" suggests that this is NOT
   possible given the way Comcast and Cox have configured their
   email] or
2) have your Sandstorm sent to an independent email address (the
   Mattingly solution; see the FAQ below).

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An interesting (and long -- approx 3,000 words) article about
the motives and methods of virus and spyware propagation through
email appeared in the December 4, 2005 issue of the New York
Times.  Here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/business/yourmoney/04spear.html?emc=eta1

If the link has gone stale when you attempt to get it, let me
know and I'll send you the text of the article.
Click to email Richard Anderson ('60)

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FAQ:

Q) My ISP is Comcast or Cox and I am not receiving my
   Sandstorm.  What's going on?
A) They are blocking ALL email sent from our email
   distribution service.

Q) What can I do?
A) Get an email account at Yahoo or Gmail or Hotmail and
   have your Sandstorm sent there.

Here is a relevant experience related by
Larry Mattingly ('60) in December 2005:

   I installed a Comcast hi-speed internet connection
   last month. I also installed a wireless net with
   firewall. I belong to several networks, on safety,
   explosives, pyrotechnics and of course the
   Bombers. Based on advice from some members of
   those nets I don't use my comcast address. I only
   use comcast for access to other ISPs. Those who
   are having trouble getting mail from a network can
   set up a free Yahoo account and receive Bomber
   mail through there. This is not an isolated
   problem...many of the ISPs are cranking down their
   filters on multiple mailers to thwart spam.
   Unfortunately sometimes it is hard to get them to
   separate the good from the junk. About 3-4 months
   ago our pyrotech.com domain was getting a total of
   as much as 400 spam per week! Then they got the
   new filter up and I see maybe 1 a day that gets
   through.

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