Politech mailing list archives
FC: US company bans email from all .co.uk addresses -- spammers!
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 14:12:28 -0400
[At one level this is pretty silly, and a likely example of an overzealous 23 year old sysadmin not having a clue about UK domains. But at another it shows that problems can be fixed pretty quickly on both sides of the Atlantic: The overbroad spam block gets lifted, and the UK university gives the boot to the spammer. --DBM] ****** http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991030/newsstory12.html Spam hits the fan A NATION OF PORNOGRAPHERS and spammers. That was the view of Britain apparently adopted by one of the biggest Internet service providers in the US last week, as it decided to block all incoming e-mail from British companies. The action was taken by IDT, a New Jersey-based provider, in response to a wave of unsolicited and offensive e-mails received by some of its customers. "It was for massive spamming--pornographic material," an IDT technician explained when asked why no British e-mail was getting through to New Scientist's Washington DC office, which is an IDT customer. Jason Meyer of IDT's Internet Abuse Department confirms that e-mail from all addresses ending co.uk was blocked on 20 October. In addition, IDT blocked all e-mail from the University of Leeds, after its customers were spammed about a get-rich-quick scheme. Internet service providers regularly block e-mail from known spammers. These are individuals who send bulk e-mails to thousands of addresses. But the scope of IDT's block is unusual. "To block all commercial traffic from a major industrialised nation sounds clueless to me," says Jason Catlett, president of the anti-spamming group Junkbusters, based in Green Brook, New Jersey. IDT has now relaxed its bans. The University of Leeds has traced its problem to a security hole that allowed someone outside to use one of its servers to relay spam. Charles Seife, Washington DC -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo () vorlon mit edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- FC: US company bans email from all .co.uk addresses -- spammers! Declan McCullagh (Oct 29)