Options for sidestepping SpamCop thuggery?

[Syzygies]

I am an ordinary user of Astound broadband in California; there are many of us. Our SMTP server is

smtp.ca.astound.net

24.113.32.73

cgbe-6.wavecable.com

which is periodically and currently blacklisted by SpamCop.

Whatever happened to "I'm opposed to the death penalty because we execute innocent people" ? I understand all of the arguments in favor of this analog to the death penalty, but in the end, this is thuggery, pure and simple. I'm not opposed to thuggery in principle; I'd love to see bounty funds to which I could contribute, paying off hackers to destroy spammer computers. But blocking thousands of innocent cable suscribers as a way of leveraging pressure on the parent organization? This should be controversial.

If SpamCop doesn't actually intend this outcome, there should be a mechanism for verified identities, where after establishing who I am and my innocence, I can protest a blacklisting of my SMTP server, and somehow get mail through to my intended recipients.

What are my options? I'm not sure who to pressure harder, now, Astound or SpamCop.

[StevenUnderwood]

That server is not innocent:

From this explanation: http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=blcheck&...ip=24.113.32.73

24.113.32.73 listed in bl.spamcop.net (127.0.0.2)

If there are no reports of ongoing objectionable email from this system it will be delisted automatically in approximately 6 hours.

Causes of listing

System has sent mail to SpamCop spam traps in the past week (spam traps are secret, no reports or evidence are provided by SpamCop)

Some information available to paid reporters indicate that server is bouncing undeliverable mail to inncent thrid parties, including some spamcop spamtraps.

Report History:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Submitted: Saturday, August 05, 2006 9:25:03 PM -0400:

Undeliverable mail: *WARNING* Your Email Account Will Be Closed

1865623959 ( 24.113.32.73 ) To: uube[at]devnull.spamcop.net

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Submitted: Saturday, July 29, 2006 2:38:45 AM -0400:

Undeliverable mail: DMACONFIG

1856104793 ( 24.113.32.73 ) To: uube[at]devnull.spamcop.net

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Submitted: Saturday, June 03, 2006 8:04:14 PM -0400:

Undeliverable mail: (Reply)for monday Nothing like it HYWI.PK

1778021749 ( 24.113.32.73 ) To: uube[at]devnull.spamcop.net

Wavecable seems to be the culprit here, probably a mail supplier to your Astound company. Please point them toward: http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?24.113.32.73

[Farelf]

... If SpamCop doesn't actually intend this outcome, there should be a mechanism for verified identities, where after establishing who I am and my innocence, I can protest a blacklisting of my SMTP server, and somehow get mail through to my intended recipients.

What are my options? I'm not sure who to pressure harder, now, Astound or SpamCop.

We're just users too, but yes, depending on the account facilities offered by their ISPs, your correspondents may be able to whitelist you. They (their provider) are the ones doing the blocking. Have you looked at some of the explanations of how the SC blocklist works? Like Who appointed you the "cop" of the internet? Where do you get off? and/or End User portion of Why Am I Blocked?

The thing is, there's a whole heap of astound.net servers on and off the SC blocklist all the time, and other blocklists (most of which are harder to get off of than SC, ISPs will sometimes use more than just the SC blocklist but they may still be quoting SC as "the" reason for blocking even after SC delisting).

Other hosts in this "neighborhood" with spam reports

24.113.111.2 24.113.111.133 24.113.111.159 24.113.112.30 24.113.112.183 24.113.111.247

which is by no means exhaustive. Take the last one - http://www.senderbase.org/search?searchString=24.113.111.247 it (currently) shows a 36½ x increase in message volume in the past 24 hours. This almost certainly means the spam volume issuing is 35½ x the legitimate mail from that server and we're talking something of the order of 100,000 spam a day from that one server. Only the sending server can control what gets sent - if that includes these volumes of spam ...

[corrected volume changes]

[Wazoo]

What are my options? I'm not sure who to pressure harder, now, Astound or SpamCop.

You could start with doing your own research. Perhaps following the Start Here - before you make your first Post for your first action.

SpamCop.net cannot touch, manipulate, or block your e-mail.

Any actual blocking action was accomplished by the receiving ISP, choosing to control the incoming e-mails from identified bad sources in this fashion.

[Paranoid2000]

Whatever happened to "I'm opposed to the death penalty because we execute innocent people" ?

Unless SpamCop have found a way to connect your SMTP server to an electric chair, this argument seems quite inappropriate. If it is spewing spam (and the figures supplied above strongly indicate that it is) then other mail server admins are quite entitled to decide to block everything until your ISP fixes the problem. Unfortunately some ISPs (whether through greed or ignorance) don't address such issues until pressured by their customers.

If SpamCop doesn't actually intend this outcome, there should be a mechanism for verified identities, where after establishing who I am and my innocence, I can protest a blacklisting of my SMTP server, and somehow get mail through to my intended recipients.

You can always try proposing an RFC on this to the Internet Engineering Task Force (once you have solved the little issues of who would handle such identification, how they could be financed, how to address attempts by spammers to hijack the system and how it could work with the thousands of email admins out there who can't even set up a server properly in the first place). However plenty of others have tried and no magic bullet has been developed yet (the closest being SPF and DomainKeys - but they authenticate domains not users).

As for protesting, well your ISP can apply to delist a server once they have identified and resolved the cause of the spam outbreak, but the ball is firmly in their court. Blocklist entries time out 24 hours after the last spam so they don't even have to apply - once spam stops coming from a server, it will drop off the SCBL.

What are my options? I'm not sure who to pressure harder, now, Astound or SpamCop.

Since your ISP is the one at fault (aside from the spammers themselves), this question seems rather obvious. However you can work around their incompetence by using alternative email services (webmail like GMail - don't use Yahoo though, they're incompetent also) or an email alias system like SpamGourmet, SpamMotel or SneakEmail which can be used in conjunction with your ISP account.