[Mishmash] SPAM Issues

[Fred Atkinson]

Folks,

	I received a complaint from the company that I use to provide 
Internet services [hereafter referred to as my 'provider'].

	It didn't involve anyone on the Mishmash mailing list.  Actually, it 
was on a mailing list that is on a Web site that I host for our radio 
club here in Las Cruces (www.n5bl.org).

	It appears that someone that was subscribing to the MVRC Reflector 
(what our club calls their list like Mishmash is a list) made a 
complaint with his email provider (who just happened to be Yahoo) 
that a SPAM message had been sent over the MVRC Reflector.

	Yahoo contacted my provider.  They were not happy.  My provider 
contacted me.  They were not happy, either.

	We (my provider and I) read the 'offending' message together while 
we was on the phone with them.

	The 'offending' message was sent by one of our club 
members.  Apparently he took some pictures of the Endeavor when it 
flew over. us  He attached them to an email and sent it over the MVRC 
Reflector to share it with other members (MVRC = Mesilla Valley Radio 
Club, our local ham radio club).

	There was absolutely nothing wrong with that and my provider concurred.

	Nevertheless, Yahoo was threatening to block our email server from 
being able to send messages to Yahoo email accounts.

	So we had to deal with the complainant.  The consequences could have 
been that Yahoo would block all email from the mailserver I use to 
provide services for all of those I host.  Our other MVRC club 
members would not be able to receive messages from the reflector and 
a lot of other lists (some hosted by me, some hosted by other 
customers of my provider) would have the same problem.

	I tried to contact the complainant.  His telephone number is 
unlisted.  I sent him an email requesting that he contact me.  I gave 
him my home telephone number.  But he has neglected to call me back.

	It turns out that he isn't even a member of our club.  He was 
subscribed to the list as a non-member.  So since he is not a club 
member and since he won't call or email me on this issue, we are just 
going to delete him from the MVRC Reflector.  My provider says that 
they will consider this matter closed once we do that.  I would have 
preferred to work things out with the complainant so that we didn't 
have to delete another ham radio operator from a mailing list about 
ham radio.  Our club president (who currently runs the Reflector) has 
taken off on a family emergency.  So we're going to have to wait 
until he returns to get it done.  But he did set the complainent's 
emal to 'no mail' status.  So that person won't be getting any 
messages that he can use to complain about.  Hopefully, Rob will be 
back soon and delete him from the Reflector.

	I believe that some of you were aware when Dick could not receive 
messages from Mishmash.  It appears that another of my provider's 
customers had a customer that was sending SPAM over the same email 
server.  Someone who was a Comcast customer complained.  Comcast 
blocked all mail from our mail server.  A number of our MVRC Club 
members who were Comcast subscribers could not receive email from the 
Reflector and Dick was not able to receive messages from Mishmash 
because he is a Comcast customer.  This happened in spite of the fact 
that no one I was hosting was an offender.

	It took my provider an Act of Congress to get Comcast to lift the 
block.  But they finally got it done.

	Now that you see what has been happening, I'll make my request.

	If you have a complaint about anything that is coming over Mishmash, 
please email me directly and take it up with me.

	Please don't take it up with your ISP or your email provider.  We 
are all adult enough to work out any issues ourselves.

	You could impact a lot of other people.  Some of them are people I 
am hosting.  Others are people that are being hosted by someone else.

	The common bond we [you, me, other resellers, their clients, my 
provider, etc.] all have is our mail server.  Getting it blocked by 
some ISP or email provider impacts a lot of other people.

	Thanks for your consideration.




									Fred