Streamyx blocking all outgoing smtp (port 25) ???

[wilfred]

Got an email from our host today.. was rather urgent...

Dear Valued Customer,



Telekom Malaysia Berhad wishes to inform its customers about TM's initiative in combating spam in its Internet Protocol (IP) network to improve our quality of service.

Recently, many anti-spam organizations have blacklisted a large number of IP addresses from TM's network. Due to this many customers have been unable to send emails from their mail server to companies who might be using database from the abovementioned anti-spam organizations.

These spamming activities by a small group have affected a large number of our customers, regardless of the nature of their Internet usage.

Therefore, TM is taking immediate action to address this issue. Effective 3 December 2007, TM will block OUTBOUND Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) traffic or port 25 for all out going e-mails from dynamic IP addresses. Only Outbound SMTP traffic from smtp.streamyx.com and smtp.tm.net.my will be allowed.

With this implementation, Streamyx customers who have their own mail server will not be able to send e-mails. As an alternative, TM is providing an open relay server for these customers who use dynamic IP addresses. Kindly refer to http://webmail.tm.net.my/info/proxy.html on how to configure your email client in order to utilize the relay server. Alternatively, your e-mail administrators can refer to http://webmail.tm.net.my/info/smtp-proxy.html as a guide to configure your company's email servers.

Please be assured that TM is proactively taking all possible measures to ensure that these spamming activities do not reoccur in the future. We seek your kind co-operation to implement the necessary security measures to protect your computers that are connected to the Internet from any e-mail abuse, virus infection, spyware and malicious code.

For further enquiries and assistance, email us at help@tm.com.my or call TM at 100 and select 'Internet Services'.

Wouldn't this affect a lot of companies who use their own share hosting for email as well as check email via smtp using outlook or other email client?

Is TMNet making a very big mistake by not giving any head's up to IT Departments before implementing this? Looks like support lines for hosting companies are gonna be busy tomorrow....

[mylinear]

I was about to post about this too.

I just spent over half an hour trying to tell TM the same thing. I think this is a big mistake, especially that they announce an immediate implementation.

First the initial support person was giving me the wrong info on the changes to be made. He had to put me on hold 3 times to go check the info. Then I insisted on speaking to the supervisor, who was supposedly in a meeting. Finally got to the supervisor.

He did not seem to have much knowledge on this matter. First he said that TM IPs have been blacklisted so they have to make these changes. I said they could have changed the IPs instead while finding a solution. I explained how this would affect hosting companies and their clients and anybody using a hosting mailserver. He did not seem to know that there are such effects. It seems like they think you just need to change the SMTP servername from whatever you are using to what they give you an all will be fine.

I think the mailserver IP of the outgoing email will now show that of TM's, which means if the receiving mailserver is doing verification that your domain and the IP should be matching, it may reject mails. When I checked, their SPF record does not list their new mailservername nor its IP. This could cause problem for receiving mailserver which check on this. I think a lot of emails may end up in Junk or Bulk folders due to this change.

It is silly to implement such a thing without any notice. They just don't seem to care about any negative effects to others, that is, if they even know there are such effects. Yes, all the havoc will start in the morning when offices open when emails don't go out.

[ksstudio]

For Exabytes clients, you may check for our solutions via URL below:
https://support.exabytes.com/index.p...ews&newsid=314

[mylinear]

Yes, using an alternative SMTP port 26 is a well known solution. Until TM decides to block that as well.

The main problem here is that no notice was given. And does it really help to use an open relay when the idea is to prevent spamming? Apart from the other problems using such a relay.

[gaspersoul]

Thumb up for TMNET
Why? Other oversea ISP PROVIDER already blocked port 25.
TMNET should do this long-long time ago.

We should blame to SPAMMER.
Who is SPAMMER
We are spammer
Why? We like to send email to sell our product.
-EMAIL MARKETING-

Hahaha

after SPAMMER know about port 26 -
Then we manage to open other port
on ~ off port

Hehehe

Funny

[iamfreelancer]

Originally Posted by mylinear

I was about to post about this too.

I just spent over half an hour trying to tell TM the same thing. I think this is a big mistake, especially that they announce an immediate implementation.

First the initial support person was giving me the wrong info on the changes to be made. He had to put me on hold 3 times to go check the info. Then I insisted on speaking to the supervisor, who was supposedly in a meeting. Finally got to the supervisor.

He did not seem to have much knowledge on this matter. First he said that TM IPs have been blacklisted so they have to make these changes. I said they could have changed the IPs instead while finding a solution. I explained how this would affect hosting companies and their clients and anybody using a hosting mailserver. He did not seem to know that there are such effects. It seems like they think you just need to change the SMTP servername from whatever you are using to what they give you an all will be fine.

I think the mailserver IP of the outgoing email will now show that of TM's, which means if the receiving mailserver is doing verification that your domain and the IP should be matching, it may reject mails. When I checked, their SPF record does not list their new mailservername nor its IP. This could cause problem for receiving mailserver which check on this. I think a lot of emails may end up in Junk or Bulk folders due to this change.

It is silly to implement such a thing without any notice. They just don't seem to care about any negative effects to others, that is, if they even know there are such effects. Yes, all the havoc will start in the morning when offices open when emails don't go out.

agree with you 1000%... by using their proxy server, most of the mail will land in the junk box....

they are all nutz ppl working there.... real nutz and never think of the negative effect to whole industry. furthermore blocking port 25 is the most stupid idea.... so what ... now those spammer will use their proxy to spam mail....

really nutz... they cannot solve their problems... so they bring the problems to other hosting company also....

[mylinear]

I had contacted TM about this and requested they remove the block until they find a more suitable solution with sufficient notice to their customers. They have unblocked port 25 yesterday. Please try with your old settings and it should work.

They also mentioned using port 587 as an alternative. Many mailservers use port 26 as an alternative or can be configured to use a different port. Actually using an alternative port is not a solution from TM, it is up to the mailserver administrator to set it up. As long as TM does not block any ports that are going to be used.

[User61]

I seem to still be able to send mails from the Jaring SMTP server as of now. I'm on a streamyx account.

On a slight deviation from the topic, I didn't know Exabytes itself was running webmastermalaysia.com. I have always thought that webmastermalaysia was just using Exabytes as a host and Exabytes decided to advertise here. ksstudio from Exabytes is an admin here.

[ksstudio]

Originally Posted by User61

On a slight deviation from the topic, I didn't know Exabytes itself was running webmastermalaysia.com. I have always thought that webmastermalaysia was just using Exabytes as a host and Exabytes decided to advertise here. ksstudio from Exabytes is an admin here.

Hello User61,

Welcome to WebmasterMalaysia.com. Yes, we run WebmasterMalaysia.com with the help with a group of volunteered moderators.

[mylinear]

Well, TM has announced that they will be blocking port 25 again from 15 Jan. At least this time they have given some notice.