At my ISP, we have to deal with a huge flow of SPAM on a daily basis.
Occasionally, a spammer will either have lots of compromised (hacked or
otherwise vulnerable to abuse) machines to send mail from all at once, or
will "SPOOF" the IP addresses (or both!). They then proceed to send such a
gigantic flood of emails that all servers attempting to receive and process
that email grind to a halt under the load. Sometimes they crash altogether.
Typically, when the Network Operations folks at the ISP catch such an
attack, they block the offending IP address at the router, keeping it off
the network and nullifying the attack.
So the spammers have resorted to using multiple machines and/or SPOOFED
addresses. In this case, pretty much the only thing a beleagured system
admin can do is to block a large range of addresses. This often clobbers a
lot of legitimate email as well, but the server is spared, and the majority
of customers are well served. Kind of a 'baby with the bathwater/greater
good' type senario.
Anyway, the TEAM.NET server could have been operating in perfectly
acceptable fashion, but got lumped in to a blocked list due to a SPAMMER
using an adjacent IP address. It happens...
Ideally these IP ranges should be unblocked as soon as is practical
(SPAMMERS move on frequently, for obvious reasons), but in many cases it
takes a while to get those IP address ranges unblocked, for various
technical and human reasons...
I don't know of any other businesses that are attacked and robbed (theft of
service) on a daily basis. Just goes to show what a lawless place the
internet is!
Anyway, SPAMMERs are crooks, and that's why these problems occur...
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Marc Siegel, Charm Net LLC eMail: smarc@abs.net
Baltimore, MD http://www.abs.net voice: 410/361-8160
> -----Original Message-----
> From: shop-talk-owner@autox.team.net
> [mailto:shop-talk-owner@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of Gordie's Garage
> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 9:52 PM
> To: LBC286@aol.com; shop-talk@autox.team.net
> Subject: RE: AOL blocking team.net?
>
>
>
> When Ameritech blocked team.net mail, I was told that the ip address from
> team.net was in a "range that was sending spam". Not sure what that all
> means, but it was what I was told.
>
> Safety Fast!
> Gordie Bird
> 62 MGA
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > In a message dated 8/1/03 7:06:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > shiples@comcast.net writes:
> >
> > > I'm using a new Dell that is about 2 months old and within the
> > past week,
> > > I've started getting
> > > the klez virus but not from any of the lists. McAfee came
> > installed on the
> > > system and has
> > > been much appreciated. I've never been bothered by viruses.
> > If there was
> > > an attachment, and
> > > I didn't know what it was before opening, it got deleted. I
> > suspect a list
> > > member is infected and
> > > is unknowingly sending the virus.
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> >
> > I don't think anybody blamed AOL blocking team.net on a virus.
> > The messages
> > are being blocked by AOL because some AOL user complained about
> receiving
> > unsolicited spam from team.net. AOL (She who must be obeyed)
> > figures that Mark is
> > a spammer and should be eliminated.
> >
> > Allen Hefner
> > Phila. Region SCCA Rally Steward
> > '77 MG Midget
> > '75 MG Midget (The Project)
> > '99 Ford Contour SE Sport (24v V6)
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