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| There have been many emails over the past few weeks about the warning messages generated from bouncing list emails. I thought I'd share some details I learned after having similar problems in the past. On 07/05/2014, at 10:04 PM, Paul Crisanti <paul_eboy@me.com> wrote: > Yeah wonder what triggered it? This is totally automated correct? No breathers watching it? Unfortunately it's happened several times before, and if it's the same cause this time around then it's all to do with ISPs and SPAM. It's not something that happens on a personal level and unfortunately it's not something that can be easily fixed by Rene. It is a symptom of a global problem- the problem being SPAM. When emails are sent around the internet, all ISPs are monitoring where they come from and how much SPAM comes from the same mail server. What is not well known is that ISPs filter out most spam before emails get passed onto the end user. For many years, SPAM has accounted for approximately 70% of all email traffic, and the only reason you see so little spam in your personal inbox is because most of it is filtered first- even if you're not aware of it. When the percentage of SPAM from a particular mail server reaches a critical threshold, usually around 80%, then it is common for ALL emails from the same mail server to be blocked for 24 hours. This then causes emails from that server to be bounced back - no matter if it's SPAM or a legitimate email from the ISP's customer (ie. you and me). In other words, if a mail server is sending 80% spam then it is blocked, and so is the 20% of legitimate emails coming from the same place. This can sometimes be confusing for end users because big ISPs will have many mail servers with different IP addresses, so one may be blocked while others still work. So an end user might send an email only to have it bounce back, but then if they try again it works the second time - because the email was routed through a different mail server second time round (or the 24hour period had passed). The problem is generally caused by ISPs that have what are called 'open mail relays' - this means anyone on the internet can use them to send email, even if they aren't customers of the ISP. Generally, anyone means spammers, so an ISP that has an open email relay will become a gateway for spammers to flood the world with SPAM. Several years ago my ISP was an Australian company called Optus, who had open mail relays and didn't require any sort of email authentication. This meant anyone, anywhere in the world could send emails through Optus even if they weren't Optus customers. Which meant spammers. The end result was that approximately 75% of all email going through the Optus mail servers was SPAM, and a small spike in SPAM could take it over the 80% threshold that would get ALL emails to and from Optus - including legitimate customers like me - being bounced back. I'm sure you can sympathise how infuriating it is to know that emails you are sending are not going through, and emails that people are sending you are being blocked because your ISP is a bit shit. I don't know why an ISP would have open mail relays, and I don't know if Optus have changed their policy since then, but I changed to a different ISP as soon as I could. So what is probably happening with the AE list is that somewhere, a mail server is experiencing an unusually large amount of SPAM traffic, and so it has been blocked by other ISPs at a very basic level. This is not the same as being added to a SPAM blacklist, or having AE list emails being confused as SPAM. That's not happening. It just means that some services (such as Gmail) are refusing ALL emails that come from the same mail server - whether it's a legitimate AE list email or one selling discount meds and so on… Also, in this context it's useful to think of Gmail as a webpage and not an ISP. The problem is with the companies that people use to connect to the internet, and the IP addresses of their mail servers. There is nothing about the AE list, and nothing about the people who subscribe to it (i.e. you and me) that has caused the bounce messages. The problem is more fundamental than that. The only solution is to hope that the ISPs that are causing the problems (possibly including the one Rene uses) do something to lower the amount of SPAM going through their system. They shouldn't have open mail relays for a start, but it's not easy to get a big company to change their policy and IT infrastructure overnight. Anyway I hope this explanation is useful and interesting to everyone who's having bounce issues, and serves as some reassurance that it's nothing personal! -Chris |
