[CLUE-Tech] Brute force attack from host 208.188.115.21

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Thursday 05 August 2004 12:32 pm, Collins Richey wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Aug 2004 11:59:02 -0400
>
> "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> wrote:
> > On Thursday 05 August 2004 11:43 am, Collins Richey wrote:
> > > Yes, 'automated' is a bad thing for some of us. I as a happy comcast
> > > (< attbi <@home) user have suffered from the overzealous application
> > > of automated spam rules to the comcast ip space.
> >
> > Automated dealing with spam and virus issues and being extremeley
> > heavy-handed about it was why I switched away from my former provider,
> >  and one of the reasons I'd do it again...
> >
> > It got to the point where it seriously disrupted my communications
> > with people.
>
> It's not clear to me what you mean. Did your former ISP prevent users
> from contacting you, or (as is my case) did others refuse your mails
> because of your chosen ISP?

There's a fella out in BC (Canada) that I correspond with regularly,  in fact 
I got two emails from him this evening.  He's on a cable connection,  and his 
ISP was on some list or other of "sources of spam" so they blocked it.  What 
they told me was that during the time the ISP was blocked people who tried to 
communicate from there were to get a response directing them to a web page, 
which he did.  Only it didn't work.  The web page was supposed to only be 
active when the blocking was active,  but they had that all screwed up.

I was subscribed to _one_ yahoo list at that time.  (Currently I'm subscribed 
to over 60).  It's a pretty active list, right now I'm showing 48 new posts 
and I last looked into it this morning.  All of a sudden the flow stops 
completely.  And after a couple of days I was really starting to wonder.  I 
then got an email from yahoo saying that they'd stopped my emails because 
they were bouncing (!),  but that the problem appeared to be fixed now,  and 
gave me a URL for checking things out.  I did and the post that appeared 
there was some nonsense from my ISP about sending stuff to a different 
server,  or something like that.  I'd fallen behind to the tune of around 75 
posts,  and had no options other than to read them online.

There was other stuff that just never got here,  for one reason or another.  I 
happen to also run a BBS and carry fidonet,  which is fortunate as the 
individual I mention in the first paragraph above was able to contact me that 
way and inform me as to what was going on.

They had both anti-spam and anti-virus stuff in effect,  and there was some 
user settable parameters on their web site that you could fiddle with but 
there was no way to turn this stuff off completely,  particularly the 
antivirus stuff.  My current provider offers similar capabilities,  but there 
is also the option to disable that stuff completely and I have chosen to do 
so,  more than once as there have been a couple of times when they've 
"improved" things and turned them on for me without my asking,  till I spoke 
to them rather sharply about it this last time.

I am paying for a connection,  a "small pipe",  to use as I see fit,  and none 
of what goes over that connection is any of their business as far as I'm 
concerned.  If they don't choose to see it that way then I'll find another 
provider again.  <shrug>