[GRLUG] new Comcast mail blocking?

[Greg Folkert]

On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 12:16 -0500, John-Thomas Richards wrote:
> I have been using exim to send my mail for years.  I use my account at
> Dreamhost as a smarthost.  I have been on Comcast since it was ATTBI
> since it was @home.
> 
> I have been sending mail from my box with exim for years (for as long as
> I have been using Debian).  Since 2004 I have been using my Dreamhost
> account as a smarthost; exim sends my messages to my mail server at
> Dreamhost to deliver them.  This has worked for four years.
> 
> For some reason, late last week sending mail from home stopped working.
> Messages would be delayed until I connected to the net elsewhere.  How
> could Comcast block this?  Exim uses a random outgoing port to connect
> to the smarthost.  It connects *to* port 25 on the server, but why would
> Comcast block that (could they?)?  Comcast doesn't want me to run a web
> server from my house and so it blocks port 80, but it would never block
> me from connecting to port 80 on a server somewhere else yet that is
> what it appears to be doing on port 25.
> 
> I am able to send this message from home because I changed exim's
> configuration to use port 587 on the Dreamhost server.
> 
> Am I correct in assuming that Comcast is blocking me from connecting to
> a specific port elsewhere?

Already mentioned this before. They've been rolling it out as a spam
preventative.

They are blocking your HOME or BUSINESS account location from
connecting/delivering to ANY port 25 SMTP server other than Comcast's
own e-mail servers and they are about ready to force 465 (SSMTP) for
anything to them as well.

Gee how nice... and now Comcast has been playing basketball with my
Cable connection today as well. Yesterday too and the day before.
-- 
greg at gregfolkert.net
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