Comcast makes life difficult again
Sep. 9th, 2008 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuI got an email overnight from Comcast that claims lots of spam was coming from my computer. I checked the logs on my Linux machine and there was no activity there. Last night's automatic full scan showed no virus activity on my Windows box.
Last time this happened, they had a semi-reasonable case: I had set things up to resend all my received mail to my Gmail account, including all the incoming spam that I was relying on Gmail to filter for me. But not this time: I have since migrated my email server to a virtual host located elsewhere (and, FWIW, started using SpamHaus blacklisting at the HELO level, not that that matters here).
What would be really useful would be if Comcast provided a way for me to see the "evidence" so I can understand what the problem is. There doesn't seem to be any way of calling up an incident ticket so I can see the statistics that they're using. There's no way to see a sample of the headers on this supposed spam. It's a kafkaesque world where all I have to go on is their accusation, which is very vague.
In the meantime, I've reconfigured my home firewall to block all outbound port 25 traffic, just to be sure. And I'm starting to look at alternatives, since the fact that they can't give me meaningful data in this case makes me really worried that when they start enforcing their mysterious bandwidth limits there'll be no way for me to know what those limits are going to be or how I'll be able to compare their measurements to my own. We don't do any P2P stuff, and rarely use YouTube, but can Comcast be trusted? I'm becoming doubtful.
Last time this happened, they had a semi-reasonable case: I had set things up to resend all my received mail to my Gmail account, including all the incoming spam that I was relying on Gmail to filter for me. But not this time: I have since migrated my email server to a virtual host located elsewhere (and, FWIW, started using SpamHaus blacklisting at the HELO level, not that that matters here).
What would be really useful would be if Comcast provided a way for me to see the "evidence" so I can understand what the problem is. There doesn't seem to be any way of calling up an incident ticket so I can see the statistics that they're using. There's no way to see a sample of the headers on this supposed spam. It's a kafkaesque world where all I have to go on is their accusation, which is very vague.
In the meantime, I've reconfigured my home firewall to block all outbound port 25 traffic, just to be sure. And I'm starting to look at alternatives, since the fact that they can't give me meaningful data in this case makes me really worried that when they start enforcing their mysterious bandwidth limits there'll be no way for me to know what those limits are going to be or how I'll be able to compare their measurements to my own. We don't do any P2P stuff, and rarely use YouTube, but can Comcast be trusted? I'm becoming doubtful.
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Were you sending mail?
Date: 2008-09-09 06:09 pm (UTC)If the former, then I would be very concerned with Comcast claiming that you're sending spam, and I would contact them and try to find out more about it. Use their live chat to get the phone number for their security department, then call the security department, give them your IP address, tell them that as far as you know you aren't generating any spam, and ask them to provide you with the details of what makes them think you are.
If the latter, then that's the problem. Comcast doesn't want you sending SMTP email directly through your Comcast connection. Most ISPs enforce this rule nowadays, and you just need to live with it. Your options are either (a) configure all of your email to relay through port 587 on smtp.comcast.net (and to authenticate using your Comcast username and password), or (b) set up a VPN connection between home and your virtual host and relay all of your email through the VPN connection to the virtual host for final delivery.
I do mostly (b) -- my computer relays email through an OpenVPN connection to my OpenHosting.com virtual host, and my wife's computer relays through my computer.
On the other hand, my laptop is configured to go directly to my virtual host, and I do send email from my laptop occasionally, and yet I've never gotten blocked by Comcast for sending spam since setting up this configuration, so it seems like you must have exceeded some threshold to get blocked.
Re: Were you sending mail?
Date: 2008-09-09 06:28 pm (UTC)Yes. Our humanly-generated traffic is going out over Comcast's relay on 587. My work email goes out under VPN to Adobe's corporate server. There should be no port-25 outbound traffic from our house.
I would contact them and try to find out more about it
Given my past history trying to get useful info out of Comcast, I don't see the point. Their assumption seems to be that anyone stupid enough to give them money hasn't got the sense to run a virus scanner; I've only ever been treated by them with contempt. And I don't have the time or energy to fight them.
That's why I think it's time to start looking into an alternative to Comcast. (And hey, Comcast, if you're reading this, here's your chance to prove me wrong and keep a customer.)
Re: Were you sending mail?
Date: 2008-09-10 10:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-10 05:04 am (UTC)