Can someone from Vodacom please explain why do they issue black listed ip numbers to the consumers? I would also want to know what are VC doing about the fact that most of their ip numbers are blacklisted, and what should consumers do, once they received a blacklisted vodacom ip number. I am also inviting posts from consumers with blacklisted ip numbers to comment their frustrations with this here, as I am going to use this in a newspaper article that I am busy writing. All input in this are welcome, but in particular, I would like vodacom's response to this.
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Screamer (via Vodacom Business) Blacklisted IP numbers
- Thread starter Kraai2009
- Start date
Can you point us at the information that states Vodacom's IPs are blacklisted and what are they blacklisted for? You have also not indicated if this is related to the 3G network or the Vodacom Business network. Generally if you have issues relating to the 3G network you should call 155.
I am relating to both 3g and business. I myself, for example, is on a Screamer account, and they using vodacom ip numbers in my region, via openweb. Someone else is on 3g, and this person also have a blacklisted ip. It seems the ip's are blacklisted for spamming mostly, and are reported on numerous places that servers are using to check your ip when you are logging in. Find a list of those watchdogs at the link below, and please note the example 3g ip number from vodacom is listed at one of those places as blacklisted. Even this mybb board has a setting to check a users ip number against those blacklisted ones, when they login, and if mybb turns on this setting, it will mean that most users with vodacom ip numbers cannot login here.
http://www.mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist:41.2.113.58
It seems, that many times spammers comes from some or other service associated with a vodacom ip, and the problem is, that once that ip number gets reported, the whole ip range gets blacklisted, not only the individual ip number, and this is causing many non-spammers sitting with blacklisted vodacom ip numbers.
What is vodacom doing about this?
The blacklist you are referring to only applies to SMTP connections. So if I follow the link to Spamhaus I get:
This is exactly the same story for any of the IPs in the Telkom Dynamic ADSL net block. The accepted method for sending mail if you are on a dynamically assigned IP is to relay your mail via your ISP's smart host or use authenticated SMTP via your email provider if they are external to your ISP. We have exactly the same story with a number of clients and for those on dynamic ADSL all their mail is relayed via the ISP. Similarly we will block mail being delivered to them from IPs in dynamic net blocks. People who then struggle to send them mail are pointed at their ISP for assistance and once they in turn use their smart host things are resolved. I see no problem with this situation because it is a really effective method to combat spam.
If you are a Vodacom Business client who has been assigned a fixed IP range things are different. If you inherited a net block that was blacklisted Vodacom should be working with the owner of the blacklist to get it removed. Other times the client themselves are to blame for the listing (Spamming, Virus etc.). I have only on one occasion seen a case at IS where a client inherited a blacklisted IP range. Generally they do check that the range is clean before assigning it to a client.
If Screamer is assigning you a fixed IP address and you are entitled to host email and other services on that IP range then you need to work with them, who in turn will work with Vodacom Business to have the status of the netblock changed to fixed and get it removed from a blacklist.
This is exactly the same story for any of the IPs in the Telkom Dynamic ADSL net block. The accepted method for sending mail if you are on a dynamically assigned IP is to relay your mail via your ISP's smart host or use authenticated SMTP via your email provider if they are external to your ISP. We have exactly the same story with a number of clients and for those on dynamic ADSL all their mail is relayed via the ISP. Similarly we will block mail being delivered to them from IPs in dynamic net blocks. People who then struggle to send them mail are pointed at their ISP for assistance and once they in turn use their smart host things are resolved. I see no problem with this situation because it is a really effective method to combat spam.
If you are a Vodacom Business client who has been assigned a fixed IP range things are different. If you inherited a net block that was blacklisted Vodacom should be working with the owner of the blacklist to get it removed. Other times the client themselves are to blame for the listing (Spamming, Virus etc.). I have only on one occasion seen a case at IS where a client inherited a blacklisted IP range. Generally they do check that the range is clean before assigning it to a client.
If Screamer is assigning you a fixed IP address and you are entitled to host email and other services on that IP range then you need to work with them, who in turn will work with Vodacom Business to have the status of the netblock changed to fixed and get it removed from a blacklist.
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@ morkhans
Thank you for a much informative reply. The ip number as per my example above, is not my own ip number, but belongs to someone using a 3g from vodacom. There must be other than email smtp blacklists that is involved here, as neither this person who the ip (dynamic) was allocated to, nor I who have a fixed IP can login to something simple as a website's cpanel. Both our ip's are smtp blacklisted, and both of us can login to those cpanels using a proxy at megaproxy.com. Unfortunatly, I can only trace the smtp blacklists, and hope that there are some more users out there that have similar experiences with vodacoms ip numbers.
My guess is that my ISP, namely Screamer, optained the ip adresses from openweb, through whom they get the bandwidth from in my region, and those ip's are all blacklisted, as there are numerous Screamer clients in my region who could not send emails when Screamer obtained the new vodacom ip numbers. I myself are trying to work with Screamer on this one, but with no response from their side, that is why I decided to do a write-up about this for a news publication where I am a jurno, but first, I have to get the facts straight, therefor this thread on mybb. It would be nice if someone from vodacom can give input here.
PS: Please forgive any grammar and spelling errors, English is not my first lingo.
Thank you for a much informative reply. The ip number as per my example above, is not my own ip number, but belongs to someone using a 3g from vodacom. There must be other than email smtp blacklists that is involved here, as neither this person who the ip (dynamic) was allocated to, nor I who have a fixed IP can login to something simple as a website's cpanel. Both our ip's are smtp blacklisted, and both of us can login to those cpanels using a proxy at megaproxy.com. Unfortunatly, I can only trace the smtp blacklists, and hope that there are some more users out there that have similar experiences with vodacoms ip numbers.
My guess is that my ISP, namely Screamer, optained the ip adresses from openweb, through whom they get the bandwidth from in my region, and those ip's are all blacklisted, as there are numerous Screamer clients in my region who could not send emails when Screamer obtained the new vodacom ip numbers. I myself are trying to work with Screamer on this one, but with no response from their side, that is why I decided to do a write-up about this for a news publication where I am a jurno, but first, I have to get the facts straight, therefor this thread on mybb. It would be nice if someone from vodacom can give input here.
PS: Please forgive any grammar and spelling errors, English is not my first lingo.
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I'm a little confused...
You speak about Vodacom 3G, Screamer and OpenWeb - what kind of internet access are you using and how do you relate it to those three ISPs?
As morkans indicated - you should not be attempting to sending email directly but rather going through your upstream smart relay or through the authenticated relay of your email provider. What is your email configuration?
You say that your cPanel login is 'blacklisted' - what makes you think this? I've never seen anything like that and it is far more likely that it is your ISP just blocking the ports that cPanel runs on. Once again a symtom of the patchwork ISPs that you seem to be using.
You speak about Vodacom 3G, Screamer and OpenWeb - what kind of internet access are you using and how do you relate it to those three ISPs?
As morkans indicated - you should not be attempting to sending email directly but rather going through your upstream smart relay or through the authenticated relay of your email provider. What is your email configuration?
You say that your cPanel login is 'blacklisted' - what makes you think this? I've never seen anything like that and it is far more likely that it is your ISP just blocking the ports that cPanel runs on. Once again a symtom of the patchwork ISPs that you seem to be using.
Screamer buys bandwidth from openweb in my local region, and I presume openweb is a business client from vodacom, thats how the 3 comes together.
Certain websites cpanel login rejects you if you have a vodacom ip number, irrespective who your isp is, as per my example ip number in this thread, that ip belongs to someone with vodacom 3g, and I have Screamer as isp, but we both have vodacom ip numbers, with exactly the same problem. This is confirmed by the hosting provider in America, that our login is ip related. Remember, we can login using a proxy service without a problem.
Some forums, who have their login settings set to "check users ip" will also not allow you to login, using a vodacom ip.
Hope this is clearer now?
Certain websites cpanel login rejects you if you have a vodacom ip number, irrespective who your isp is, as per my example ip number in this thread, that ip belongs to someone with vodacom 3g, and I have Screamer as isp, but we both have vodacom ip numbers, with exactly the same problem. This is confirmed by the hosting provider in America, that our login is ip related. Remember, we can login using a proxy service without a problem.
Some forums, who have their login settings set to "check users ip" will also not allow you to login, using a vodacom ip.
Hope this is clearer now?
Er.... what??? If your IP comes from Vodacom then they are your ISP. All the other people in the chain are just resellers.
You have referred vaguely to a number of unrelated problems. You are going to have to be a little more specific.
That sounds like a problem related to a badly implemented load balancing gateway from the WISP who is selling you something that they are trying to call Internet...
Nope
Er.... what??? If your IP comes from Vodacom then they are your ISP. All the other people in the chain are just resellers.
You have referred vaguely to a number of unrelated problems. You are going to have to be a little more specific.
That sounds like a problem related to a badly implemented load balancing gateway from the WISP who is selling you something that they are trying to call Internet...
Nope
Yes, they are resellers, I know. That is why I think this problem sits with vodacom, and not with the resellers.
The problems are not unrelated. Firstly, it is a fact that vodacom ip numbers are mostly blacklisted on email servers, and probably also on some hosting servers. This is the cause of login failures, according to my hosting provider, why I cannot login to any of the hosted cpanels, and this is why, some other people with vodacom ip's cannot login to same cpanels and websites.
If it was only Screamer accounts sitting with this problem, I could agree that this is a Screamer problem, but the fact is, that everything relates directly to vodacom ip numbers, and that is proven by the fact that people that uses 3g directly from vodacom, have the same issues.
TBH... The problems all seem to center around your hosting provider and they seem to be trying to blame it on someone else. I have never had any issues accessing any cPanel server via Vodacom. Are all the servers you are accessing at the same hosting provider?
I had a problem with vodacom last week.. We have a Iburst fixed IP in Cape Town - MTN data cards - adsl - Vodacom data cards.
Mtn + adsl could connect to the server (iburst modem) but not vodacom, Phone vodacom took them 2 days to figure out that there server's firewall had blocked us on vodacom. Even the techie from vodacom who was trying to help me also could not connect to our server.
Don't know if this is the same problem you have been having Kraai2009.
Mtn + adsl could connect to the server (iburst modem) but not vodacom, Phone vodacom took them 2 days to figure out that there server's firewall had blocked us on vodacom. Even the techie from vodacom who was trying to help me also could not connect to our server.
Don't know if this is the same problem you have been having Kraai2009.
@ SWIM
It might be worth my while to look into that possibility as well, but my further research showed that my own ip number is blacklisted, because the email server I go through at Screamer has no reverse dns lookup. OK, now I know why my own ip number is blacklisted, I can work with screamer to fix this, but it may be different with other users of vodacom ip's, as previously stated, spam mail is the biggest reason why they get blacklisted. I still would like to know from vodacom what are they doing about the spammers abusing their systems, and why do they allocate black listed ip numbers to their resellers? If it does not happens like this, then please explain how can a whole range of ip numbers get blacklisted before they even went "live" with a reseller?
It might be worth my while to look into that possibility as well, but my further research showed that my own ip number is blacklisted, because the email server I go through at Screamer has no reverse dns lookup. OK, now I know why my own ip number is blacklisted, I can work with screamer to fix this, but it may be different with other users of vodacom ip's, as previously stated, spam mail is the biggest reason why they get blacklisted. I still would like to know from vodacom what are they doing about the spammers abusing their systems, and why do they allocate black listed ip numbers to their resellers? If it does not happens like this, then please explain how can a whole range of ip numbers get blacklisted before they even went "live" with a reseller?
@Kraai2009. You missed the point about dynamic net blocks. If one IP is in Spamhaus then the whole IP range will be in there, which means every single IP that is dynamically allocated will be on the blacklist. Even if no spam has ever been sent from any of the IPs they will all be listed as a preventative method because they are all dynamic. I also have a hosted server overseas that uses cPanel and have never had issues accessing it using Vodacom 3G. I have however seen people with restrictive firewalls having issues accessing cPanel due to the ports it uses. If Screamer is passing the ports correctly and your host is blocking login access due to listings in the SMTP blacklist then they are being stupid. The PBL at Spamhaus is intended to prevent spam not detect suspect logins.
You need to work with Screamer and your hosting company to solve this problem. If Screamer point the finger at Vodacom Business then Screamer need to escalate it to them.
You need to work with Screamer and your hosting company to solve this problem. If Screamer point the finger at Vodacom Business then Screamer need to escalate it to them.
Kraai2009: Please could you provide us with a traceroute to www.google.com and www.mweb.co.za. It sounds like you have something strange going on there.
Here is the tracert to google:
Tracing route to www.l.google.com [209.85.227.147]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 10.1.120.42
3 4 ms 4 ms 5 ms smtp.screamer.co.za [10.1.120.1]
4 * 4 ms 5 ms 10.1.120.2
5 31 ms * * 41.0.128.1
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 56 ms * * 41.0.72.1
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 221 ms * 248 ms 72.14.232.134
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * 319 ms 209.85.243.93
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * 287 ms * wy-in-f147.1e100.net [209.85.227.147]
18 283 ms 293 ms 290 ms wy-in-f147.1e100.net [209.85.227.147]
Trace complete.
And here is to mweb.
Tracing route to www.mweb.co.za [196.2.63.110]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 6 ms 3 ms 10.1.120.42
3 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms smtp.screamer.co.za [10.1.120.1]
4 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms 10.1.120.2
5 42 ms * * 41.0.128.1
6 * * 42 ms 41.0.9.214
7 61 ms * * 41.0.72.1
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * 44 ms * rrba-ip-hsll-1-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.25
3.109]
11 70 ms * * wblv-ip-esr-2-gig-6-0-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.
43.23.114]
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 67 ms 67 ms 65 ms www.mweb.co.za [196.2.63.110]
Trace complete.
@ambo, what do you make out from this? I have my own opinion about this, but I am no expert to interpret this professionally.
Tracing route to www.l.google.com [209.85.227.147]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 10.1.120.42
3 4 ms 4 ms 5 ms smtp.screamer.co.za [10.1.120.1]
4 * 4 ms 5 ms 10.1.120.2
5 31 ms * * 41.0.128.1
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 56 ms * * 41.0.72.1
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 221 ms * 248 ms 72.14.232.134
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * 319 ms 209.85.243.93
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * 287 ms * wy-in-f147.1e100.net [209.85.227.147]
18 283 ms 293 ms 290 ms wy-in-f147.1e100.net [209.85.227.147]
Trace complete.
And here is to mweb.
Tracing route to www.mweb.co.za [196.2.63.110]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 2 ms 6 ms 3 ms 10.1.120.42
3 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms smtp.screamer.co.za [10.1.120.1]
4 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms 10.1.120.2
5 42 ms * * 41.0.128.1
6 * * 42 ms 41.0.9.214
7 61 ms * * 41.0.72.1
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * 44 ms * rrba-ip-hsll-1-wan.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.25.25
3.109]
11 70 ms * * wblv-ip-esr-2-gig-6-0-0.telkom-ipnet.co.za [196.
43.23.114]
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 67 ms 67 ms 65 ms www.mweb.co.za [196.2.63.110]
Trace complete.
@ambo, what do you make out from this? I have my own opinion about this, but I am no expert to interpret this professionally.
onoz!
BARRACUDA LISTED Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.2 900 296
RATS-Dyna LISTED SPAMRATS IP Addresses See: Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.36 3600 296
SORBS-DUHL LISTED Dynamic IP Addresses See: Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.10 3600 296
Spamhaus-ZEN LISTED Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.10 900 390
BARRACUDA LISTED Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.2 900 296
RATS-Dyna LISTED SPAMRATS IP Addresses See: Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.36 3600 296
SORBS-DUHL LISTED Dynamic IP Addresses See: Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.10 3600 296
Spamhaus-ZEN LISTED Detail
Return codes were: 127.0.0.10 900 390
the first 4 jumps are all considered private IP ranges used by internal networks and not on the WWW
you are sitting inside screamers local network i think and connecting though there main gate way servers so you do not have your own IP on the internet it is shared by multiple people that also use Screamer i think.
ill look a bit more into it and post back what i find out
also i think this answers your question perfectly
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