MWeb start blocking ports

bruce_the_loon said:
Recipient service RFC 2476 on port 587 is normally authenticated to prevent misuse by spam senders. If they don't have the passwords, then they cannot get out.

As for the statement that no other ISPs do this, you are mistaken. AT&T, Verizon are well known for this.

As an engineer who sees countless spam rejects in my logs because they come from residential networks, I welcome the reduced junk traffic that this will bring.
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You should just configure your spam filters correctly. No need to go all hiroshima. I have close to a 50 mail servers out there, and they handle their spam very easily. Changing the default port for SMTP is pretty silly.

Only nice thing I have to say about this, Ill be getting new clients from Mweb soon and thank gawd I am not a minion in their hell desk.
 
So... does this mean that companies who hosts their own email servers using port 25 will have to change their ports or not?
 
Makes no sense to block port 25 for connection originating inside their network. Originating from outside, sure.

If this is to stop spam, then they must mean these are zombies on their network. I would suggest they should rather contact these users and inform them they are infected rather than ignore the real issue.
 
w1z4rd said:
My PC, connects to my mail servers on port 25, as per international standards. My mail servers are not associated with the ISP. Fail logic is fail.
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Port 587 is an RFC compliant alternative. It is in keeping with international standards and as stated above by one of the posters you will find plenty of supporting evidence that not allowing Port 25 off the network, or blocking it entirely is becoming a common ISP practice globally. We have an obligation to our entire client base to protect the integrity of our mail platform and combat spam and virus attacks and these are necessary steps in this light.

If you are communicating with an off network outbound mail server, which again should be the rare exception for customers on a consumer grade ADSL product, then this should be a simple client change if your mail server is set up correctly.

In terms of the question regarding Gmail this has been catered for.

Kind Regards
Will
 
I do cry alot - I am entitled to it........

I pay a lot of money every month, do legit business and try and keep in line with what they want.......so what's next??? Close Port 80/443 because a lot of websites out there are infected with malicious code and could infect their client base???? :)
 
gregmcc said:
Nope - didnt get any mail like that either.



Nope - no such standard.

RFC821 specifies smtp as port 25.
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It was the wrong terminology on my behalf; should have mentioned policy rather than standard as per RFC. If the receiving SMTP server checks the PTR record of the sending SMTP server, it would bounce the mail as the PTR would resolve to the ISP rather than the HELO server.

25 may be the IANA recognised port for SMTP as per RFC 821, but this does't mean that submission can't be used. The MSA will receive from a MUA over 587 but still deliver to the remote MTA on 25.

An ISP routing 25 through their local SMTP will have a minuscule negative affect on their clientbase, and particularly to the typical Joe Shmoe. The majority of SMTP servers today are configured with 587 and/or another alternative port open so it's a simple setting to change client side (for the few that do need to pass mail through a corporate SMTP or bypass their ISP' SMTP).
 
You guys really are going overboard here in my opinion.

1st, port 25 is not needed by regular users, it may be the default but it surely is not a requirement.

2nd, many ISPs do this, not all in the same way. I-Burst was definitely the 1st to block port 25 outbound in SA that I personally know about. Web Africa uses transparent proxies ( More here. This is just in South Africa.

3rd, if ISPs do nothing about this, their ADSL clients or normal clients on dynamic IPs cause their whole network to get Blacklisted, causing their hosted clients problems where mail are not delivered. Check this link: http://www.uceprotect.net/en/rblcheck.php and change the search from IP to ASN and check up on ASN 10474. M-Web seems to be blacklisted on Level3, that is a HUGE problem for them as an ISP. Notice how it is the dynamic IPs causing the blacklisting on Level2.

There are multiple suggestions.

1. Ask your mail provider (who I assume is not M-Web) that you want to use SMTPS instead of SMTP, which uses port 465 and also encrypt the communication from your pc to the server, helping you that less (I say less because server to server traffic won't be encrypted) people can sniff your email traffic.

2. use port 587 instead of 25

3. If you host a mail server for whatever reason, make use of a smarthost, could be M-Web's smtp server, or a smarthost that makes use of port 587. You shouldn't be hosting a mail server on a dynamic IP anyways.

M-Web is actually helping preventing spam, because most users won't even know they have a spambot on their home pc sending out spam email.
 
Will@MWEB said:
Port 587 is an RFC compliant alternative. It is in keeping with international standards and as stated above by one of the posters you will find plenty of supporting evidence that not allowing Port 25 off the network, or blocking it entirely is becoming a common ISP practice globally. We have an obligation to our entire client base to protect the integrity of our mail platform and combat spam and virus attacks and these are necessary steps in this light.

If you are communicating with an off network outbound mail server, which again should be the rare exception for customers on a consumer grade ADSL product, then this should be a simple client change if your mail server is set up correctly.

In terms of the question regarding Gmail this has been catered for.

Kind Regards
Will
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With the submission in that RFC I dont think the intention of that is to allow you to block port 25. I do not have port 587 open on my servers as there is no point in having it open. I run a tight ship and have decent staff so I dont have spam problems.

I remember leaving Iburst because they did this, I have too many clients connecting to my systems to have time to change each individuals email settings.
 
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I use gmail's smtp for outgoing mail which you can set up in Outlook (port 587 TLS). This is also handy for when I travel about and I'm using different ISPs with different smtp policies. It saves a lot of piddling about with account settings. The emails are sent as though originating from my hosting account. So replies return to the right address.

http://techblissonline.com/gmail-smtp/
 
What concerns me is the fact that I didn't actually get any notification from MWEB!
 
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