Archived from groups: alt.cellular.sprintpcs (
More info?)
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:21:51 -0800, Eric Friedebach wrote:
> First thing Monday morning I started noticing a lot of email I was
> sending to my customers was bouncing back. I use a PCMCIA card with the
> PCS Vision service from Sprint <http://tinyurl.com/4ggj7>.
>
> It seems that Sprint has been added to the Open Relay DataBase
> <www.ordb.org> by mistake somehow. Sprint has no idea how this
> happened, and they can't tell me when this will be resolved.
>
> Has anyone here had this happen to their ISP? How long did it take to
> get it resolved?
>
>
> Eric Friedebach
> /An Apollo Sandwich from Corky & Lenny's/
Last time(it has been awhile and I use encrypted mail connections to my
remote smtp servers anyway) I checked sprintpcs allowed port 25 (smtp)
incoming so all it would take is for one user to get on with an open relay
to get an ip/netblock to get an rbl entry. I'm surprised sprintpcs was not
on the list anyway since their ip blocks are dynamic allocations which
a lot of providers, such as aol for example, will block incoming mail from
since dynamic ip ranges should never be running servers (They tend to be
dial-up/residential cable or dsl) and being they they are largely
residential/consumer they tend to have little to no security patches which
make them make good spam relay bots. Keep in mind that the dynamic blocks
I am referring to are specifically set for non-business use by the isp and
given to dyn rbl setups for that purpose. You shouldn't be sending mail to
servers directly from your sprintpcs data connection but through a mail
server setup either at your isp (some allow remote smtp auth) or through
your business' smtp servers. As far as getting removed it usually involves
contacting the list then having them retest a few times and if they feel
like removing you they just might do it if you are extra nice. Remember
these rbl setups have no obligation to remove anyone and by no means
guarantee that their lists are accurate. Best method to avoid trouble
with them is to take steps to never get on them. Sadly since spammers like
to use various setups that give them a lot of ips to jump around on these
rbl setups give up blocking individual addresses and block a whole range
of ips so if you end up in a /24 or even a /16 with some really bad
spammers that your isp continues to do nothing about you may find
yourself on the block list.