Scott Dunbar's blog

T-Mobile can't hold on to data again - no caller ID on VOIP phones

Well, it happened again. T-Mobile has once again lost data. This time it is the caller ID data for T-Mobile @ Home customers in the Denver and Albuquerque areas of the U.S. The symptom is that the number shows up but there is no data for the name. This issue started on October 13th and as of October 23rd there is no information as to when this issue will be resolved. T-Mobile has credited some accounts but only if the customer complains.

T-Mobile - what the hell are you hosting on? Why is the rest of the country not having a problem? If it was New York or L.A. there would be major press about this.

My contract isn't worth canceling yet but I'm not sure that I need to continue with a company that has an I.T. infrastructure like this.

Posted at 10:13AM Oct 23, 2009 by Scott Dunbar in General  |  Comments[0]

The utter hypocrasy of Comcast

I've recently moved (again) to a new dedicated server. Every time I do this I often have to contact the big ISP's (Yahoo, HotMail, etc.) to let them know that no, my machine is not a spam source, and to please remove any blocks they have. So this server move was not really any different. I implemented DKIM as part of this server move and both Yahoo! and HotMail seem to like it better. HotMail still gives an error message:

Apr 13 21:27:51 habanero postfix/smtp[27966]: 82AEA10128A7: to=, relay=mx3.hotmail.com[65.54.244.72]:25, delay=0.89, delays=0.39/0/0.26/0.24, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 mail from IP 64.85.172.185 soft failed sender ID check. Please ensure this IP is authorized to send mail on behalf of [xigole.com])

but the mail still gets through. Yahoo! and GMail are fine with it too. But then there is Comcast...

Apr 13 21:04:52 habanero postfix/smtp[27910]: 7978E10128A5: to=, relay=mx1.comcast.net[76.96.62.116]:25, delay=93129, delays=93129/0.01/0.41/0, dsn=4.0.0, status=deferred (host mx1.comcast.net[76.96.62.116] refused to talk to me: 554 IMTA09.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net comcast 64.85.172.185 found on one or more DNSBLs, see http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/BL001000)

If you go to that site you'll see that really it is Trend Micro having purchased mail-abuse.org. Apparently the company with machines listed on Spamhaus and hundreds of customer machines sending spam:

Apr 13 17:48:44 habanero postfix/smtpd[27371]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from c-68-40-28-136.hsd1.mi.comcast.net[68.40.28.136]: 554 5.7.1 Service unavailable; Client host [68.40.28.136] blocked using sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org; http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=68.40.28.136; from= to= proto=ESMTP helo=

(one of hundreds I have in my mail logs) wants to block legitimate mail from legitimate sites. And if you try to contact the idiots at Trend Micro about the problem - nope, not your fix, you don't own the netblock. What idiots. My IP isn't listed on any RBL on the net but the dopes at Comcast and Trend Micro don't care about that - they have the "I'm a little boy with a big router and I like to pretend I know what I'm doing" mentality. So I cancelled my subscription to the Trend Micro AV product and I will be damn sure to never switch my home ISP to Comcast. I can only hope you decide to do the same.

Posted at 09:39PM Apr 13, 2009 by Scott Dunbar in General  |  Comments[0]

Computer generated news pages are so much fun

I was reading Yahoo! news most popular articles and came across a great juxtaposition of headlines. The screen shot below is directly from the page:

I just love these!

Posted at 12:32PM Dec 15, 2008 by Scott Dunbar in General  |  Comments[0]

Yahoo mail just continues to impress

I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise based on my other issues with them but Yahoo! has started to spam me because they can't configure a mail server. Apparently I've been joe job'd and my hotjoe.com domain is being used as the "From" or "Return-Path" address in spam to hotjobs.com. But Yahoo! is apparently not aware of best practices when responding to email:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mx-in1.hj.scd.yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<zerosolo@hotjobs.yahoo.com>:
Sorry, no mailbox here by that name. (#5.1.1)

--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path: <webmaster@hotjoe.com>
Received: (qmail 10126 invoked by uid 8004); 30 Apr 2008 04:29:28 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO homeuser148-76.ccl.perm.ru) (195.222.148.76)
  by mx-in1.hj.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 30 Apr 2008 04:29:28 -0000
Content-Return: allowed
X-Mailer: CME-V6.5.4.3; MSN
Message-Id: <20080430112924.6436.qmail@homeuser148-76.ccl.perm.ru>
To: <zerosolo@hotjobs.yahoo.com>
Subject: Dear zerosolo@hotjobs.yahoo.com April 80% 0FF
From: VIAGRA ® Official Site <zerosolo@hotjobs.yahoo.com>

These folks just shouldn't be in the email business as they are utterly clueless. Now that the sale to Microsoft has fallen through I'm not guessing that they'll get any better.

Posted at 03:02PM May 06, 2008 by Scott Dunbar in General  |  Comments[0]

Update on the Yahoo! and HotMail email problems

I've been in contact with both Yahoo! and HotMail regarding the issues I've been having sending mail to both providers. Yahoo! was a total pain to deal with. I got canned responses and incredibly poor help. Apparently though it worked as I can now send email to Yahoo! addresses.

Microsoft HotMail on the other hand was the total opposite. I got an email back that, while it could have been a form email, looked like a human had actually read the support request. This was within an hour of contacting them. I was told that "SmartScreen" had blocked me:

We have identified that messages from your IP 66.197.158.69 are being filtered based on the recommendations of the SmartScreen filter. SmartScreen is the spam filtering technology developed and operated by Microsoft. SmartScreen is built around the technology of machine learning. SmartScreen's filters are trained to recognize what is spam and what isn't spam. In short, we filter incoming emails that look like spam. I am not able to go into any specific details about what these filters specifically entail, as this would render them useless.

Less than 12 hours later I got another email indicating the the problem had been taken care of. I'm guessing that they added my IP to a white list of some sort. I can send emails to HotMail accounts with no problem now.

I've got to say that Microsoft really impressed me with this. I'm not exactly a big ISP but they responded professionally and quickly. I'm still a bit frustrated that their mail system accepts my mail with a 250 response and then sends it to the bit bucket but at least there is a reasonable remedy.

So as to my previous post - it turns out that Yahoo! mail would benefit greatly by being purchased by Microsoft. They could learn alot about being a good netizen.

Posted at 09:04AM Apr 29, 2008 by Scott Dunbar in General  |  Comments[0]

Yahoo! embraces Microsoft HotMail practices in preparation to be bought

I run a small Java programming forum that sends mail on registration and, if the user chooses, when a forum topic gets updated. Recently whenever my system tries to send an email to Yahoo! it is deferred with the message:

Apr 10 11:11:34 habanero postfix/smtp[22430]: 940D11027FE: host b.mx.mail.yahoo.com[66.196.97.250] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (66.197.158.69) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html

Sometimes it goes through, sometimes it waits for a few days. I guess this is slightly better than HotMail though. HotMail claims to accept the mail and then it just disappears - it isn't in the inbox nor the spam folder.

I presume that this new behaviour is Yahoo! preparing to be more like Microsoft so that the merger will go smoother.

Interestingly enough, if you contact Yahoo! "support" about this you get a very helpful email:

This is an automated message regarding your recent request for Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care Support. We have received your message but due to a temporary problem we wanted to let you know it could take up to a week until you receive a response. We apologize for this inconvenience.

A week, huh? Very useful. Once again, they are preparing to become part of HotMail.

An interesting blog post from Yahoo! seems to indicate that this is self feeding. They changed the spam filters which caused more sites like my own to be blocked. This in turn increased the number of issues they received requesting that the block be lifted for a particular IP. Um, is it just me or wouldn't it be simpler to remove the new blocking? Whatever - the solution is to stop using Yahoo! mail.

Posted at 11:36AM Apr 10, 2008 by Scott Dunbar in General  |  Comments[0]