Hi, Mayrie. How are you? I'm a little slow in reading list mail, so I just saw your message about Comcast troubles. I'm going to copy this to the list because it may begin to effect users in other locations. I'll explain what I know so far and show you how I solved my issues.
You may have noticed that I use GMail. It's because Comcast began blocking certain lists at the server level, whether you have a spam filter turned on or not. I have talked to Comcast tech support and worked my way up to a supervisor's supervisor. This happened about 16 months ago. I talked to him by phone, so I'll have to paraphrase what he told me. Maybe someone on the list has a better working knowledge of this system
Comcast uses a third-party list called Black Hole to help them filter out spam. This is a system that flags entire domains or servers as bad rather than flagging specific addresses. This system isn't owned by Comcast. They license and use its data. Email coming from these flagged domains is blocked as it hits their server, whether you have their spam filter turned on or not. This is done as a way to share data about spammers and keep them shut down, easing the strain on the email system across the internet. However, the blocks seem to happen regionally with Comcast, maybe because they use different servers with different versions of the list being applied for each part of the country. The supervisor wouldn't tell me how often this list is updated or if anyone verifies its contents. It's not very effective, as you'll see in a minute. Due to Black Hole, mail from AOL and Runbox was blocked for three weeks last year.
Here's where it gets dicey. I'll show you two scenarios that could get the Bookshare list flagged as bad in Black Hole or with similar spam tools.
Say that a user name Sherry is a Comcast user and subscribes to the Bookshare lists. Sherry isn't very computer literate. She decides that she doesn't want to be on the list anymore. She either doesn't read the directions for unsubscribing at the bottom of every message, or she thinks it's too hard. So Sherry marks the messages as spam on Comcast or uses Outlook's junk mail feature to get rid of the messages. Comcast software sees Sherry marking these messages as spam, and it decides to report this to Black Hole because it thinks Sherry keeps getting spam from that list. As a result, Black Hole stores the DNS address or domain as a bad guy and shares that data with all companies that have licensed Black Hole. Suddenly, people on these services like Comcast can't get their list mail anymore.
Scenario two bothers me even more, and it's happening every single day. It's why I stopped using Comcast mail.
Let's say that there is a guy named Brady who uses a different internet service provider, like Varizon. He subscribes to the Bookshare list just like Sherry did. He doesn't like something that someone said on the list and wants off. Instead of leaving the list by unsubscribing, he flags messages from the list as spam and adds the list address to his blocked senders list in his spam filter. Ready for the gotcha twist? Varizon sees that Brady has marked Bookshare list mail as spam and even blocked their address. They must be major spammers because they send more than 50 messages to Brady each day. So they share that data with Black Hole. Now every service that uses Black Hole has list mail flagged as trouble. Comcast licenses Black Hole, so they start blocking the list traffic as well. So a subscriber who doesn't even use Comcast can cause Comcast to block mail from entire domains.
At the time I learned about this stuff, I was fighting with Comcast about a different list, one from YahooGroups. I decided that I didn't want someone else to have that much control over whether I could even receive mail from someone. So I jumped ship. I use GMail now, which is free and works with all email programs including Eudora, Outlook, and OE. I also have another address with affordable Microsoft Exchange hosting for private and more sensitive emailing. GMail has a spam filter that isn't based on Black Hole, and it is pretty accurate. Better still, I'm in the driver's seat with my account and can decide what I personally will and will not receive.
If you decide to take a look at GMail, please know that you don't have to quit using your Comcast address for personal emails. You've had your address for a long time, so I'm sure people will keep writing to you at your Comcast address if you prefer it. Gmail is pretty easy to set up, and you can forget about the mechanics once your email client is set up. There are only two things to do to get GMail to be fully accessible for both the web interface and with your email client. First, switch from standard view to the basic HTML view. Everything works with speech after that. Then go to your account settings and enable POP email access. Now your account is ready for you to set up Outlook or whatever you like to use. GMail offers instructions for set-up, and I'm willing to help you if you need a hand.
Sorry this message is so long. I hope it makes sense. We've got a contractor knocking down our bathroom wall, and all I can hear is hammering!
-- Monica Willyard Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/plumlipstick Visit my blog at http://www.scannersguild.com
