I use Earthlink for my home ISP, so I'm very interested in this discussion!

I haven't heard of spam problems regarding Earthlink, but then again I am
located in the US.  My spam nightmares usually involve my Yahoo email
account.

My question is due to my newbie-ness when it comes to spam (other than being
the unfortunate receiver of such).  What exactly is the problem with spam
through an ISP (with Earthlink as an example)?  Is it that people are
fraudulently using it to send spam?  Sorry if this sounds like a stupid
question!

Thanks,

Maureen

-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy Wheeler [mailto:kathyw(at)home.albury.net.au] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 5:04 PM
To: hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
Subject: off-topic - spam was Re: ads done well


Sorry if this is off-topic, but spam effects us all one way or another.

> Kathy, I am wondering how they can block a wholesale ISP like that??

In Australia we have legislation that requires ISP's to block certain
sources 
of spam if users complain. The initial block was removed when earthlink 
announced they were going to make an effort to stop spammers, but
re-instated 
when the spam from their domain actually markedly increased shortly after 
their announcement.

> Surely they must realize that SOME of their users are going to be 
> getting personal emails from friends, which is not spam, from this 
> very large ISP in the US?

Last night we had 130 spams from one earthlink machine, which was very light

following a previous peak of 40,000 spams in a 24 hour period. And we're
only 
a small regional (country) ISP. I don't believe there have been more than 2 
or 3 complaints (one of them mine) about mail not getting through the block,

but numerous complaints about spam getting through before the block.

> What if your mom had Earthlink? :-)

I'd get her an account with a decent ISP!

> I would write to them and ask how you can get mail from a legitimate 
> Earthlink user.

We had them try individually unblocking specific addresses, but earthlink 
uses different seemingly random mail servers for the same email accounts so 
it was impossible to filter out individuals :-(

Sorry cbirds, they may be good from the inside, but from the outside they're

a menace.

Regards,
KathyW,

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