* * * Why can't I receve email from some users ? * * *
Maybe Spam filters or other reasons
v1.1
You may have trouble receiving email from friends or business associates who
have email accounts at Internet Service Providers or domains which we have
found to be persistantly and repeatedly used for Spam purposes to our members ie. sending ridiculous amounts
of unwanted email to our members, and therefore had to block them. These may include ISP's, Companies,
Educational Institutions etc. In fact any such source will be blocked to
protect you ! This facility had to be implemented at great initial and
ongoing expense to protect you. It is a truly painstaking job and the ongoing
labour costs are extremely high for us. Automated alternatives are not as
effective so we do it manually and very carefully. Obviously if we block
emails from some ISP then all email
from that ISP including their "good" customers will be rejected. They may
have 1000 good customers but 100 bad ones who send thousands of "junk"
emails and have caused our members serious grief. However it we have
implemented a simple process for you to apply to have a specific email address
listed to be passed through, despite the blocking list. Please read on.
With the high incidence of Spam which has on occasion bogged
down members' email accounts and our system this feature had to be
implemented in recent times. Most of our members were pleased to hear it. We collected feedback from some members
for some months in this regard.
The spam problem of unsolicited huge volumes of email advertising has simply
gone out of control. Most members have agreed on that! That's for sure.
Because even changing email accounts is only of little temporary help. Inevitable the
spam senders find the member's email address and it solves nothing. For your
interest, we have even noticed automated Spam systems from users such as Yahoo
trying to email random or what appears to be dictionary generated email
addresses working to find VALID email addresses, aimed at our servers! So it seems
you can try to run away but you can't hide.
Without the blocking it is unimaginable that email can continue as a viable
means of communication. I have heard, from a member who had an account
there, that one big ISP's even blocked email from another big ISP recently
because of spam. We do NOT intend to do that. As real ISP's can trace their
customers at least. However we will block overseas ISP's who are clearly a
haven for spammers.
We have been working for many weeks implementing the necessary system software
changes here to make it work, and very importantly to test it to ensure it
does not cause any problem restricting legitimate email. The setup and
ongoing costs are HUGE!!
Using our implementation the offending email sources are rejected
early in the reception process before they have a chance to be fully received. Other means such as
filtering on email content words etc. require
the email to be received before they can be analysed. By that time
the offending email is already received rather than rejected and the offending sender
will send even more !
The other problem is that sending a reply rejection message, after the
message is received,
to the "Reply To" address in the email will not usually work. As you will
quickly find if you ever tried it. "Fremail" services are big offenders and
a serious problem because there is no ISP that we can contact to take action
against them. And the offending user has already
changed to another "Free" email address in many cases. This is common even with the
same "Freemail" provider or even with the same
real ISP ! Remember, in a lot of cases the ISP
has rapped them over the knuckles and closed their account. But many ISP's
customers simply open another one becuase they don't know their own
customers. Unlike at Micronica :) Or they have a "Prepaid Card" account. Or
they don't really want you to reply anyway but instead want you to click on
their website offer. So it just bounces back as "User Does Not Exist". More
unwanted traffic.
You should have no problem at all receiving email from sources not on the
list. Contact us on Tel: 03-96998844 if you feel there are any email
messages that you should be receiving but are not. After checking the
following Spam list. Most likely its not
related to our system. And we should be able to help. Our usual service
rates are at http://micronica.com.au/service.
Our COMPLETE blocking list contains MILLIONS of blocked IP addresses and
individual domain and sub domain names of proven Spam sources! And is proprietary. To give you some idea of what our blocking list looks
like:
>> CLICK HERE <<
for our Spamlist
Blocklist
For your convenience simply use your Internet browser EDIT|FIND function search facility so
you can easily and conveniently check yourself in our COMPLETE list what email sources are blocked from sending us
email
Even with the blocking and a lot of time updating it is a tough and VERY
COSTLY war!
We are basically adopting a policy of rejecting email from the worst offending
"Free email" providers users such as Hotmail who have just so many users who
use their service for spamming and hide behing the benefit of anonymity to
commit frauds! On occasions we have taken the time to trace them back to the
email service only to get a reply "Thank you.That account has now been closed". Big
deal! Such mail sources will now be REJECTED.
I have discussed this with some members to find a solution to members who WANT to
receive email from such known spammer sources like Hotmail and Yahoo.
To be fair and open to all member i am inviting feedback...Should we block Hotmail or not?
It seems easy enough to get a Hotmail email a/c to
receive mail from hotmail if required. But I want to keep an open mind and we
are considering if to leave spam from Hotmail as ALLOWED. Although it
would be ironic that having spent HEAPS of resources implementing spam
rejection, one of the biggest spam offenders is so entrenched on the
internet that their spamming users have become acceptable :) Because some of
our members contacts use Hotmail. Interesting twist :)
Please provide your comments micronica@micronica.com.au. Here are some Hotmail
comments from typical members about that and how successful the blocking
has been. Please read them!
The easiest solution is
of course to simply get a Hotmail or Yahoo account and then get your friends to email
you there :) Simple and easy. And that way those sources can keep most of
their spammers between themselves ;-) This may not be the ideal solution but
certainly a very workable one. Another way to receive email from travellers
is to use a Freemail service which is NOT blocked. Such as www.ausi.com who
is NOT a known spam offender, at least yet.
The free email providers should even be able to help and advise you how to
configure your favourite email software such as Eudora Email which is really
easy to set up a second email setup or Outlook Express to
collect your Hotmail email from their POP email server. So you dont
need to use their Web Browser interaface if you don't want to. We can
investigate and configure your computer for you if required at our usual
labour rate of $90+gst/hour or please seek your own advice.
Please don't call us with all kinds of email sources you think should be blocked.
There are simply too many and we could get bogged down from doing other
work. But if there is any particular individual email source causing you serious
problems you need blocked permanently or temporarily we can look at doing that for you. A
small one of service fee applies to implement each necessary addition and we will
do it for you as long as it does not
impact the rest of members or our general service adversely. But we have to
investigate the REAL source of the email from FULL header information and
contact the source ISP overseas if necessary. Takes a lot of time which you
can also do yourself.
Alternatively, we can specially list to UNBLOCK SINGLE SPECIFIC email
addresses at blocked sites for the same small one of fee. Please fill out and
submit the APPLICATION FORM. This is an ideal
solution for members who know that they want to receive email from
really important individuals who insist to use email services from blocked
sources such as Hotmail.
Please understand we can not block spam email to each one of our members individually.
Any addition to the Block and Unblock listings will affect ALL members. Call us on 03-96998844 to
discuss.
If you want to see the sort of thing that makes spammers get on the spamming
bandwagon you can CLICK HERE to read a typical email
recruiting spammers!! They even provide their contact details!!
Without writing my own book on handling Spam, as a final bit of advice keep in mind
that the "Reply To" or
the "From" details in emails are often forged and not real! They can be set
to just about anything ! To see the real
full information you have to turn "Full Header Information" "ON" in your
email software. Please don't email me and ask me how to do that. Every email
software is different. Your choice of email software is up to you so your own computer
support person has to help you with that or you can book in for a
consultation/tutorial session if you don't have a computer support person or see other helpful information on handling
Spam on our Tech Support website area at http://micronica.com.au/support.
If you can not receive email from a source NOT listed in the Anti Spammer
List it could be due to some very valid reasons. For example, perhaps it could be
that their isp is not using their "real domain name". Clearly a risky
practice ! Or if they also have many persistant customers who spam us and we
ended up having to block them. Or if we have found that an ISP's customer is
attempting to randomly seek by trial and error existing email addresses of our
mambers we normally block the offending source IP address immediately.
Or the sender may have had a virus opening their computer up as an "open relay" for spam which means his ip address has been
blocked specifically. They can contact their isp who can view our spam list.
Or you can forward it to them by email. If it is serious and important to
you we can
investigate it for you and liase with thier isp and the email sender. Cost
is $120+gst. Its can be a tricky and time
consuming task which may take several days to investigate on their and your
behalf. Please understand that any source that has been blocked has been
blocked for VERY valid reason! If the sender's isp domain name is clearly
and simply listed then its much easier for us. But if the sender's domain name is not one of the
listed "real ones" then we have to investigate specially for you which is
labour intensive and time consuming. We will NOT knowingly block a real
ISP's domain unless they have caused repeated spam offences to our members
and we have had no satisfactory reply to our email requests from them. For
that purpose keep in mind that an automated acknowledgement email reply with
no follow up by the isp is obviously NOT a satisfactory reply. Some large
ISP's are notorioulsy slack in this regard to chase their offending members as you probably know yourself. Remember we must keep the fences high to
protect all our members.
So there you have it. I am sure all members will now find MUCH less junk mail in their "Inbox" in
future. Please see some Members Testimonials
who have already applauded the new measures which are working and busily
rejecting Spam :)
Best Regards
Edward Jozis
"The Digital Doctor"