Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 10:54:12 -0500 (EST) From: BCPL.NET SysAdmin To: BCPL.NET News Subject: BCPL.NET NEWS: Mail To AOL Blocked By AOL ------------------------------------------ BCPL.NET E-MAIL SENT TO AOL BLOCKED BY AOL ------------------------------------------ Late in the evening of Thursday December 11 the Help Desk started receiving complaints that e-mail sent from here to America Online (AOL) addresses was not going through. After a bit of investigation it turned out that all e-mail sent from BCPL.NET to AOL addresses was being rejected as spam by the AOL mail server. If you tried to send e-mail to an aol.com address while the block was in place, you probably received it back with an error message looking something like this: ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- (reason: 554-(RLY:B1) The information presently available to AOL indicates this) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- 554 5.0.0 Service unavailable This was still occurring as of 6:30 Friday morning, but by 8:00 AM mail to AOL was going through without any trouble. Apparently AOL removed the block on BCPL.NET mail some time in between. If your messages to AOL were rejected last night or early this morning, you should be able to resend them now. Further investigation this morning shows that AOL had good reason to block our mail. Starting at about 5:00 PM on Thursday a BCPL.NET customer sent out spam to approximately 130,000 AOL e-mail addresses. He/she used falsified addresses on the "From:" lines of the outgoing messages, but we are analyzing the logs to determine his/her BCPL.NET identity. If any other BCPL.NET customer is tempted to use a BCPL.NET connection as the platform for sending spam, please consider the following: The sending of spam from BCPL.NET and falsification of identity are both specifically prohibited in BCPL.NET's "Acceptable Uses and Conditions Policy". The latest version of the AUCP is always available on our Web site at http://www.bcpl.net/policies . The section pertaining to spamming and identity falsification reads as follows: "I will not engage in any illegal or legally questionable activity via my BCPL.NET Internet Account, including (but not restricted to) cracking, hacking, software piracy, chain letters, harassing or vulgar e-mail, unsolicited mass e-mail (spamming), identity theft or falsification, etc." If any BCPL.NET customer is found to be in violation of that section of the AUCP, his/her account may be terminated immediately without refund.. -- BCPL.NET INTERNET SERVICES 320 York Road Towson, MD 21204-5179 U.S.A. CONTACTS: -------- Web Site: http://www.bcpl.net Administration & Policy: ispadmin@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 Sales, Renewals, Account Status: accounts@bcpl.net 410-887-4172 Technical Support (Help Desk): help@bcpl.net 410-887-3297 Usenet News Newsgroup Requests news-admin@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 E-Mail & Newsgroup Abuse Reports: abuse@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 Domain Name Service Issues: dnsadmin@bcpl.net 410-887-6180 FAX: 410-887-2091