Faster, better…

Posts Tagged ‘Internet’

Everything Is Incremental « Dangerous Common Sense.

“The bad economy has generated desperate calls from owners who are begging for the Internet to save their business.

I wish it were that simple. When I talk to these potential clients, I first have to set their expectations.”

(Ed Note: I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Galen must be the last honest Internet marketer. Read the entire article at the Dangerous Common Sense Blog)

So there I sat trying to send an email with a small attachment to two friends, both on the Comcast network. The email service I was using was a web mail application at Network Solutions. When I sent the email I received a bounced copy of the message with an error 554 BL000000 that said my IP address was a SPAMMER! I looked like and acted like a SPAMMER! I got the same message last week trying to send to Comcast.net from a local email client application on another domain. Very frustrating.

Well I called Comcast and spoke to folks there. (They have always been exceedingly polite, respectful, and helpful.) The rep told me that my mail was rejected because of a PTR lookup failure (reverse DNS.) They suggested I call Network Solutions. I called Network Solutions and they claim they are not being throttled en-masse by Comcast.net. The rep at Network Solutions did say that my home Comcast IP address was listed at Symantechs http://investigate.brightmail.com as a BAD SPAMMER IP address! Oh swell.

We run NO Symnatech products on our PC’s at home yet this third party company is creating a reputation file on our IP. We have never been compromised, we don’t spam, we just use the Internet like everyone else. We have virus programs on our computers. The ONLY issue we had once was a dopey FaceBook worm. McAfee’s product furnished by Comcast killed that.

Network Solutions can’t restore my email service. Comcast will not issue a new IP. Comcast claims I simply need to issue a release and renew but that has not worked in years. We no longer have a dynamic IP address and they have no way of changing the IP.

I DID discover something I was NOT aware of, something Comcast has still not told me COULD be the problem. Why it would prevent me from using a webmail client at Network Solutions is unknown. According to this link at Spamhaus ALL comcast customers are REQUIRED to use their Comcast OUTGOING email server and MAY NOT use another provider’s server. I have ALWAYS been able to use the outgoing servers at my other domains at Network Solutions. This really yanks my chain. I can’t use services that I PAY FOR and I AM NOT A SPAMMER!

Now my family is apparently at the mercy of company whose services we do not use and neither Comcast or Network Solutions will resolve this mess for us. They just point at each other or at Symantech. Internet security has run amok.

This after I discovered that my web host also throttles large FTP uploads for security reasons after I tried to upload more than six files into my web directory. Customers are being protected to death and customer service has tanked. Customer Service agents everywhere are having trouble with two plus two equals four. They just have no idea how to help or alleviate the conditions they themselves create with their own security inventions. Customers are losing freedoms and services we used to take for granted because of the spies, cretins, bottom dwellers and spammers compromising accounts. I am so frustrated. The situation is out of control and just is not right.