Background Information
This applies if your Outlook, or other mail
program, give you an error message mentioning
"Spamhaus" or you get bounce messages mentioning
your IP address. How do you get on these
lists--here are a few ways:
(But first, you need to know about IP Addresses.
They how your computer system is identified by the
Internet. IP stands for Internet Protocol--and
they are the address used to communicate with
computers.)
- Telus tends to put a number of wireless
customers on one IP address, so, someone else
may be causing the problem..
- Telus tends to provide one IP address to
each networked office, so a co-worker may be
causing the problem.
- Telus changes most customers' IP address on
a regular basis. You may have recently
been dynamically assigned an IP address that
someone else has used to send spam.
So, you are likely sharing your IP address . . .
how did that IP address get blacklisted in the first
place? Here are two common ways.
- Using an unsecured network, often
Wi-Fi at an airport or coffee shop. A
laptop used that way can pick up malware that
turns it into a zombie sending our someone
else's spam. (Consider using a Virtual
Private Network to give you some protection.
http://www.anchorfree.com/about/ provides a
free service, but you will likely want to turn
off your audio as the advertising is quite
annoying.)
- Distributing jokes (whatever) to a lot of
people using the e-mail program's address
list. Yes, they are spam!
Again, the spam may not be coming from your
computer, but it did come from the IP address you
share. But, it is your responsibility to make
sure your computer isn't infected and sending spam.
(That IP got on the list for a reason--the computer
could be infected.) So run a thorough
anti-virus scan on your machine.
First Test: Is your Computer IP Address
Being Blocked?
Forward some samples of the bounce messages to
evans@gpfind.com.
Please read them first, often the reasons are
self-explanatory. (Please do not send bounce
messages relating to insufficient storage on
recipient's server, or no such e-mail address, etc.)
I'll get back to you. In the meantime, you
can start the following process:
Second Test: Is Your Mail Server Being
Blocklisted?
- Find out which (if any) spam lists are
blocking your mail server:
- Go to
http://www.mxtoolbox.com.
- Follow the directions, after typing in
your e-mail's domain name (something like
DomainName.com).
- If the mail server is being blocked (ignore
a few time-outs at the bottom of the list) call
Evans at 403 796-2523 right away, and explain
the problem.
Resolution:
Manually changing your IP Address
1.
Find out what your current IP Address is.
a.
Go to
http://whatismyipaddress.com/ and write
down your current IP Address. Copy it to your
clipboard, if you know how.
2.
Confirm that your IP Address is blocked, by
going to
http://www.spamhaus.org/lookup.lasso and
entering your IP address into the IP address
text box and then clicking "Lookup".
3.
If it is banned:
a.
Optional: follow the prompts on that
page to have it delisted. (Click on the list
it is found on; go to the bottom of the next page
and request delisting). (Optional, as in the
next steps you will try to change your IP Address to
something else.)
b.
Easy way. If your
computer and router are turned off and disconnected
for 6 to 12 hours, you will normally have a new IP
Address dynamically assigned to you. Leave
everything off and disconnected as long as you can.
a)
After you restart the computer, repeat steps
1, 2, and 3 above.
c.
Hard way. Call Telus Technical
Support and get them to walk you through manually
changing the IP Address. This only takes a few
minutes—once you get going. It involves the
Command Prompt commands “ipconfig /release”,
“ipconfig /renew”. You may need your
computer's administrator Username and Password as
well as your Internet Account's phone number,
username, password, and PIN number (from a Telus
invoice).
We can change your Outlook server settings of the
outgoing mail server to smtp.telus.net, from
ml.yourdomainname.com and to port 25,
from port 1125.
If this is a laptop, and if you connect to a
non-Telus network (or are using a Telus wireless
network adaptor on a laptop), you will not be able to send
e-mails. Also there is a possibility that a
receiving e-mail server will reject your messages as
they come from a still-Blocklisted computer.
Instructions to do make these two changes, to
the SMTP server only, are
here.
You will need to adapt the instructions to use the
new settings.
Obviously, changing the smtp server to Telus is
not the preferred solution!
Call Evans at 403 796-2523.
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