Re: problem with AOL addresses

[Patrick Kirk <patrick@kirks.net>]

AOL blocks your email if you both these conditions:

1. Your are sending via your own smtp server
and
2. Your smtp server does not have a MX record

AOL is not alone in this - in the UK many acedemic and scientific 
establishments ahve a similiar rule.

Just to add to the nuisance, even organisations that will accept email 
from people with smtp servers o dial-up connections often refuse your 
email becasue some previous user of the IP address got it listed as an 
open relay or spammer.  Fixing this means you clean up the act for your 
ISPs less conscientious users.

The work around is to use the ISP's smtp server.  I know it sucks if you 
are used to running smtp yourself but there really is no alternative if 
you are going to carry on with dynamic IP.


Haines Brown wrote:
> I sent a query to the list and it went out, but the message going
> through AOL bounced:
>
>
> >  ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> > ... while talking to mailin-01.mx.netscape.net.:
> > <<< 550-The IP address you are using to connect to AOL is a dynamic
> > <<< (residential) 550-IP address.  AOL will not accept future e-mail
> > <<< transactions from your 550-IP address until your ISP removes
> > <<< your IP from its list of dynamic 550-(residential) IP
> > <<< addresses. 
>
>
> This problem apparently is not new (from 2000: "Ist das Dreist oder
> was?") but it has hit me only in the last couple of weeks. 
>
> Apparently, in a clumbsy (everyone seems to agree) effort to block spam, AOL does a reverse DNS
> lookup, which fails when the sender's IP address is dynamic (no mx
> record). On the other hand, it has been suggested that AOL is simply filtering access
> to certain ranges of cable and DSL IP addresses. 
>
> I suspect there are enormous numbers of people using dynamic IP
> addresses, and so it may be that many list subscribers who have AOL as
> their ISP are missing mail. Is this so? Anyone else experiencing this
> difficulty?
>  
> Can anyone shed some light on this? Is there a reasonable work
> around. Does one have to relay one's mail?
>
> Haines Brown

--

Best regards,


Patrick Kirk
Mobile: 07876 560 646