BBC News

Monday J9 June, 2003

BT tackles spam blacklist
BTopenworld has responded to being put on a spam blacklist by
tweaking its servers in a move it hopes will pacify angry users and
the people behind the blacklist.
Blacklist services are becoming more common as a way of avoiding or
significantly reducing spam.

Internet Service Providers, (ISPs), that have signed up to the
Distributed Server Boycott List do not receive mail from servers
that the group deems to be misconfigured, insecure or abuseable.

Embarrassingly for BT it is included on the list meaning that a
small proportion of its business customers find that e-mails sent to
certain ISPs bounce back.

Exaggerating glitches

Now BT has put a fix in place that should resolve the problem
uncovered by the DSBL, although it is not convinced that it will be
removed from the blacklist.

A BTopenworld spokesman said that the company was having problems
communicating with the blacklist authors.

"Such groups have good intentions but can create problems for ISPs
and customers that are exaggerated well beyond the nature of the
glitch they have uncovered," he added.

Nick Truman is Head of Customer Security for BTopenworld.

He said BT had been unfairly targeted by DSBL and that the group
would have had to "seriously reconfigure their e-mail service" in
order to find the spam vulnerability.

In common with other ISPs, around 40% of e-mail passing through
BTopenworld's system is thought to be spam.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/2970028.stm