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Recent Verizon email issues

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by pworlton 1 view

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I am about to submit the following item as a news item, and I would really appreciate if any email admins out there could verify the problem. The text is as follows:

Verizon customers may have noticed a sharp decline in the amount of spam - as well as valid email - that is getting through to them since around February 7th. The problem appears to be the result of a poorly implemented spam-filtering solution called "gray-listing". As opposed to "black-listing", which blocks emails from known spammers, "gray-listing" software simply tells the sender, "I'm busy right now, please try again later."

Most legitimate email servers will wait a minute or so and try to send email again. On the second attempt, the gray-listing software will accept the incoming email. The solution works on spam because spam servers will typically only attempt to send an email once.

But while the solution is very effective on spam, if improperly configured, it can also eliminate most legitimate emails. The gray-listing server must actually receive the email attempt twice. But there is more than one email server there is a chance that the email attempt will be received by a different server. If the two servers don?t communicate gray-list information, the second server will also give a ?busy? response.

Verizon appears to have at least 27 email servers, and no shared gray-list information between them. The chances of any email attempt going to the same server twice are extremely slim, and there is even a chance that the email will bounce 27 times before being allowed. Businesses and consumers have begun to notice that email sent to Verizon customers often never reach their destination because most email servers will not try to send an email more than a few times.

Several attempts have been made to reach Verizon administrators to inform them of the problem, but they are unresponsive, other than to verify that the sender is not black-listed.

Technical Details:

Email administrators may look for the following Verizon server response in relation to this problem:

?550 You are not allowed to send mail:sv9pub.verizon.net
450 Requested mail action not taken-Try later:sv9pub.verizon.net
quit
221 sv9pub.verizon.net closing connection?

8 replies

by pmcgrath1

I have noted a large increase of gray-listed events in my mail logs. I have not been able to account for a gray-listed non-deliverys.
Your logic is sonund as long the statement that the email servers do not share gray-listing information is true and there is not other mechanism in place to route additional attempts to the same receiving server.
How do you know the servers are not sharing gray-listing info?

by pworlton

Because the email logs show the rejections from different Verizon servers. The few times when an email does get through, it is apparently because it hit the same server twice. I will get with my email admin tomorrow just to double-check the facts though.

by jgroves

I've also noticed that Verizon.net's mail server would connect to my SMTP and check whether or not it said that my email address was valid or not. It seems that they've implemented something along the lines of MilterSender, so that even though I send my email through my ISP's SMTP server, verizon.net will turn around and connect to my SMTP server and make sure that my email account is valid.

Mar 5 16:59:27 hoover sendmail[26633]: l25....6633: lost input channel from sv8pub.verizon.net [206.46.252.144] to MTA after rcpt
Mar 5 16:59:27 hoover sendmail[26633]: l25....6633: from=<>, size=0, class=0, nrcpts=1, proto=SMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=sv8pub.verizon.net [206.46.252.144]

It seemed to go through the motions without any trouble, so there may have been other tests that my email address was failing that was causing the graylisting.

by dickm

I get verizon.net email every day at work from my sister-in-law, but since 2/15/07 I have not been able to reply or send new email and have it go through. There have been others, but I assumed the mail box was full. She does not understand why I am not responding to her. We have many alumni and friends with verizon accounts and we can ill afford to keep resending to keep the server happy.

A few years back AOL tried blocking emails from locations which "seemed" to be a source of spam, etc. This included many universities and charities. I believe it resulted in a lawsuit which made them "responsive."

And I am sure Verizon clients have no trouble receiving bills.

Dick McCracken
Dean Emeritus of Alumni

by jgroves

I've been experiencing the same issue with email from my personal email address to verizon.net email addresses. I tried sending email to their abuse@verizon.net address, then found that my email to that address was bouncing as well. Then I used my email account from my ISP, which went through but with no effect. Finally I sent a complaint to their security@verizon.net address and as of this evening 6-Mar-2007, my email is once again going through.

This isn't Big Brother at work, this is Dumb Bubba.

by dickm

Our IT contacted Verizon security and were told we would be whitelisted the other night.

Yesterday I sent three emails to verizon clients on both coasts. They seemed to get through. Then bam, this morning back they came as undelivered. The same morning I got an email from a Verizon client who cannot get my reply or a new email.

This is no fun, so I guess it is back to long distance calls and postage stamps.

by jgroves

The other alternative is to offer a real email service to them for free with lots of space for all their email.

Yes, you guessed it. Offer them all gmail accounts.

You can explain that you are not the only one that they aren't receiving email from as an incentive.

Jeff G.

by jrlawson55

i have yet to receive any email since i havae had fairpoints as a email server. what is up i should not have to pay for this serve if we do not get it

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