We've noticed a surge in 421 e-mail errors from AOL. Message soft bounced for '###@aol.com', '4.3.2 - Not accepting messages at this time ('421', [': (DYN:T1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dynt1.html', 'SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE']) []' It seems as though they've tightened down their policies. We're pretty good at preventing spam with our IronPort anti-spam gateways and internal policies. We've also subscribed to their FBL notification service. I'm surprised at the types of messages AOL customers consider as spam. Anything and everything: university admission acceptance notices; instructor class assignments; photos from friends; etc. matthew black california state university, long beach
Matthew Black wrote:
We've noticed a surge in 421 e-mail errors from AOL.
Message soft bounced for '###@aol.com', '4.3.2 - Not accepting messages at this time ('421', [': (DYN:T1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dynt1.html', 'SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE']) []'
It seems as though they've tightened down their policies. We're pretty good at preventing spam with our IronPort anti-spam gateways and internal policies.
We've also subscribed to their FBL notification service. I'm surprised at the types of messages AOL customers consider as spam. Anything and everything: university admission acceptance notices; instructor class assignments; photos from friends; etc.
<RANT> I've been dealing with this too for 6 days now (2 of them while away on vacation). AOL Postmasters, while very friendly and nice, have provided me more "answers" than one could fit in a magic 8-ball. We've got 334 aol.com/cs.com/netscape.net/aim.com list members who are barely receiving email that they want to receive. We run Q&A lists for 2 non-profits, one technical, the other cancer related. Users post questions, experienced users provide answers. Nothing more. I've have had FBLs setup and been on AOL's whitelist for 2+ years now, and I am about at my wits end with dealing with them. It is no wonder that their user base is shrinking, and it is sad that they treat their own customers with such broadly applied brushes. Sure there are spam problems, but to block requested email from reaching interested users (some of them being AOL employees themselves) is just plain wrong. I will say this, numerous AOL postmasters have told me that they have issues with their FBL system (I've got 2 open tickets on that alone). I have also been told that our email should not be being blocked/delayed, and I have open tickets on that too. But that in no way explains to me why the have happily accepted an average of 162332 emails each month from us for the past 3+ years and that now they don't want it. :-) It is worth pointing out that Yahoo!, Cox, GMail, HotMail/MSN, Mail.com, Earthlink, Verizon, and SBC Global happily receive almost similar amounts of email from us without the need for whitelists, FBLs, etc. What is funny is that the domains have SPF records which AOL likes, but they don't yet have DomainKeys which Yahoo! likes. AOL could learn a *lot* from their competition when it comes to handling email. </RANT> -Jim P.
Jim Popovitch wrote:
Matthew Black wrote:
I've been dealing with this too for 6 days now (2 of them while away on vacation).
My sympathies.
Sure there are spam problems, but to block requested email from reaching interested users (some of them being AOL employees themselves) is just plain wrong.
<COUNTER-RANT> You know, people say things like this a lot. Its not relevant. What is relevant is how AOL is supposed to know that a) the email considered for rejection is actually wanted b) and wanted by AOL employees themselves And if they did know how to accurately determine that, we wouldnt be having this discussion.
I will say this, numerous AOL postmasters have told me that they have issues with their FBL system (I've got 2 open tickets on that alone). I have also been told that our email should not be being blocked/delayed, and I have open tickets on that too. But that in no way explains to me why the have happily accepted an average of 162332 emails each month from us for the past 3+ years and that now they don't want it. :-)
Anti-Spam/Abuse systems must needs to be upgraded and expanded over time. Then they need to be adjusted. Sometimes it is done well with good results. Sometimes it is done poorly with unexpectedly good results. Sometimes the opposite. Lambasting them when we dont actually know what they have done sounds to me to be quite shrill. Just point your intended receivers to AOL's help desk. Not your problem. Still want to help them? Offer them an account on your system. They can pay you. They can also pay you for support. You get what you pay for.
</RANT>
-Jim P.
On May 3, 2006, at 5:28 PM, Joe Maimon wrote:
<COUNTER-RANT> You know, people say things like this a lot. Its not relevant. What is relevant is how AOL is supposed to know that
a) the email considered for rejection is actually wanted b) and wanted by AOL employees themselves
And if they did know how to accurately determine that, we wouldnt be having this discussion.
<counter-counter-rant> If you can't tell, or at least can't tell with darned near 100% accuracy, don't get in the middle of the transaction. </counter-counter-rant> -- Derek J. Balling Systems Administrator Vassar College 124 Raymond Ave Box 13 - Computer Center 217 Poughkeepsie, NY 12604 (845) 437-7231
On Wednesday 03 May 2006 22:28, Joe Maimon wrote:
<COUNTER-RANT> You know, people say things like this a lot. Its not relevant. What is relevant is how AOL is supposed to know that
On the subject of which I'm in discussion with AOL to get email through that contains something which is a known spammers trick, because it is also the right thing to have in our emails <sigh>. Content is not always a good clue.
a) the email considered for rejection is actually wanted b) and wanted by AOL employees themselves
I thought these went to aol.NET which has different spam filtering in place.
And if they did know how to accurately determine that, we wouldnt be having this discussion.
:)
Just point your intended receivers to AOL's help desk.
That just creates Chinese whispers. For technical issues it really helps if providers can take reports from "non-customers", or people providing services to their existing clients. This seems impossible for many big companies.
You get what you pay for.
I think choosing providers carefully can get you more for less.
</RANT>
AOL have employees who regularly read SPAM-L, which is probably a better forum for such questions. Although in an ideal world "postmaster@" would work, it rarely seems to with AOL.
On 5/4/06, Simon Waters <simonw@zynet.net> wrote:
Just point your intended receivers to AOL's help desk.
That just creates Chinese whispers.
You can probably do that - but dont astroturf the postmasters, dont setup boilerplate that you ask people to email in en masse to their abuse desk or phone in to them. Especially if you are in regular touch with their postmasters and you find them responsive.
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 10:20:33AM +0100, Simon Waters wrote: ...
That just creates Chinese whispers. ...
This is a new term of which I had previously been unaware. What is it, please, and how does it relate to the Chinese country or people? Thanks. -- Joe Yao ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This message is not an official statement of OSIS Center policies.
Joseph S D Yao wrote:
On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 10:20:33AM +0100, Simon Waters wrote: ...
That just creates Chinese whispers. ...
This is a new term of which I had previously been unaware. What is it, please, and how does it relate to the Chinese country or people?
Joseph, See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers Erik -- Erik Radius <eradius@xs4all.nl>
I need no more references to Wikipaedia, thank you all. I had already looked it up, but after I sent my note. I need no more notes telling me that Chinese people talk funny, either. I had really never noticed that. -- Joe Yao ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This message is not an official statement of OSIS Center policies.
On Wed, 3 May 2006, Joe Maimon wrote:
<COUNTER-RANT> You know, people say things like this a lot. Its not relevant. What is relevant is how AOL is supposed to know that
a) the email considered for rejection is actually wanted b) and wanted by AOL employees themselves
And if they did know how to accurately determine that, we wouldnt be having this discussion.
The irony here of course, is that Matt Black's systems can't even tell if they want the mail until _after_ the accept it- but that's a feature, and AOL's in-transaction softfails are evil. Or something. matto --matt@snark.net------------------------------------------<darwin>< Moral indignation is a technique to endow the idiot with dignity. - Marshall McLuhan
On Thu, 4 May 2006 10:47:28 -0700 (PDT) Matt Ghali <matt@snark.net> wrote:
On Wed, 3 May 2006, Joe Maimon wrote:
<COUNTER-RANT> You know, people say things like this a lot. Its not relevant. What is relevant is how AOL is supposed to know that
a) the email considered for rejection is actually wanted b) and wanted by AOL employees themselves
And if they did know how to accurately determine that, we wouldnt be having this discussion.
The irony here of course, is that Matt Black's systems can't even tell if they want the mail until _after_ the accept it- but that's a feature, and AOL's in-transaction softfails are evil. Or something.
matto
--matt@snark.net------------------------------------------<darwin>< Moral indignation is a technique to endow the idiot with dignity. - Marshall McLuhan
Nothing beats an ad hominem attack, huh? The irony here is that your message contains that tribute to the media critic. Now, it seems you are sugggesting that my e-mail servers hold back on final accept until a message gets delivered to a remote AOL server. Did I misread the above message? For what it's worth, I received a very nice e-mail and had an extended telephone conversation with a third-tier support manager from AOL. They do respond and that's why I placed my original post on this thread. I've found that honey is usually more effective than vinegar (that's a metaphor). matthew black network services california state university, long beach
Matthew Black wrote:
For what it's worth, I received a very nice e-mail and had an extended telephone conversation with a third-tier support manager from AOL. They do respond and that's why I placed my original post on this thread.
I too received contact from AOL, and they have been extremely helpful. Thank you AOL, and thank you NANOG. -Jim P.
At the risk of posting a 'me too' email, we have also had issues getting a similar problem resolved with AOL. We have been receiving numerous ISP:B2 and ISP:B3 rejection codes from AOL email servers. We have contacted their postmaster # as posted on their website and each time talked with a very nice support tech. However, in each and every case, we were not able to get the problem resolved. AOL even went so far as to say that they would escalate and have a member of their tech support team contact me which never happened. We have subscribed to their FBL service for over a year. Lately, the messages that we receive in the FBL are nowhere near spam. We contacted the complaintant @ AOL and each time they responded that they hit 'report as spam' instead of delete which is right next to each other. If someone from AOL is reading this, please forward to someone in your postmaster team. All other means to contact AOL Postmaster have resulted in dead-ends. -- Thanks, --------------------------------------------------------- Joseph W. Breu, CCNA phone : +1.319.268.5228 Senior Network Administrator fax : +1.319.266.8158 Cedar Falls Utilities cell : +1.319.493.1686 support: +1.319.268.5221 url : http://www.cfu.net Quoting Jim Popovitch <jimpop@yahoo.com>:
Matthew Black wrote:
For what it's worth, I received a very nice e-mail and had an extended telephone conversation with a third-tier support manager from AOL. They do respond and that's why I placed my original post on this thread.
I too received contact from AOL, and they have been extremely helpful. Thank you AOL, and thank you NANOG.
-Jim P.
Don't barrage them with bogus joejob bounce notifications? IIRC that is a feature of your mail configuration down there. matto On Wed, 3 May 2006, Matthew Black wrote:
We've noticed a surge in 421 e-mail errors from AOL.
Message soft bounced for '###@aol.com', '4.3.2 - Not accepting messages at this time ('421', [': (DYN:T1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dynt1.html', 'SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE']) []'
It seems as though they've tightened down their policies. We're pretty good at preventing spam with our IronPort anti-spam gateways and internal policies.
We've also subscribed to their FBL notification service. I'm surprised at the types of messages AOL customers consider as spam. Anything and everything: university admission acceptance notices; instructor class assignments; photos from friends; etc.
matthew black california state university, long beach
--matt@snark.net------------------------------------------<darwin>< Moral indignation is a technique to endow the idiot with dignity. - Marshall McLuhan
participants (10)
-
Derek J. Balling -
Erik Radius -
Jim Popovitch -
Joe Maimon -
Joseph S D Yao -
Joseph W. Breu -
Matt Ghali -
Matthew Black -
Simon Waters -
Suresh Ramasubramanian