Spam block leaves clients in the dark
A technical measure taken by Hong Kong's largest Internet service provider (ISP) Netvigator to combat spam has left customers baffled, but the company maintains the action is consistent with methods used by large overseas providers such as MSN and Earthlink.
The method under question is the blocking of outgoing mail using the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) and port 25. According to Jimmy Lam, Webmaster at broadband enthusiast site hkultra
line.com, users of second-party e-mail SMTP services such as Yahoo! have been unable to send messages and have complained to the Office of the Telecommunication Authority.
Telecommunications operator Pacific Century Cyberworks, Netvigator's parent, countered that outside SMTP, mail services could still be used if the outgoing mailbox was set to mail.netvigator.com.
There is disagreement on when the blocking was implemented and if proper notification was given to customers. Mr Lam said port 25 blocking was instituted for consumer broadband customers several months ago, while Netvigator's spokeswoman said blocking started on May 27. A notice on the blocking, dated June 7, has been posted on Netvigator's Web site.
Business broadband customers have not been affected and Netvigator's comments address broadband only, a service for which Netvigator has more than 340,000 customers.
Unsolicited e-mail has become a problem for Internet users and administrators in the past year, with the volume increasing and the payloads of attached e-mail often becoming more damaging to computers and networks. The Internet community earlier this year singled out Asia as one of the major sources of spam coming through ISP servers configured to be able to forward outgoing mail, using protocols such as SMTP.
PCCW undertook port 25 blocking 'in view of the growing problem of Internet mail spam and e-mail viruses in the past months, which affects our customers and the entire Internet network community'. There is indication from Netvigator's technical support that PCCW intends to block port 80 as well, although PCCW has not confirmed this.
