On Fri, 11 Dec 1998 13:40:07 EST, you said: > Last Saturday, the Warsaw server (plearn.edu.pl) apparently sent a SPAM > message with the result that this address has been put on the "Realtime > Black List " It has the effect that the PLEARN site is not pingable. That's a crock. Blame the nice people at Teleglobe.net. > Has anyone heard of this - is it an official function or is this some kind > of email crime or mischief? Semi-official function, being misused. > You can appreciate that there is grave concern at the moment through the > gruesome murders of the British telecommunications engineers who were trying > to restore telecommunications for Chechnya. > > I don't know if the RBL is a genuine system function or something else. The *real* RBL is merely a list of sites that have spam problems. The *INTENT* is that sites can *on their own* refuse to accept mail from said sites. Sites that do not use the RBL are able to communicate with the site. However, I think it's a gross abuse to shut off ALL IP connectivity to such a site, which is what the people at teleglobe.net are doing. > If I check tracert 148.81.18.1 a message comes up pointing to the RBL > website - and tracking this ipnumeric address leads to the offending > message. > > I complained to the "volunteers" who seem to run this operation who > responded that this address will remain blocked until the security problem > has been dealt with. I suspect that the people at vix.com don't realize that a full IP filter block is being used, and that they thought it was mail-blocking only. traceroute 148.81.18.1 1 isb-7507-1.a1-0.3.cns.vt.edu (128.173.12.1) 10 ms 6 ms 4 ms 2 isb-7507-2.a1-0.1.cns.vt.edu (128.173.100.8) 6 ms 3 ms 3 ms 3 sprint-7507.a1-0.1.networkvirginia.net (192.70.138.193) 17 ms 9 ms 10 ms 4 sl-gw1-dc-12-0-T3.sprintlink.net (144.228.77.225) 30 ms 28 ms 26 ms 5 sl-bb1-dc-11-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.228.20.1) 137 ms 131 ms 134 ms 6 sl-bb10-rly-0-3.sprintlink.net (144.232.7.129) 121 ms 135 ms 142 ms 7 sl-bb11-pen-7-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.154) 131 ms 134 ms 131 ms 8 sl-gw16-pen-0-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.5.94) 135 ms 134 ms 133 ms 9 sl-teleglob-3-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.228.164.62) 129 ms 132 ms 137 ms 10 That.address.is.on.the.rbl.see.http.maps.vix.com (207.45.201.42) 135 ms 164 ms 169 ms 11 * * * -- Valdis Kletnieks Computer Systems Senior Engineer Virginia Tech