Email and AOL
Malcolm S. Muir
As many customers will be aware, some ISPs operate email "blocklists" as
a part of their "anti-spam" measures. These blocklists prevent selected
Internet sites from sending email to that ISP's customers.
One such scheme uses a list of "end user" IP addresses on the basis that
such users will only be sending legitimate email via their own ISP's
"smarthost" email server. The idea is that the blocklist will be able to
block non-legitimate email because it arrives directly. In particular it
should block "spam" sent via insecure systems or virus/worm infections.
We have recently been in discussion with AOL who are, at a future
date, planning to implement just such a scheme as they have found,
working with many ISPs around the world, that it significantly impacts
their incoming spam volumes.
AOL will be adding ALL of the Demon customer IP address space to their
blocklist. This will include all dialup customers, all ADSL customers,
all leased line customers and all server hosting customers.
Please Note:
This change by AOL will not affect the majority of Demon
customers. Customers who use Turnpike, Outlook, Outlook Express
and similar packages will be sending their email via the Demon
smarthosts (post.demon.co.uk) and such email will not be affected
by these changes at AOL in any way.
However, AOL is able to accommodate Demon customers who operate their
own email systems, bypassing the Demon "smarthost", provided of course
that they are not sending any unsolicited commercial email!
The IP addresses of these systems will be communicated to AOL as a
"whitelist" of permitted addresses, so that their postmaster team can
ensure continued direct access to the AOL mail systems.
If you have configured your email systems such that you send email
directly to the listed MX hosts for a destination you will find that
this fails in future when sending email to AOL. Your options will be
to reconfigure your email system so that email for AOL customers is
sent via the Demon smarthosts or, alternatively, you will need to ask
to be added to the AOL whitelist.
If you are affected by this change, and only if you are affected, and if
you wish to be added to the AOL whitelist, then send an email to
<whit...@demon.net> with the following details:
* Your Demon hostname (and/or domain name used)
* The IP address from which you will be sending email.
Please don't send any other correspondence to this address
or include other questions with your email.
We will collate this information and liaise with AOL.
We will also retain this information for use with any other ISP that
implements a similar scheme, and we may in future publish these
addresses for general use. However, we will not be disclosing them to
anyone other than AOL without making a further announcement first.
Malcolm Muir
Demon Internet
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Malcolm S. Muir Demon Internet Ltd.
Sunderland 322 Regents Park Road
England London N3 2QQ
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