Steve, here is the reply from our email syadmin,
The moral of the story is probably to use your ISPs SMTP server if at all possible or be very sure that the IP number of your box is
"as clean as the driven snow"
As your IP number is or was one of the Ihug dialup ones you probably cannot be sure so it is probably best to use their SMTP server.
I will also copy this to the list as a cautionary tale.
<sysadmin reply> Yes. Steve Holdoway attempted to make an smtp connection to us. The University of Canterbury has a subscription to the Mail Abuse Prevention System Realtime Blackhole List (RBL-PLUS). Our smtp gateway used the ip address the smtp connection was coming from (which looks like Steve's computer) to see if it matched any blackhole entry. This is what it found:
---------------------------------------------------------------- The IP address 210.55.220.207 does not appear on the MAPS RBL. However, it does appear on other lists:
List Entry DUL 210.55.220.0/23 ----------------------------------------------------------------
You can see exactly the same information yourself by going to:
http://www.mail-abuse.com/support/lookup.html and type in the address 210.55.220.207
The DUL list refers to the Dialup Users List and refers to users who instead of using their ISP mail gateway to send outgoing mail make a direct smtp connection to the destination mail server. A favourite trick of spammers. Mail Abuse Prevention Systems are a conservative blackhole list. They only blacklist ip addresses which from reported and verified complaints. It suggests to me that some address in the 210.55.220.0/23 range have made a nuisance of themselves in the past.
</sysadmin reply>
-- Zane Gilmore, Analyst / Programmer Information Services Section, Information Technology Dept, University of Canterbury - Te Whare Waananga o Waitaha Private Bag 4800, Christchurch New Zealand Phone +64-3-364 2987 extn 7895
