SMTP server on SpamCop list


tcat

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Why do Hawkhost servers end up on SpamCop now and then?  This is my biggest gripe with Hawkhost, mail stops getting delivered for a day or two at a time.

http://spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblock&ip=74.86.66.194

http://www.senderbase.org/lookup?search_string=74.86.66.194

Support is very slow to respond.

 

Spam also seemed to have moved from Cpanel filtering, directly to individual accounts a month or two ago ("account level filters" not working).  Not real happy with that.

 

Other than that, very happy with Hawkhost reliability.  Been with them several years.

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Tcat, I'd suggest doing a little detective work, figuring out those that are Spamming on your IP and doing what you legally can to make life miserable :-/  likely this is what's going on.  Hawkhost can play "Whack A Mole" with the spammers one at a time, but more will slip through every now and again.

 

Either that or get a dedicated IP or VPS, at least you'll be in control that way.

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Why do Hawkhost servers end up on SpamCop now and then?  This is my biggest gripe with Hawkhost, mail stops getting delivered for a day or two at a time.

http://spamcop.net/w3m?action=checkblock&ip=74.86.66.194

http://www.senderbase.org/lookup?search_string=74.86.66.194

Support is very slow to respond.

Spam is a difficult nut to crack. We've added new tools and filtering to help deal with it but unfortunately as tekiegreg mentioned it can be a bit of a whack a mole situation still. In this specific case I believe the delisting process has already started. All it unfortunately took was one user to be compromised and get through our filtering. By the time we received any complaints from our feedback loops it was already too late. The server went from a good reputation to a poor one in just a few hours

We're testing some new methods and tools with regards to email. We're hoping to start implementing them at some point.

Spam also seemed to have moved from Cpanel filtering, directly to individual accounts a month or two ago ("account level filters" not working). Not real happy with that.

This sounds like a bug as the filtering should still work. If you have a ticket open please provide me with the ticket number. If there isn't one feel free to open one and pm me the ticket ID.

Other than that, very happy with Hawkhost reliability. Been with them several years.

Glad you're happy and hopefully we can resolve these issues. We're always trying to improve email which seems to be one of the more difficult items to deal with.

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Best things you can probably do from a server end revolve around throttling heavy emailing (trying to send out 1000 emails a minute?  flag for observation).  Or Bayesian outgoing email filtering (basically if it smells like spam, flag as well).  Not an easy fight...

 

Another thing you can do as the user (Tcat), is make sure your domainkeys signature (DKIM) is in place, and you have your SPF information setup as well.  These whitelist you a bit and the receiving end may still trust you despite being in SpamCop.

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Best things you can probably do from a server end revolve around throttling heavy emailing (trying to send out 1000 emails a minute?  flag for observation).  Or Bayesian outgoing email filtering (basically if it smells like spam, flag as well).  Not an easy fight...

This can be pretty intensive so it's a fine line. The next issue is a lot of the spam we see can pass a spamassassin scan with a very low score. We would then most likely need to maintain a set of custom scanner rules to actually drop the spam emails. Combine these two issues and that is why we're evaluating a more robust long term solution. It will allow us when there are blocks to quickly move mailing around. It will also allow us to much easier maintain a good reputation on mailing IP's.

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I know, just give everyone a dedicated IP, at least a blackholed IP Address is isolated for the time being and none of the other users are affected.  IP Shortage be damned!!!

 

(Either that or can't people like Spamcop realize that good guys and bad guys can hang out on the same IP already and try to re-work things, jeez)

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