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If you found yourself suddenly couldn’t send out emails from Outlook or any of your email clients today, don’t panic. Thanks to Tmnet for blocking port 25 for all out going emails.

Blocked

What is ridiculous is Tmnet did this without any prior notice. I receive no notification from them other than lots of junk mails although I have been using Tmnet dial-up and Streamyx for so many years… My friend however did receive an email notification from them today. Yes, he received it today only when the block is in effect! If my friend didn’t forward the email he received from Tmnet, I would for sure have called up my web hosting company and started an argument. Lucky I didn’t do that and lucky my friend forwarded the notice from Tmnet to me!

Following is an excerpt from the email:

… many anti-spam organizations have blacklisted a large number of IP addresses from TM’s network. Due to this many customers have been unable to send emails from their mail server to companies who might be using database from the abovementioned anti-spam organizations.

These spamming activities by a small group have affected a large number of our customers, regardless of the nature of their Internet usage.

Therefore, TM is taking immediate action to address this issue. Effective 3 December 2007, TM will block OUTBOUND Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) traffic or port 25 for all out going e-mails from dynamic IP addresses. Only Outbound SMTP traffic from smtp.streamyx.com and smtp.tm.net.my will be allowed. …

With this implementation, we will not be able to send out emails if our dynamic IP address falls within the affected IP address range. We are thus forced to use Tmnet’s open relay server, at least until our web hosting provider configures an alternative SMTP port.

To use the open relay server, in Outlook, open up the Email account settings window. Change “Outgoing mail server (SMTP)” to smtp-proxy.tm.net.my.

SMTP proxy

Click on “More Settings”. Navigate to Outgoing Server. Uncheck “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”. Click OK, then Next, and then Finish.

SMTP server

Now, I am totally frustrated why would Tmnet take such a drastic measure in combating spam. Instead of blocking port 25 which is a standard SMTP port around the whole world, they should be more proactive in finding out who are the spammers and block their Streamyx account. I am not an expert in this area but I am sure there are ways to scan where are the spamming traffic coming from and trace to their usernames… and then make the spammers pay rather than make all Streamyx users suffer!

What do you have to say about this move by Tmnet? Is it a good move to combat spamming/spammers?

Now, if only there are more reliable broadband alternatives out there. What about Maxis broadband, iZZi, and perhaps Celcom?

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