Question IP Blacklist

[rmgetaway]

I apologize if I am posting this to the incorrect category.

I have found that my IPV4 address is blacklisted on multiple services. My ISP is Comcast residential, although I work from home, who ran me through the mill, for hours and days, only to finally tell me that they have nothing to do with this issue and cannot help with any resolution. I am a novice so not sure how to fix or get around this issue. Can anyone help with direction on how to get removed from the three blacklists I have found or how to get around them in order to be able to ensure my business emails are not blocked by recipients?

 

[AllanGH]

If this is a new ISP account for you, your best course of action would be to explain to Comcast that they issued you a static IP address that has been blacklisted by multiple sites that you must access for work. Then ask that they issue a different static IP address to your account.

If this is existing service that you have had for a few months, then there is likely something about your outbound traffic that has gotten you blacklisted, and you need to investigate the source of that (compromised equipment, family members being bad, etc.), and correct it. Otherwise, a new static IP address will do you no long term good.

[EDIT]
Looking at your username, it looks as though you have a business presence on the Internet. Hypothetically-speaking, if your work involves emailing advertisements to people who have not requested said advertisements, find another line of work; because the IP banning is more than appropriate.

 

[rmgetaway]

Thank you for your quick response! I have had this service for many years and returned the modem I had that was assigned an IP that I found to be blacklisted and received a new one, which then assigned a new IP, which is also blacklisted on several services. I am afraid that identifying the underlying issue is probably beyond my capabilities and not something I am going to be able to fix on my own.

Do you know of a professional service that might be able to assist. OR, could utilizing a VPN on this network overcome the blacklisting?

If this is a new ISP account for you, your best course of action would be to explain to Comcast that they issued you a static IP address that has been blacklisted by multiple sites that you must access for work. Then ask that they issue a different static IP address to your account.

If this is existing service that you have had for a few months, then there is likely something about your outbound traffic that has gotten you blacklisted, and you need to investigate the source of that (compromised equipment, family members being bad, etc.), and correct it. Otherwise, a new static IP address will do you no long term good.

 

[AllanGH]

If you are not an email advertiser (SPAMmer), and your work is legitimate and respectable, you can contact the services that have banned the IP address you have been issued, and explain to them the situation. They will outline the process that you need to follow to "un-ban" your IP address. Follow that process, and you'll be golden.

 

[USAFRet]

Comcast is mostly correct here. They have nothing to do with whatever servers have blacklisted your IP address, or why.

All they can do is possibly give you a different IP address.
But if your outbound traffic is why your current IP address is blacklisted, it will simply happen again.

So...why are you blacklisted?

 

[rmgetaway]

That is a great question! My business is a travel agency and we do send emails to our clients with opt-out links, but the customers we email are opt-in customers. I have not been notified of any complaints. Do you know of how I can either be removed from lists, if this is an easy process, or if I can use a VPN to ensure delivery of emails from my location? Is there any other alternatives? I greatly appreciate your valuable input and info!

Comcast is mostly correct here. They have nothing to do with whatever servers have blacklisted your IP address, or why.

All they can do is possibly give you a different IP address.
But if your outbound traffic is why your current IP address is blacklisted, it will simply happen again.

So...why are you blacklisted?

Comcast is mostly correct here. They have nothing to do with whatever servers have blacklisted your IP address, or why.

All they can do is possibly give you a different IP address.
But if your outbound traffic is why your current IP address is blacklisted, it will simply happen again.

So...why are you blacklisted?

 

[rmgetaway]

Thank you Allan, I also responded to another person with this: My business is a travel agency and we do send emails to our clients with opt-out links, but the customers we email are opt-in customers. I have not been notified of any complaints. Do you know of how I can either be removed from lists, if this is an easy process, or if I can use a VPN to ensure delivery of emails from my location? Is there any other alternatives? I greatly appreciate your valuable input and info!

If you are not an email advertiser (SPAMmer), and your work is legitimate and respectable, you can contact the services that have banned the IP address you have been issued, and explain to them the situation. They will outline the process that you need to follow to "un-ban" your IP address. Follow that process, and you'll be golden.

 

[AllanGH]

...overcome the blacklisting...

Please understand that, if you have been blacklisted because of your own actions (whether you see those actions as objectionable or not) attempting to overcome a blacklist and continue as before can be construed as "Data System Trespassing"--particularly if those systems are in the United States of North America.

"Data Systems Trespass" IS a chargeable offense that can carry penalties of prison time, and some pretty substantial fines. It depends on jurisdiction, and how pissed-off a particular sysadmin is about the trespass at issue.

With that said, I wouldn't recommend circumventing blacklisting in any way.

Again, your best (and, likely, only legal) strategy is to contact the agencies that have blacklisted you and follow the process that they outline for you to legally eliminate the blacklist that they have put in place.

 

[USAFRet]

Given the above info, it might be Comcast, or it might be other peoples providers.

Comcast might do it due to see a LOT of outgoing emails from a residential account.
100 (or 1000) outgoing emails all at once is easily seen as spam.

Other peoples services, because 'opt in' is not always opt in, and people might tag it as spam. Or their email client might tag it as spam.

 

[rmgetaway]

Thank you for that info, certainly not looking to do anything that is not legal! Sounds like I have to see what can be accomplished through Comcast and see what these agencies can do to help.

Please understand that, if you have been blacklisted because of your own actions (whether you see those actions as objectionable or not) attempting to overcome a blacklist and continue as before can be construed as "Data System Trespassing"--particularly if those systems are in the United States of North America.

"Data Systems Trespass" IS a chargeable offense that can carry penalties of prison time, and some pretty substantial fines. It depends on jurisdiction, and how pissed-off a particular sysadmin is about the trespass at issue.

With that said, I wouldn't recommend circumventing blacklisting in any way.

Again, your best (and, likely, only legal) strategy is to contact the agencies that have blacklisted you and follow the process that they outline for you to legally eliminate the blacklist that they have put in place.

 

[rmgetaway]

This being the possible case, would you suggest that changing my service to a business account through Comcast might help with this issue?

Given the above info, it might be Comcast, or it might be other peoples providers.

Comcast might do it due to see a LOT of outgoing emails from a residential account.
100 (or 1000) outgoing emails all at once is easily seen as spam.

Other peoples services, because 'opt in' is not always opt in, and people might tag it as spam. Or their email client might tag it as spam.

 

[rmgetaway]

Here is the report from Spamrats:
This is a Worst Offender Alert and this means that not only this IP address, but the whole class 'C' is also on the indicated SpamRats List. Usually this means the whole range has the same issue of naming conventions or no reverse DNS AND that many IP's from this Class C have been used in Spam Attacks, Dictionary attacks or other forms of attacks, as detected by Mail Servers in the Data Collection Grid. You will NOT be able to use the removal form to remove your IP Addresses. If you have recently been assigned the IP Addresses, or have changed what these IP Addresses are used for, you can use the contact form and ask for a reclassification, but you will have to provide full disclosure, including whois for the ip addresses, your affiliation with the company that owns them, and a description of what the IP's were previously used for, and what they will be used for, in order for a Spam Auditor to consider reclassification. Remember, the majority of the IP's in this space WERE detected as being involved in some form of attack or abusive behaviour, so you had better have a good reason to ask for removal, and you need to own or control the IP addresses, as evidenced by ARIN whois.

 

[COLGeek]

If you don't mind me asking, how did you learn you were blacklisted?

 

[rmgetaway]

An email i sent to a business associate, that has gone through before, was returned with a Spam alert which i then researched through my business server host and they responded that it is a local blacklist issue

If you don't mind me asking, how did you learn you were blacklisted?

 

[COLGeek]

Does Comcast provide the IP for your business server? Or, does it use some other ISP/service provider?

Not to pour salt into your wounds, but much of what was previously described looks just like the "spam" that many of these services track. I assume you do realize that.

 

[rmgetaway]

Yes, I am getting to that realization. We use Glow Host for our business server, Mail Gun for email validation.

Does Comcast provide the IP for your business server? Or, does it use some other ISP/service provider?

Not to pour salt into your wounds, but much of what was previously described looks just like the "spam" that many of these services track. I assume you do realize that.

 

[COLGeek]

The Glowhost IP space is likely the issue, not your Comcast IP address. The previous advice covers that.

I suppose you could move to another hosting service (and IP space), but your activity will eventually catch up to you there as well.

 

[rmgetaway]

Thank you for your input. I am wondering if switching my ISP service to Comcast Business account will help to rectify the problem now and moving forward. The three agencies, SORBS, SPAMRATS & SPAMHAUS, seem to imply that Comcast is the only one who can "request" the removal. Hoping that this might also provide the framework to allow for me to continue to operate my business as I have in the past. Two things that recently changed is that we DID switch our business servers from Rackspace to Glow Host AND started using YAMM Google Add-On to send targeted marketing emails to our database from our residential location. We send more mass emails through Mail Chimp to our entire database and do not have an issue with blacklisting there.

 

[AllanGH]

If I read all of this correctly, you need to re-think your business presence on the Internet.

Trying to run a business--particularly one that does mass emailing--from your residential cable, DSL, or fiber account is kind-of like trying to qualify for the Indy 500 while riding a tricycle. You're just going to hurt yourself.

You need a web host for a commercial website (personally, I would recommend BlueHost, because they are my hosting provider, but go with whoever you see as best for you), and you need to put together a comprehensive privacy policy which addresses your use of email in communication with your clientele. That way, your residential IP address is not banned for such use.

You need to accept the definition of SPAM as being anything the recipient did not specifically and expressly request to receive from you.

They write you an email and you respond. Nothing further.

They sign-up for a newsletter, and you send one out monthly, with an UNSUBSCRIBE process that is adhered-to religiously.

While you may actually posses the email address of somebody, you NEVER send them anything that they did not positively and assertively ask to receive from you.

That's it in a nutshell, and I will refrain from editorializing further on how militant I am about dealing with unsolicited emails, because I really don't pull my punches on the matter. Suffice it to say that I view advertising as an illegitimate use of my bandwidth.