IP address blacklisted.

robtherake

A check showed that my IP address is blacklisted in 3 places by companies who monitor for spam. You could have knocked me down with a feather!

I enter a lot of competitions; could this be the reason? The only other possibility is that my son (handicapped, with a very low mental age) spends time on sites offering free flash games, which tend to have a bad reputation - his laptop has been hijacked a couple of times, requiring a full reset (thankfully, covered under extended warranty!).

I've managed to get Spam Eating Monkey to remove the following:


SEM-BACKSCATTER Not listed
SEM-BLACK Not listed
SEM-FRESH Not listed
SEM-FRESH10 Not listed
SEM-FRESH15 Not listed
SEM-NETBLACK Not listed
SEM-URI Not listed
SEM-URIRED Not listed

I'll have to backtrack and look up the other two that were mentioned in case they aren't covered above, but how can I avoid this in the future?

Answers in English, please, I'm no techie!

DevCoder

Unless you have a static ip address (ie one that doesn't change every so often) then its unlikely you are the cause of the "blacklist".

To check this you can simply power cycle (i.e. off and on again) your router and see if the issue goes away, power cycling the router should force it to get another IP address from the exchange.

Who is your ISP?

robtherake

Virgin. Just goes to show how little I know - I assumed your given IP address was unique and static!
I'm in the middle of a ton of stuff right now, so it'll be later today before the router/hub can be powered down. Would you recommend that I do this once a week to keep on top of the issue?

Thanks for the prompt reply, BTW.:)

DevCoder

Just do it when you get the blacklisted/blocked ip message, power cycle the hub/router and it should allocate you a new one hopefully thats not on the "blacklist"

prowla

I used to get that some time back; evidently one or two of the ISP's addresses were on someone's blacklist.

kwikbreaks

krisdorey wrote: »

Just do it when you get the blacklisted/blocked ip message, power cycle the hub/router and it should allocate you a new one hopefully thats not on the "blacklist"

Although VM IPs are dynamic they are what is called "sticky" in that power cycling the router will not normally get you a different IP - only presenting the system with a different MAC (ie a different router or one with a spoofed MAC) will achieve that. IMO it's quite likely that the past infections are the reason for the IP being blocked as many viruses result in the connectuion being used to generate spam.

If you have a modem and router then you may find an option to change the MAC in the router GUI. If you have a VM Superhub the only way you'd be able to change it is by putting it in modem mode and connecing your own router.

robtherake

krisdorey wrote: »

Just do it when you get the blacklisted/blocked ip message, power cycle the hub/router and it should allocate you a new one hopefully thats not on the "blacklist"

I'm not getting messages - just read something that made me curious and followed it up.

prowla

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If you have a modem and router then you may find an option to change the MAC in the router GUI. If you have a VM Superhub the only way you'd be able to change it is by putting it in modem mode and connecing your own router.

That wouldn't work, would it? The IP address is assigned on the outward facing connection.

Moneymaker

robtherake wrote: »

his laptop has been hijacked a couple of times, requiring a full reset

Once you've fixed the current problem, get your son an Apple Mac. They are fairly easy to use and the chances of a "hijack" are so remote that you can virtually forget it. It will be worth every penny. (I bought my last two "used" off eBay as they tend to be reliable and last a long time.)

GingerBob_3

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Although VM IPs are dynamic they are what is called "sticky" in that power cycling the router will not normally get you a different IP - only presenting the system with a different MAC (ie a different router or one with a spoofed MAC) will achieve that. IMO it's quite likely that the past infections are the reason for the IP being blocked as many viruses result in the connectuion being used to generate spam.

If you have a modem and router then you may find an option to change the MAC in the router GUI. If you have a VM Superhub the only way you'd be able to change it is by putting it in modem mode and connecing your own router.

I'm on VM (not NTL) and it seems that if I re-boot the modem I nearly always (not quite every time) get a different IP address. Are they changing something?

rash161

robtherake wrote: »

A check showed that my IP address is blacklisted in 3 places by companies who monitor for spam. You could have knocked me down with a feather!

I enter a lot of competitions; could this be the reason? The only other possibility is that my son (handicapped, with a very low mental age) spends time on sites offering free flash games, which tend to have a bad reputation - his laptop has been hijacked a couple of times, requiring a full reset (thankfully, covered under extended warranty!).

I've managed to get Spam Eating Monkey to remove the following:


SEM-BACKSCATTER Not listed
SEM-BLACK Not listed
SEM-FRESH Not listed
SEM-FRESH10 Not listed
SEM-FRESH15 Not listed
SEM-NETBLACK Not listed
SEM-URI Not listed
SEM-URIRED Not listed

I'll have to backtrack and look up the other two that were mentioned in case they aren't covered above, but how can I avoid this in the future?

Answers in English, please, I'm no techie!

Where exactly did you get the idea that you're blacklisted on anything?

Blacklisted for what exactly? Sending email?

Virgin use some Spamhaus thing which blocks sending email via an unencrypted SMTP server.

Moneymaker wrote: »

Once you've fixed the current problem, get your son an Apple Mac. They are fairly easy to use and the chances of a "hijack" are so remote that you can virtually forget it. It will be worth every penny. (I bought my last two "used" off eBay as they tend to be reliable and last a long time.)

Erm...no. The problem is probably nothing to do with the PC, suggesting that someone buys Apple products which are massively overpriced and overrated is just stupid. Sure, Windows is bad but Apple is just as bad, use Linux or just stick with Windows.