Bouncing mail

[#1]

Hello Plusnet
I have a couple of contacts in France whose email addresses end in @free.fr. For some reason, in the last few months, emails that I sent them have bounced back,  although as this can take weeks, I have only discovered  the problem fairly recently. It has led me to some tricky situations where I have almost missed a deadline, or a friend thought I was not talking to him anymore...
From what I understand, it is something to do with Plusnet having too many errors... Unfortunately, I can't find a deleted bounced email in my trash to copy and paste the details.
Anything you can do about this?
Cheers!

[#2]

Hi there,
We appear to have been blacklisted by the postmaster address for that domain, due to a large amount of backscatter. We're talking to them, and trying to resolve this. I'll see if I can get an update for you.

[#3]

We're hoping to get this fix out today.

[#4]

Plusnet blacklisted! How offensive of Free!
Many thanks Mand for dealing with this, as at the moment I can only contact them from my office, and I usually have no time to write emails when I'm at work...
All best wishes  

[#5]

The problem seems to be the amount of 'backscatter' that's originating from our relay servers. Free don't like this and have therefore blacklisted us.
After a bit of investigation it's transpires that some of our mail server config's gone a bit wayward and is compounding the problem. We've a fix scheduled for this afternoon (ref: 113518) so hopefully we'll be off the blacklists before too long...

[#6]

I've rolled a fix for this problem today which seems to be working nicely in reducing backscatter originating from our servers. I've been liaising with the free.fr postmaster and they have told me that they have reset their statistics counters (tracking the number of errors) for our servers and are currently monitoring. This change should mean that we stay off their blacklists going forward, I'll post to this thread once I've received their feedback following the changes.
Matt (Networks)

[#7]

Can an expert give a brief explanation of server backscatter including what causes it and why

[#8]

Thanks for this! Let me know when the problem is resolved and I can do a test with one of my @free.fr friends.
And yes, it would be interesting to know what "backscatter" is. First time I come across that word! 

[#9]

Google tells you all  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_%28e-mail%29

Quote

Backscatter (also known as outscatter, misdirected bounces, blowback or collateral spam) is a side-effect of e-mail spam, viruses and worms, where e-mail servers receiving spam and other mail send bounce messages to an innocent party. This occurs because the original message's envelope sender is forged to contain the often unprotected e-mail address of the victim. A very large proportion of such e-mail is sent with a forged From: header, matching the envelope sender. Since these messages were not solicited by the recipients, are substantially similar to each other, and are delivered in bulk quantities, they qualify as unsolicited bulk e-mail or spam. As such, systems that generate e-mail backscatter can end up being listed on various DNSBLs and be in violation of internet service providers' Terms of Service.

[#10]

I've not yet received feedback from the free.fr postmaster however I've just checked the blacklist and we are NOT currently listed. I'll update the thread again once I've received the feedback but for now, mail to domains using free.fr MX records should go through fine.
Matt (Networks)

[#11]

@pierre
That doesn't answer the question.
AFAIK the spam filtering (which creates bounces) is done by Ironport not the Plusnet servers

[#12]

A lot of it is done by mis-configured company mail servers.

[#13]

Quote from: Oldjim

@pierre That doesn't answer the question. AFAIK the spam filtering (which creates bounces) is done by Ironport not the Plusnet servers

the question was what is back scatter, why bring in Ironport

[#14]

because it was back scatter from the Plusnet servers and the function of Ironport is to sit between the servers and the outside world blocking spam etc. so that the Plusnet servers shouldn't be seeing those emails at all

[#15]

Quote from: buck

I've not yet received feedback from the free.fr postmaster however I've just checked the blacklist and we are NOT currently listed. I'll update the thread again once I've received the feedback but for now, mail to domains using free.fr MX records should go through fine. Matt (Networks)

Yes, thanks. Just emailed a friend and he responded within a few minutes. Don't know what "MX records" are but mail is going through fine!