Telekom Malaysia Attempts To Foil Spammers

Telekom Malaysia (TM) has blocked all outbound emails sent through my mail server. According to a circular from TM to TMNet and Streamyx subscribers yesterday, this was done to thwart spammers who have caused many of TM’s IP addresses being blacklisted by anti-spam organisations. Apart from foiling spammers TM has also effectively inconvenienced TMNet and Streamyx subscribers who send out emails through our own mail servers.

I just changed the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) from my email server to smtp.tm.net.my and successfully sent out a few test emails to myself while maintaining my current email address on the header. This method only works if one has an active TMNet or Streamyx password and ID. This is not a long term solution though. I still prefer all outbound emails to originate from my mail server. The other option is to send all my emails through TM Net’s open relay proxy server. However, routing all outbound emails through the open relay proxy server poses security risks. Jeff Ooi’s Screenshots has more on this issue.

Author: Peter Tan

Peter Gabriel Tan. Penangite residing in the Klang Valley. Blissfully married to Wuan. A LaSallian through and through. Slave to three cats. Wheelchair user since 1984. End-stage renal disease since 2017. Principal Facilitator at Peter Tan Training specialising in Disability Equality Training. Former columnist of Breaking Barriers with The Borneo Post. This blog chronicles my life, thoughts and opinions. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

2 thoughts on “Telekom Malaysia Attempts To Foil Spammers”

  1. This is what Exabytes sent me :-

    Please be informed that affective 3rd Dec 2007, Telekom Malaysia Berhad had blocked 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, Streamyx customers who have their own mail server (Example: mail.YourDomain.com) will not be able to send out e-mails using email program.

    Want me to forward the email to you?

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