Re: [CH] Comcast

Jim Graham (spooky130@cox.net)
Sat, 28 Jun 2008 23:40:37 -0500 

On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 08:47:30PM -0700, Scott Peterson wrote:
> The people who run are a bunch of bastards out to make money to
> whitelist  they block.  Once you get on their list someone from the ISP
> has to contact them to get out and they really want you to pay as well.

[....]

> Best thing you can do is follow the advice and 1) fill out the form 

No, that's never (well, usually never) true.  There are (usually)
options, and this case is no exception.  There are ways to get by
Comcast, if you don't mind changing your e-mail around a bit....  For
Unix users, it's very easy.  For Windows users, well, I can't say for
sure on some of these, because I don't use M$ for e-mail except when
I'm in the hospital (and then it's webmail ... and that assumes that
I commented out the two cron jobs that fetch mail---one from Cox's POP3
server, and one from Yahoo via FetchYahoo...if I forget to shut those
cron jobs down before going to the hospital, I'll never see it until I
get home...which may be a week or two later at times).

NOTE:  I'm assuming that the problem is receiving mail *FROM* this list,
not sending *TO* the list.  If this is wrong, it doesn't eliminate the
options below, but it could make them more complicated....

Here are some options that you can go with immediately (while working
with your ISP, if it's even worth the effort to you, to get things
fixed):

1) Get a Yahoo Mail account.  Yeah, I know...webmail crap.  But it
   doesn't have to be (at least, for Unix users, and maybe for M$
   users, too).  FetchYahoo (requires PERL), which is found at
   http://fetchyahoo.sourceforge.net, makes Yahoo mail look like a
   POP3 server---just configure cron (or whatever your scheduler is)
   to check it...but not too often, or Yahoo might break it for a
   while).  ;-}

   For M$ users, there's also YahooPOPs (see FetchYahoo page for links
   to this and other similar utils).

   Here's the rub...you have to make sure that your out-going e-mail
   shows up as being from your Yahoo address.  They don't have an
   SMTP server (at least, not a freely-available one) that I know of,
   so you have to use your ISP's (or, if all else fails, you can always
   send from Yahoo Mail online, using your web browser ... just remember
   to configure it for plain text for the list).

   Sadly, since M$ doesn't use the standard MTA-->MDA-->MUA [1] (for
   incoming e-mail) and the reverse for outgoing e-mail, but instead
   chooses to have one program try to do it all, I can't tell you how
   to configure your system to handle this for your MUA

2) Use one of the free sites that offers a POP3 server (and again, you
   will need to make sure your sending address matches the address you
   chose on that server).  One of these sites that I know about is
   atspace.com (a web-hosting service that also gives you a POP3
   account on their POP3 server).  Before one of my JStrack users donated
   the jstrack.org domain/site/space to me, my cancer log pages were on
   atspace.com.  Once you figure out where everything is, and bookmark it
   all, it's pretty easy...even if your brain is being fscked with by
   chemotherapy, brain surgery, and radiation therapy.  They have a
   "site manager" type web-based application that makes things simpler.

3) Use another free webmail-based e-mail account (there are others, but
   I've never needed to look beyond what I've already listed, so I don't
   have the info downloaded to my brain yet.

> If you know people on this list who aren't getting these messages 
> please forward, it may help.

Same goes for this message....

HTH.

Later,
   --jim

[1] MTA == Mail Transport Agent - the program that talks to other systems
    MDA == Mail Delivery Agent - the program that talks to the MTA and to
           your incoming e-mail file(s).
    MUA == Mail User Agent - the program the users works with...talks to
           the local MTA to send mail...otherwise deals with files.

-- 
73 DE N5IAL (/4)        | DMR: So fsck was originally called
spooky130@cox.net       |      something else.
< Running FreeBSD 6.1 > | Q:   What was it called?
ICBM / Hurricane:       | DMR: Well, the second letter was different.
   30.39735N 86.60439W  |    -- Dennis M. Ritchie, Usenix, June 1998.