[Discuss] Real internet provider in Victoria?

[Darren Duncan]

On 2017-11-02 3:20 PM, Daniel AJ Sokolov wrote:
> I read that Shaw is blocking ports 25 and 80. What about other ports?

Hmm, you raise a good point.

A long time ago Shaw plus many other ISPs started blocking their subscribers 
from accessing port 25 on machines outside the network, in an effort to cut down 
on spam or hacking.

My long-time web/email host Victoria-based BareMetal has had this notice on the 
front page of their website for years:

"Note: Many of the local ISPS are blocking connections to SMTP servers outside 
of their network. If this affects you (e.g. you're having trouble sending mail), 
you may need to change your email client to use the MSA port (587) instead of 
the SMTP port. See http://baremetal.com/support/email_msa.html for more details."

As such, I have my email clients (Thunderbird) configured to workaround the 
block, and things have been fine for years.  Note that BareMetal only allows 
authenticated computers to send email through it, so they secure themselves 
against being spam relays.

Alternately, one can use port 25 to talk to the email relays Shaw themselves 
provide, but so far I generally haven't done that.

As for blocking port 80, I'd never heard of that, and it wouldn't make sense, as 
it means we can't access any HTTP servers.

-- Darren Duncan