Kind of OT - Error when forwarding spam to Centurylink

[Chris]

On Wed, 2019-08-21 at 09:15 -0500, Tommy Trussell wrote:
> 
> 
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 4:10 PM Chris <chris.pollock1948 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > This is probably pretty OT but I have to ask anyway just because
> > the
> > idiots at my ISP think the problem is because I'm running Linux and
> > Evolution. Every time I try to forward a spam to their 
> > spam at centurylink.net address I get the attached screenshot. I ran
> > this
> > Evolution debug command - CAMEL_DEBUG=smtp evolution >& embarq.txt
> > and
> > the last line of the output reads to me that the issue is that
> > their
> > server thinks the spam I'm trying to report is spam, of course it
> > is.
> > 
> > [SMTP] Connecting to server smtp.embarqmail.com:25 from account 
> > 1414156398.2275.3 at localhost
> > [SMTP] received: 220 smtp.centurylink.net ESMTP
> 
> I agree that it's doubtful that the problem is because you're using
> linux, however "good luck" getting them to acknowledge that.
> 
> One thing that jumps right out -- does CenturyLink not offer a secure
> SMTP connection? All of the email ISPs I have used for ... for more
> than ten years ... restrict the use of port 25 and insecure SMTP,
> even from within their own networks. Years ago it was a big issue
> because malware would camp out on folks' PCs and spew spam via
> whatever SMTP server they could find.
> 
> However I would think that issue might prevent you from sending ANY
> email via your CenturyLink account.
> 
> Look in your setup information (documentation at CenturyLink) for
> encrypted SMTP connections and see if they offer any "three digit"
> port numbers instead of 25. Looking through my various ISPs I see
> port 465 or 587 and the specific secure protocol, such as SSL, TLS,
> STARTTLS, and the authentication method their server expects.
> 
> You might also try a different email client such as Thunderbird,
> which in recent years has become pretty good at negotiating the IMAP
> and SMTP connections with the server without much intervention. It's
> been years since I've used Evolution so I don't have recent
> experience with it.
> 
Tried port 587, same result

[SMTP] Sending with server smtp.embarqmail.com:587 from account 
1414156398.2275.3 at localhost
[SMTP] sending: MAIL FROM:<cpollock at embarqmail.com> BODY=8BITMIME
[SMTP] received: 250 SPF validation soft failure
[SMTP] sending: RCPT TO:<spam at centurylink.net>
[SMTP] received: 250 2.1.5 Accepted for you
[SMTP] sending: DATA
[SMTP] received: 354 3.0.0 continue.  finished with "\r\n.\r\n"
[SMTP] sending: \r\n.\r\n
[SMTP] received: 554 5.7.1 [P4] Message blocked due to spam content in
the message.

After posting the debug info I got a reply back that said they were passing
this on to the appropriate teams whoever that is. Guess I'll just wait
and see for a day or so then start bugging them again. I'll see if I can get 
Thunderbird setup and give it a try.

-- 
Chris
31.11972; -97.90167 (Elev. 1092 ft)
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Description:	Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS, kernel 5.0.0-25-generic