postmaster.ausics.net Open in urlscan Pro
2403:5800:9200:c400::10  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Home     AUP     Privacy Policy     Webmail     Contact Us     Return Main





EMAIL POLICY

(REV: 9)

Sending Email to a network other than your own is considered a privilege, not a
right, so we perform several checks to see if you're worthy of letting in...

DNS Blacklist Checks
 * This uses the Domain Name System to test if the connecting host has been
   known to spam, operates an open, and/or exploitable proxy, is an open mail
   relay, contains abusive or problematic users.
   
   

 * Sometimes, when many hosts in the same address space have offended on a large
   scale, it is possible that a large proportion of, or the entire IP range
   belonging to the registrant is blocked.
   We make use of several popular DNSBL's, as well as our own.
   
   

 * NOTE: There are some "paid for" whitelist/reputation services, save your
   money, very few organisations in reality actually use them, they are in our
   opinion nothing more than a scam to make money - and they can be abused to
   send spam anyway.
   
   Trust is earned, not bought!
   
   




Residential IP Checks.
 * This checks via DNS to see if the connecting host is in a known "home user"
   (the old Dial Up) Listing.
   
   

 * In addition, there are checks on your hostname for such things that infer it
   is a home user, such as but not limited to, terms like cable, DSL, ppp, dial
   or DHCP etc,
   
   

 * In most cases, there is little need for a home user to send Email directly,
   by using your ISP's SMTP server you greatly reduce the risk of your mail
   being blocked.
   
   

 * 99% of spam is sent by spam bots, which are 99% comprised of compromised
   Microsoft Windows based PC's, this type of blocking eliminates the vast
   majority of spam entering the network.
   
   

 * We refined these rules many years ago, but like everything in the anti-spam
   world, it is, albeit very rare, a possible chance our rules may false trigger
   on a legitimate host, if you consider your blocking based on residential
   checking is in error, please contact us ASAP.
   
   

 * For Home users, this can be overcome by configuring your SMTP server's
   setting for smarthost/relayhost to that of your ISP's SMTP server, some
   examples of doing this are -
   
   Example...
   
   * Sendmail: add to your mc file      define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.your.isp')dnl
          (then remake sendmail.cf).
   * Postfix: add to main.cf      relayhost = smtp.your.isp      (then issue
     'postfix reload')
   * Microsoft Exchange: see in exchange system manager, connectors, new,
     SMTP-Connector, and add your smtp.your.isp
     
     
   
   

 * For Business users on a static IP running your own mail server, have your ISP
   move you out of the residential IP pool and change your rDNS to reflect your
   own domain.
   
   




Generic IP Checks
 * Mail servers tend to have specific names, that's if their admins are
   competent and not lazy, eg: mail.example.com or somename.example.com, etc.
   
   

 * Using generic DNS, such as 1-1-12-123.example.com is very rare for a real
   mail server, it makes you appear to the rest of the world as a home user and
   you will be treated as such.
   
   

 * If you are unable to have your ISP fix this, firstly consider changing to an
   ISP that gives a damn, or, if that's not practicable, follow the advice above
   to resolve.
   
   
   

RFC1912 Enforcement
 * Email Servers connecting to us must have both a forward and reverse DNS
   entry.
   
   

 * RFC 1912, Section 2.1, para 1 and 2 clearly states "Every Internet-reachable
   host should have a name" and "Make sure your PTR and A records match" and
   "For every IP address, there should be a matching PTR record in the
   in-addr.arpa domain"
   
   

 * It is also possible that your DNS Server has a broken configuration, or even
   not configured at all and returning SERVFAIL, in which case please contact
   your Internet helpdesk as your provider has much bigger issues to resolve.
   You can perform some tests from https://zonecheck.org to assist you and your
   provider resolving the problem.
   
   

 * In very rare instances, there may have been a problem with our DNS servers
   getting a timely answer from your DNS servers, if the above checks verify
   your DNS is configured OK, we suggest waiting a few minutes and retrying.
   
   

 * With IPv6 gaining momentum due to IPv4 address depletion, it is important
   that you allocate a static IPv6 address (non-auto conf'd) to your mail
   servers, and, ensure it too has matching AAAA (forward) and PTR (reverse)
   records.
   
   
   

Anti-Spoofing
 * Testing to make sure the presented IP address and Hostname are not spoofed or
   forged.
   
   
   

Valid Addresses
 * You need to use a valid and resolving Email Address in the "From" and "To"
   fields when sending Email in or out of the network.
   
   
   

Bad MX Checks
 * Tests for illegal content in DNS MX resource records.
   
   
   

Bad HELO/EHLO
 * Connecting machines must issue a HELO or EHLO statement.
   
   

 * They must also present this as a valid hostname in DNS..
   
   
   

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) Checks
 * This is a method where a network can specify and inform the world via DNS,
   what IP's or hosts are allowed to send Email using that domain name, and tell
   us how to deal with invalid connections, such as hard-fail (reject), or
   soft-fail (accept but warn).
   
   

 * We sign our domain and test SPFv1 as defined in RFC4008 on inbound
   connections.
   
   

 * We sign our domain with SPFv2 as defined in RFC4006, but do not conduct tests
   with it, as SPFv2 can be very problematic and is deprecated..
   
   
   

Senders of Backscatter
 * This occurs when you send an Email to a network where the address actually
   does not exist, but the receiving network accepts the Email and then when the
   two mail servers finish communicating, checks to see if the user exists, and
   upon finding no user, then generates a brand new reject message back to the
   sender saying so.
   
   

 * This is very wrong, the rejection should be done at the initial connection to
   the recipients server from the senders server, rejecting at the "Mail From"
   stage where the look up is done (on compliant mail servers) and does not have
   to generate a brand new DSN (Delivery Status Notification) message to the
   sender with a bounce message.
   
   

 * This is a serious problem when addresses are forged and is exploited by
   spammers all of the time. Networks generating useless bounce/DSN messages,
   such as Google Groups, and ill-configured Qmail and Microsoft Mail Servers
   are very typical of this problem, there are also some ill-configured
   anti-virus and anti-spam systems that do the same, those should be avoided at
   all costs!
   
   
   

Internal Blacklist (non-DNSBL)
 * The blocking of IP's, hosts, domains, and in some cases full netblocks, and
   in rare cases entire TLD's and associated netblocks may occur if-
   * Multiple hack/script attacks are attempted to be carried out against this
     network.
   * Multiple hosts/IP's are found to be source of phishing scams.
   * We deem traffic from host/IP should never be accepted for activities being
     detrimental to our services.
     We do not provide a public list of permanently blocked hosts, but local
     users may request if a specific hostmark is blocked.
   
   
   

Mailing/Mail-out lists
 * Lists that are not full "opt-in" lists will be blocked when brought to our
   attention, regardless of if they have a working opt-out or not.
   
   

 * Lists that do not honor or offer unsubscribe options will also be blocked if
   brought to our attention by our members.
   
   
   

Email Virus Scanning
 * All inbound and non authenticated outbound messages are checked by multiple
   Anti-virus Scanners - their definition databases are updated hourly.
   
   

 * Detected virus and malware messages are silently discarded.
   
   
   

Anti-Spam Checks
 * All inbound and non authenticated outbound messages are checked for spam.
   
   

 * Mail exempt under the Australian Spam Act, such as political or religious
   advertising, is not exempt from our spam policies, if someone did not
   directly and manually subscribe to you, then it is spam, and it will be
   treated accordingly
   
   

 * Special header and body checking rules that detect and reject on junk.
   
   

 * The spam scores are based on keywords, groups of keywords, fixed rules,
   automatically learned rules, as well as various database checks for URL's
   contained within messages that are suspected malicious sites.
   
   

 * Low scored, or suspected spam or malware, has the Subject modified to
   [**SPAM**] with the original message attached to a warning notice. This means
   the recipient usually must take extra steps to view the suspect message,
   before opening them, please read the spam warning message in detail for
   further information as to why it was classified as spam. Click here for an
   example.
   
   

 * Spam messages also have hidden headers added to the message which includes
   the total score, the matched rules and their individual scores, as well as a
   X-Spam flag which allows you to set up your personal junk mail filter in your
   local mail client if you so wish.
   
   Example...
   
   X-Spam-Flag: YES
   X-Spam-Score: 6.4
   X-Spam-Level: ******
   X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=6.4
   
   

 * High Scored spam is silently discarded. This will certainly be spam or
   malware. Messages wont be quarantined, they are outright deleted with no
   delivery to user.
   
   

 * Australians should be mindful we have The Spam Act 2003 (cth), actively
   enforced by the ACMA.
   
   

 * We have a zero tolerance with spam, we may forward all Australian based or
   related spammers on to the automated ACMA submission system for investigation
   and prosecution.
   
   

 * International senders of spam should be mindful that now days many countries
   also now have anti-spam laws and we may forward to your ISP and if
   applicable, your local LEA.
   
   

 * Although in some countries anti-spam laws may exclude your type of message
   based on your organisations type (charity, political, religious, etc) from
   being labeled as spam, you are not afforded that protection here.
   
   




Newly Registered Domains
 * Newly registered domains will automatically have a spam score set to
   moderate, this reduces over time and becomes neutral after 14 days. The
   reason for this is that many spammers register a domain, spam everyone a few
   days later, and are gone after a week or so.
   
   
   

Phishing Checks
 * This test attempts to determine if a link in an Email is genuine or
   fraudulent, phishing is very common for those involved in identity theft and
   financial scams.
   
   

 * This test also checks against several databases of known phishing sites URLs.
   
   

 * Because false positives are likely, the messages are marked as spam, rather
   than blocked.
   
   
   

Email Bad File Type Checks
 * Checks attachments against a list of administratively prohibited file types.
   
   

 * This means for example, but not limited to .com or .bat files, to avoid this
   limit, you can zip up the file, this action is taken to help windows users
   not accidentally run a Trojan or any other form of malicious script or
   program.
   
   

 * These tests are not based on filename, for example, a trojan.dll file may be
   called readme.txt, the tests will still see this as a .dll file and reject.
   
   
   


Important: You should never solely rely on your Email Service Provider to
protect you from spam, fraudulent phishing scams, malware, viruses, or other
malicious content, you also need to take all necessary steps and precautions to
protect yourself from these nasties, although our anti-virus definitions are
updated hourly, in most cases, it is near impossible to defend against 0 day (or
just released) viruses and malware.


Members who believe their senders are consistently being incorrectly tagged as
spam, should contact support.




1:09 PM - Saturday August 28, 2021 (UTC +10)
Copyright © Noel Butler 2021. All Rights Reserved.