Security measures to prevent spam have hindered some customers from sending e-mails, writes John Collins

SOME CUSTOMERS of Eircom's internet service are unable to send e-mail when travelling abroad due to security measures that have been put in place to prevent the spread of spam e-mail.

Eircom uses a blacklist of internet addresses provided by the Spamhaus Project which have been tracked as sending spam in the past. This does not cause any problem for customers sending e-mail in the Republic when they connect to the Eircom.net mail servers across Eircom's own network. But in recent months enhancements to Eircom's anti-spam defences mean that customers connecting using other networks while abroad are having their mail rejected for being potential spam.

In a statement Eircom acknowledged the issue but said it was affecting a very small number of customers, with very few reported issues.

"Eircom, like all other internet service providers (ISPs), has seen a huge increase in spam over the last year and in particular we have had to deal with a number of targeted attacks against our e-mail servers," the company statement said. "Similar to other ISPs Eircom has been updating and strengthening our anti-spam defences and has an ongoing programme looking at additional defences."

One reader who contacted The Irish Times this week is unable to send e-mail using her Eircom.net address while working in New York.

"I would like to continue to use my Eircom e-mail address as it is on my stationery/business cards and is my contact address with banks etc," she said. "But I spend time in the US regularly and the situation is ridiculous."

She said she had been advised that "Eircom's spam rating" had been downgraded by Spamhaus but Steve Linford from the Geneva-based company denied this.

"Spamhaus is certainly not blocking Eircom - we'd be mad to as they're the largest Irish ISP," said Linford.

He described the issue as a "minor local technical issue" which is "affecting some Eircom customers abroad" but his understanding is that the ISP is working to fix the problem.

However, Justin Mason, the Dublin-based developer of the open source SpamAssassin software, has criticised Eircom for the way it is implementing its security.

"Eircom should be giving a free pass to authenticated mail connections from their own customers, identified as such using SMTP AUTH, but it seems they're not set up to do that - and that's the problem," said Mason.

Eircom said it is providing technical workarounds for the issue and has provided a detected e-mail address, remotesenders@eircom.net, for customers experiencing difficulties.