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Written by Tony Phelps
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Thursday, 17 November 2005 |
As of Friday 1st July, TVL have amended their email service to prevent
or at least reduce the amount of spam and virus emails being sent out
of Vanuatu. TVL have additionally activated anti-spam measures for
incoming emails, so that all their customers should receive much less
unwanted email (saving both time and money).
These steps are to be applauded, and are an important part of the
global fight against the choking of the internet with rubbish emails.
As mentioned in this column last week, though, everyone needs to play a
part and ensure they have active and up-to-date anti-virus and
anti-spam software.
TVL’s measures amount to them blocking the default “port” which
outgoing emails are sent through. Ports can be compared to doors –
imagine a wall with a bit over 65,000 doors in it. Door number 25
has a sign “SMTP” on it (for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), and only
outgoing emails are allowed through it. Many spam and virus programs
simply send their offspring out as emails through this default door,
headed for other victims around the world. Until 1st July, Vanuatu’s
only ISP was happy to let them through. No more. Door 25 is now closed,
unless the outgoing email is going directly to TVL’s mail service. This
has two implications – spam and virus emails can no longer get out of
Vanuatu unless they pass through TVL’s mail servers, and TVL are able
to scan and control any emails that are sent out.
If you don’t want to use TVL’s mail servers (say, you have a HotMail or
Yahoo email account that you use to send/receive on your behalf but you
read or create your emails using an email application on your
computer), you will need to take steps to use another port for your
outbound emails. Yahoo, for example, allows you to give it emails for
on-sending through port 587, and this number has to be put into the
email software in place of the default port 25.
Since the great majority of Vanuatu’s users have email accounts based
with TVL, no changes will be necessary for them. TVL’s measures just
make it a lot more difficult for spam to come in or go out, and that is
a good thing. However, if you have other accounts, or care about the
privacy of your emails, you may need to reconfigure a few things. Check
with the provider of your email account for further information, what
TVL is doing is quite common (and in fact is apparently regarded as
best practice). More on email privacy next week. |
