Disturbing information about my ISP (Internet Service Provider)

A week or so ago I had a sudden issue with my email, and did a bit of investigating, which yielded some refreshingly honest, but disturbing answers from my website host.

First, a primer for those of you who are less than technically familiar:

ISP: Internet Service Provider. This is the company that hooks up the physical internet connection to your house. For me, that company is Qwest -- soon to be "Century Link".

Web Host: This is the company that provides server space for my websites, and also email services for same. They shall remain nameless in this post.

Sometimes these two functions are handled by the same company. For me they are not.

Now on to my point:

My email suddenly stopped working. Specifically, I could receive mail but I was getting errors when I sent email. The first thing I did was check that my modem was working, and I replicated the problem on a different computer with a different email address. Same problem. This eliminated any problems on my end of things. So - I called my host, the ones who provide email services. I figured they were having email server problems.

So I sent an email trouble ticket to their tech support, and the following snips are emails that we exchanged. Some parts have been redacted for privacy reasons:

Hello,
I can't get email to send from (email address). I haven't changed any settings in Outlook, so I must assume that it isn't connecting to your mail server somehow. I am able to GET mail but not SEND it.

Reply from web host:

Thank you for contacting us. I just tested your account and it works normally for. If you are able to receive mail and not send out its possible your ISP is blocking port 25. We recommend that you try changing the port to 587. If this still does not work then we recommend that you contact the ISP as they might require that you use their outbound mail server.

Okay, so I tried that and sent this response:

This problem exists on two computers, two different email accounts on (domain). This started happening this morning. I changed nothing. I'll try changing the port, but this is not something I caused.

The ISP is Qwest. They are going through a change of hands.. Might be something to that. If you get this message, it means it worked.

And then the plot thickens:

A lot of companies are doing it. Some are blocking alternate ports as well which forces you to use their specific outbound mail server. It allows them to monitor every single email you send. You might consider letting them know of your displeasure.

What?? Then I pressed for more information, thinking they'd fall silent on the issue going forward:

Monitor, as in eavesdrop?

And the confirmation from them:

Thank you for following up. Monitor as in they can view any unencrypted message.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Now call me paranoid, but was I wrong to be alarmed at this information? Is there something to it? I do not want my emails being read by my ISP. I know the NSA does it without my consent already, but peons at my ISP having access? Them giving access to whoever they feel deserves it?

Sorry, I think this is a little bit intrusive. A little too "Big Brother". Has anyone else experienced this? Is this even legal?

reply to post by AwakeinNM


Welcome to The New World Order. They are currently making changes with new laws etc. It would be a surprise that they haven't already reading and storing all e-mails.

Originally posted by redrose123
reply to post by AwakeinNM

 

Welcome to The New World Order. They are currently making changes with new laws etc. It would be a surprise that they haven't already reading and storing all e-mails.

I'd like to know what changes and what new laws. This is something we all need to know about.

Anyone out there have information?

reply to post by AwakeinNM


It is a federal offense to open/tamper with/read someone elses mail. Why should email be any different? I think that there needs to be some kind of law that protects our rights of privacy for our electronic mail, just as we have for our normail mail.

reply to post by AwakeinNM


For the past five years I have had similar problems. The one that I found most troubling was when I received late mail that had been sent to me days earlier. This also happens with my voice mail and texts.

Originally posted by deanGI5
reply to post by AwakeinNM

 

It is a federal offense to open/tamper with/read someone elses mail. Why should email be any different? I think that there needs to be some kind of law that protects our rights of privacy for our electronic mail, just as we have for our normail mail.

At first I thought this way a great idea. But then I thought: This is exactly what they are going to say to get a cybersecurity bill passed through legislation....

I didnt know about such matters either, i think its crazy.
Just goes to show theres still alot to learn for some, altho i reackon alot of people on this site already know of this craziness, and look at us as still learning the way of things

reply to post by redrose123


I wondered about this some time ago when they were faulting the ISPs for allowing kiddie porn to pass through their mail servers. People wondered why the ISPs were excusing themselves from assuming responsibility as they seemed to be the facilitators for this type of transfer. Lots of people were calling for this responsibility and the ISPs said they did not want to interfere with someone's privacy.

So now I guess they can do it. Must have passed more sweeping laws again, huh?

I have Centurylink for my dsl ISP as well, but before them I used two different dial-up ISPs. I've had two e-mail accounts, one with g-mail, and the other with yahoo. I realize this is different than your situation, but follow me...
My g-mail account has never allowed me to send mail, but receives fine. My yahoo account has never given me a problem. I've had both accounts for years, but never addressed the problem with g-mail, just always sent mail with yahoo. Your post intrigues me, so I'm gonna check into it a little farther myself. Thanks for the post.

Thinking of ports though, I recently installed a port listener, actually called by that name, and it seems as though there are port diagnostics programs available at sourceforge.net. I'm gonna look into that too. Anybody have any suggestions?

reply to post by AwakeinNM




we dont have privacy, thats for sure
en.wikipedia.org...

so your isp can say what your email addresses are, then the government can get a warrant for your opened AND unopened emails from your email provider

ugg

Originally posted by redrose123
reply to post by AwakeinNM

 

Welcome to The New World Order. They are currently making changes with new laws etc. It would be a surprise that they haven't already reading and storing all e-mails.

Since the 90s I've read that one should never assume email is private, it's more like a postcard than a letter, only it stays in the post-office as well as going to your mailbox.

Technology is a honey trap - it makes things so much easier for us but enables more control at the same time.

I don't mind...let them read my e-mails, I am not doing anything wrong so who cares...this will help fight terrorism!.


kidding...this is absolutely unacceptable...I would quickly get lawyers on this one for a nice class action lawsuit.

If you think you email is private you are wrong.

A friend of mine has a friend, someone I don't know, who sent an email to some of his friends and in the email he made threats about a CERTAIN PERSON and how he waned to DO SOMETHING SPECIFIC, as in bodily harm ect.

Within a short time they were ALL paid a visit or called by the F.B.I.

Your email is not private.

FYI, A mail server run by any company, ISP, your work or other, has the ability to clone any mail, in such create duplicate copies of an email, one for you one for whoever they chose, with out the recipient being aware what so ever. Mail servers have the ability to cat into your mail for key words or what ever the Administrator deems as useful. Its been this way for quiet some time. Nothing is private.

One thing that bothers me is that Qwest/Century Link said nothing. They gave no notice that they were doing this. They just did it and left their customers to figure out why they were having issues.

Not cool.

I should contact my local TV investigative reporter and see if they'd like to look into this.

And then the plot thickens:

A lot of companies are doing it. Some are blocking alternate ports as well which forces you to use their specific outbound mail server. It allows them to monitor every single email you send. You might consider letting them know of your displeasure.

A lot of companies are doing it? Just wondering, where are you from? The U.S?

Never had this problem with my ISP (Virgin, used to be called BlueYonder).

I think...It may be worth taking a look into the contract of your ISP, when you first got hooked up with internet.
If there is nothing in there that states any modifications to your email account, then you could take it up with them on this...I say take 'em to the cleaners, or some sort of action (if possible)

Again, this is an intrusion of privacy...

But then again (correct me if I am wrong), does 'The Patriot Act' not allow for emails & the like, to be looked through by the Government? So it may have something to do with this.

I may be wrong here though, just assuming this might be the case.

Originally posted by arcana_imperii
If you think you email is private you are wrong.

A friend of mine has a friend, someone I don't know, who sent an email to some of his friends and in the email he made threats about a CERTAIN PERSON and how he waned to DO SOMETHING SPECIFIC, as in bodily harm ect.

Within a short time they were ALL paid a visit or called by the F.B.I.

Your email is not private.

Sorry but I had to LOL when I read this: Your friend's friend sounds like an E-Thug (& a little demented) haha

AwakeinNM: It is actually an existing law that every ISP has to store the data of its customers (IP adresses, history of visited web pages, mails) and give it to any government agency who is asking for it. At least in europe the ISP has to store the data for at least 6months.

I do not know how the rules are handeld in the US, but i guess it is even stricter.

The official reason for these laws are fighting criminal acts from money laundring copyright infringment to terrorism.
Officially (in europe) the agency needs a warrant for obtaining the data.

Or in short. Big brother IS watching.

Here a link to wiki, with tons of information regarding data retention:Wiki: Data Retention

reply to post by SmoKeyHaZe


True. He was probably was drunk at the time, but he did threaten POTUS and sent the email to some people.

Not the best move on his part.

This really isn't some NWO master plan here

Most ISP's block outbound mail ports to prevent their (possibly compromised) clients from spamming. It's really that simple and it makes home users computers that much less of a target for viruses/trojans.

Emails are routed on port 25 which makes blocking it by far the easiest most efficient and reasonable way to prevent spam being sent from their network. All they're doing is making you use a different outbound port - which cannot be used to spam - to connect to your smtp server.



They even have opt-in server provider black lists that most ISP's are on anyway. Basically no emails should ever be sent from their network. This has been a common policy for years now, same goes for these super secret spy servers that read your unencrypted emails. Emails are not encrypted which means its possible for someone else to read them, in theory. You have to use something like PGP to encrypt your emails

If you're capable of using telnet, try to telnet to your mail server on port 25 - your ISP should reject it with a message like 'We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited, and/or bulk e-mail.