900,000 ISP customers blacklisted

Found on CNet News on Monday, 09 May 2005
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The Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPEWS), whose blacklist is referenced by many antispam controls, imposed the block in response to the high number of Telewest customers whose machines have become compromised and taken over for the purpose of sending spam.

Last month, Silicon.com revealed that some of Telewest's Blueyonder.co.uk home subscribers were sending hundreds of thousands of e-mails each day--a sure sign of an open relay, pumping out spam.

Currently Blueyonder.co.uk is the ninth in the Senderbase list of domains generating e-mail--two places behind Hotmail and two ahead of America Online.

According to Senderbase, Blueyonder.co.uk addresses are generating 90.4 million e-mails per day. The company confirmed it has around 700,000 customers, with updated figures due for release on Thursday.

Almost 130 email per user/day. It doesn't sound that much this way. However, there sure is quite a bunch of users who don't send so many emails, and others who spam. However, blacklists should be constructed carefully unless you want to block legitimate emails.