ISP IP's blocked help!

[aruns]

I use a shared Internet connection & I found that my ISP's IP address seem to be blocked as I cant access smtp, & have only partial http access. If I use anonymizer, I'm able to access websites which I couldnt earlier, but smtp still doesnt work.

I want to speak to my ISP about this. But before I do this, I wanted to know what exactly has happened. Where can I check if my IP has been blocked? How do I solve this problem? I was hoping a dedicated IP would avoid this problem, but if whole IP ranges are blocked I could still be in trouble for what other users do!

I would appreciate any advice / suggestions. Thanks.

[lammert]

Many ISPs block outgoing SMTP to other servers than their own SMTP relays. This is to prevent infected PCs to send SPAM.

Regarding your HTTP problems, are the servers you want to connect to in a specific area of the world, or in a specific IP range? If you can't reach a website, use a traceroute to see where the traffic is blocked. Maybe sites are unreachable because one of the upstream providers has problems. I sometimes have connection problems with parts of the US, but when I use the www proxy my ISP provides it works. This is not because my ISP blocks certain HTTP traffic, but because direct requests from my ADSL line to the US are routed from Amsterdam via London to the US, where requests via the Proxy are directly routed from Amsterdam to the US. That Amsterdam-Londen connection has had several problems in the past. Your situation might be comparable.

[aruns]

Thanks for this, I will try traceroute. I'm in India, the problem is with my work Internet connection & not at my home, where I use a different ISP.

My smtp was working fine till a couple of days back. Yesterday, I couldnt send emails even through Gmail, even while using anonymizer. Does that make sense?

[aruns]

I forgot to add, I'm unable to download my emails, it is not just a question of sending emails. I have 2 email accounts, both pop3, I have problem with one of them, I have both pop3 & smtp access on the other. Both the mailservers are located in the US.

[jtara]

Bottom line is it looks like there are certain things your employer doesn't want you to do at work.

So, they have blocked SMTP and POP other than to their own servers (so that employees can't send/receive private mail) and have blocked non-work-related websites.

If you value your job, I'd advise against trying to defeat the controls they've put in place. If this is preventing you from getting your work (legitimate) done, I'd certainly bring it up with management, though.

[aruns]

Well it is my company, & we are all of 3 people. Everything was working, till couple of days back & I was hoping someone here could tell me what could be wrong with my ISP.

[jtara]

Sorry I misunderstood your question. What you described sounds typical of what larger companies do to restrict personal use of the Internet by employees.

I dunno how WE would know what is wrong with your ISP! I'd suggest you report this to them.

Is the ISP service you have intended for commercial use, or for home use? If it is intended for home use, then I can see them limiting SMTP access to their own server only. POP typically is not restricted, nor is HTTP, unless the ISP has some "child proof" feature that you probably have control over.

Otherwise, they are having some problems, and I don't see how we can diagnose them from here.

[aruns]

No problem.

The tech support at my ISP is a bit poor, in the past I have had similar trouble with email & I found that my ISP's IPs were blocked for sending spam, which affected us because of shared IPs. I was wondering if it was a question of our IPs being blocked or just bad connectivity at our ISP.