GoDaddy 554 Error gone horribly wrong

Short and sweet, if and when I am found to be in error let me know so I can update.

Define the players:

• Email thread between me and 2 other people me@somegodaddyhostedemail.com and person1@gmail.com and person2@hotmail.com
• Also, there is a site referred to as referencedsite-inmessagebody.com – copied and pasted in the discussion.

Timeline, crude but true:

1. Email string gets big, 10+ responses
2. Suddenly email only yeilds massive 554 errors from GoDaddy – no option to avoid fail
3. Email programs and (my) IP address changes with no effect on the final outcome.
4. Call GoDaddy, they scan the issue email.
5. Answer: referencedsite-inmessagebody.com has an associated PBL entry (http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/) via the IP address associated with the domain.

We now stop and look at the problem.

The site referencedsite-inmessagebody.com is associated with an ip address that has a PBL listing.  In short it could be said that referencedsite-inmessagebody.com sent spam or had mail flagged as spam and made it on the naughty list.

Moving forward with the assumption that referencedsite-inmessagebody.com is not one of the real offenders of spam on the net. We have to ask WTF?

Well, the WTF turns out to be just plain evil wrapped in evil.

I drop a WhoIs on referencedsite-inmessagebody.com and find out they are on a large shared (virtual) host. We all use similar services.

I happen to know this host, I use them.  Generally I think the company runs 200+ clients per server.

What follows is a wild summary of the conversation I had with the tech at GoDaddy (he was cool and honest).

Any idiot on a virtual host can start spamming, get busted, loose account and flag the (shared) IP . That means  referencedsite-inmessagebody.com is  pretty much doomed along with any emails associated to that domain name, regardless of the location of the email server (as far as IP address goes).

Doomed to the point where (the actually broken GoDaddy protocol) is blocking my email because my message body has a “flagged” http address (with associated PBL flagged IP address).

Is there anything to be done – Nope. I asked they guy straight up, should I just move my emails off or is there something we can  do such as petitions.

His response was “don’t even try”.

My Solution is to move all these email accounts onto a leased server with dedicated IP address I can get unflagged if ever necessary and run no risk of colliding with “some idiot”.

Ever wonder why certain stuff will NEVER EVER make it from one email to another, this is a clear outline of a protocol that will (often silently) kill your communication.

Emergency Workarounds are available and cumbersome for the low-tech.  I suggest instant messaging and file sharing sites.  You can create a real time one-to-one connection with your target and provide information to get the data.

File sharing services (of the professional type) are also a good alternative for moving files, but this is not a solution for general text communication over email.

Let’s close out with a list of things you should not do:

• Do not use shared hosting with out a dedicated IP
• Do not use any service like GoDaddy who utilizes services like SpamHaus
• Do not reference any website in your email or only write them as “domain[dot]com”

And one more important “beware“:

• Beware the dynamic IP address. (Who knows how many IP’s we all share are flagged and/or associated with strange shit)

With that in mind email becomes a rather difficult form of communication.

I was taking no responses personally when they were dying or errored out. Going to have to meet people face to face  to talk.

OMG.