10.12.06

Typepad Really Does Hate Me

I was always under the impression that Typepad was an excellent blog host, but I just keep encountering problems.
We're sorry...

Your comment has not been posted because we think it may be comment spam. We routinely monitor comment activity and block comments that exhibit patterns of abuse. We apologize if you believe you've reached this message in error.

Nous sommes désolés...

Votre commentaire n'a pas été posté car nous pensons qu'il puisse être du spam. Nous surveillons continuellement l'activité des commentaires et nous bloquons les commentaires qui nous semblent abusifs. Nous vous présentons nos excuses si vous pensez que vous avez atteint ce message par erreur.

Lo sentimos...

Su comentario no se ha publicado porque creemos que podría tratarse de spam. Monitorizamos la actividad de los comentarios de forma rutinaria para bloquear los comentarios que muestran signos de abuso. Lo sentimos si cree que ha llegado a este mensaje por error.

It seems that Typepad has banned one or more of the IP Addresses used by people with my dial-up ISP. I got this message when submitting a comment on one Typepad blog, disconnected, re-connected and then re-submitted the exact same comment - and it went through. Presumably because I had been assigned a different IP number. Then, after disconnecting and re-connecting again, I encountered the same problem on another blog.

And I have to love the way they tell me. First of all, no way to contact them and argue my case. Second of all, "We apologize if you believe you've reached this message in error." They apologise if I think it's an error, but of course, Typepad would never really make an error - I just think they have.

I can't even comment if I sign into my Typekey account.

Apparently Typepad has been having problems with spam lately. Well, whether they intended to or not, they've also put an end to their space cat 'problem'. Fuck off Typepad.


Update 13/12
I got a more informative and less rude comment from Typepad this time:

Your comment has not been posted because the computer you are using appears on a list of machines exploitable by spammers. You can fix the problem by consulting the following results:

sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=[ip address deleted]

Not a spammer? You can post your comment by proving that you're a human below.

It's not 'my computer' though, it's one of many ip addresses used by people on my ISP. It seems that some of the people on my ISP are part of a botnet sending spam. This has had some of our collective ip addresses listed on CBL, which seems to be an automated means of tracking which ip addresses are used by spammers. However, as CBL themselves put it (emphasis added):

The CBL is specifically intended to be used to filter email coming into a mail server from the Internet.

In "tech-jargon", it's intended to be used on email going to your MX, NOT your user's "outbound SMTP server", nor for anything other than email.

As this is not a supported use of the CBL, please do not contact us about these problems (unless this is a static IP address that belongs to you only, in which case you should treat this is a virus/proxy infection - see: scanning your machine).

Instead, you should be contacting the provider of the service you're trying to use.

A.k.a. Typepad. The chief reason not to use this for anything other than email is, as CBL put it here, because if you have a dynamically allocated ip address (as I do), it's possible to avoid unwarranted CBL listings with emails - but not with, say, blog comments.

I am seriously, seriously annoyed at a service that would do this. I.P. banning is a notoriously useless and unfair means of controlling those who abuse the internet.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This entire attitude about individuals "thinking" that they have made mistakes with no corporate responsibility has become very prevalent. What happened to "The customer is always right?" Unfortunately, they seem to still be making plenty of $$ with this attitude. I guess that's what happens when we go all corporate.

Zhoen said...

Eghad.


It was that time traveling space cat who decided to become a spammer, using typepad for evil, instead of good.

Pacian said...

@michelle: A troublemaker, eh? I bet you think there's a difference between $1 and 1 cent as well!

@zhoen: Ah, him! I should've known!

Anonymous said...

Today I got 3 spams (from the same spammer) sent within the same 3 minutes... to my Bloglines address.

I can't really think where they got it from, but suspect I used it on a site I didn't trust. It's a throwaway email address, so I can ditch it if it starts getting annoying.

All the same - sssigh.

Tinker said...

What is going on in the blogosphere? I've had nothing but problems with blogger today. I swear there's some sort of tiff between the 2 companies!
But I'm persisting - at least your word verification is showing up on my computer finally.
We can't let them win...keep trying Pacian. May the force be with you...

Aack! Apparently I can't unless I use my google/blogger account - grrr....

Pacian said...

@diddums: I can't understand the mindset of these people - who'll so easily annoy so many people in so many different ways.

@tinker: Grrr! What have we got to do to just have bloghosts that work?

Disillusioned kid said...

I thought Typepad had died after they're collapse over the summer (on which see here). Perhaps a pity they didn't.

And Blogger Beta's a bugger for commentaing if you don't have a Beta account yo'self (which I - fortunately - now do).

Anonymous said...

That reminds me of how I felt when I discovered my emails to friends using a certain well-known ISP were being silently swallowed without a word to me. For similar reasons - something like "there is a spammer using your block of IP numbers; if you want to continue emailing your friends, take it up with your ISP to get you unblocked."

Then I would feel mad with my friends for continuing to use this ISP even after I told them of the misunderstandings arising from their apparent failure to respond to my emails... and every so often when they don't respond within ten days or so, I'll get twitchetty and ask if they got my email or did their ISP delete it again? (But these days I think it's mostly a case of the friend being slow).

Still - I thought that was a seriously bad line for an ISP to take. Deleting emails without any kind of warning. That would be like Royal Mail dumping sacks of letters just in case one or two of them are spam.

Pacian said...

@DK: Seems pretty alive to me... o_O

@Diddums: Hotmail also 'disappears' emails from sources it takes a dislike to. I'd love to stop using it, but I'd have to change my email address with so many different people and services that I'm pretty much stuck with them.