Orange: "You MUST use out email server"

[MrShed]

I dont entirely understand the question to be totally honest - you seem to have answered it yourself. Use a different ISP.

[MrShed]

Your other option could be to use secure SMTP (over TLS) and also use a non standard port...this will mean that Orange have no way of knowing the traffic is mail related.

[MrShed]

Do they do it on a port level though or on a traffic inspection level? If the latter then you wont be able to circumvent using a different port, probably only Secure SMTP.

[MrShed]

The standard way of preventing relay is to set up the mail server to accept connections from internal addresses only - ie the DHCP subnet. The issue at hand has nothing to do with relay (although a lack of this setting is a surefire way of getting your server blacklisted!).

 

I doubt their firewalls are working at the application level, and it's a pain in the proverbial setting up an "allow" rulebase for the type of traffic you'll see from home users running countless different applications.

 

I'm a long time out of this game but I used to set up and manage Raptor & Checkpoint firewalls and MailSweeper for corporate clients. I know this stuff pretty well which is why it's so frustrating. Knowing my stuff means Orange can't keep fobbing me off and I won't let them. Hopefully others might find this thread useful in future.

 

All I would say is that pretty much any standard firewall these days will perform deep packet inspection, and identify the traffic based upon content and not simply port.

 

I manage our corporate firewalls (for an organisation a lot smaller and a lot less technologically advanced than a SP on the level of Orange), and all of our devices perform DPI.

 

Of course, if Orange choose to utilise this functionality is another matter - although the fact that they allow SMTP traffic to their own servers and it isnt a carte blanche block, would imply they do. Although of course this could simply be a destination IP and port based ACL on the core network.

[MrShed]

Darren - dare I say that if you are still so rigid as to ONLY be able to assist via Twitter or Facebook, then your presence here is pretty useless?

 

I think that is the gripe.

 

You seem to be here merely as an advertisement for your other communication portals, whereas my understanding of the purpose of the official company helpers on this forum is to assist (where possible) with the SPECIFIC areas raised, not just a generic "please go to Facebook".

 

Dare I also say that you could learn a lot from Vodafone in this regard - who, for all their faults, appear to have genuinely made a commitment to resolving issues for users of this forum.

 

In any event, it is not really my place to say - ultimately this is site team territory. But I will add my voice to those others who would say that your contribution has been lacklustre at best.