Travel Technology - Fairmont Hotels blocking Ipass SMTP traffic ?

On my last stay at the Fairmont which I am now at (only a couple of weeks ago) I had no problems sending SMTP mail through my Ipass account (with Iberpass).

On this visit, the mail leaves my outbox but never gets delivered. I have checked with Iberpass who think that Fairmont may be blocking 'Port 25'.

The hotel's internet support is useless, so I thought I would check here whether there are any workaround suggestions.

Thanks

try using port 587, and enabling SMTP authentication, and putting in your username and password.

Is it probably not the Fairmont actually, but their ISP doing the blocking of outbound 25, from non SMTPAUTH connections.

Port 25 is the electronic 'door' typically used by mail servers to send outbound mail from a server.

It is frequently blocked by ISP's in order to prevent mail traffic from rogue computers infected without the users knowledge by spammers who trick people into running email attachments that install hidden software. The big league spammers cannot get legitimate servers running, so this is how they distribute their email.

ISP's will often block port 25 on anything but accounts that are supposed to be running legitimate mail servers.

Hence, nmenaker is probably right on the money in his post above.

try using port 587, and enabling SMTP authentication, and putting in your username and password.

Is it probably not the Fairmont actually, but their ISP doing the blocking of outbound 25, from non SMTPAUTH connections.

Any clues on how to actually do this ? I am using Outlook Express on Win XP Home if that is of any relevance ....

sure,

head into TOOLs, then ACCOUNTS

Select your email account, and then click on PROPERTIES

Then, click on the ADVANCED tab all the way to the right

In the field marked SMTP outgoing mail, put in account 587

Then, go to the SERVERS tab, and click down on the bottom where it says "my server requires authentication"

Check THAT box and then put in your user name and password, for your EMAIL account. Depending on what email you use, this will also be your internet account user name and password.
Type that in, click OK

then click on APPLY, then OK and close the windows.

close the OE application, then reopen and try to send the mail.
At this point, the outbound mail server locally, will AUTHENTICATE itself, and outgoing server will authenticate with your email company's SMTP outbound mail server, and you will be allowed to email over that ISP.

This is not a 100% solution, but works most times.

You can also try, JUST the authentication route, before changing the SMTP server to 587.

At my last company, our traveling execs ran into this so many times that we just set up a second listener on port 52 and changed their configs to use that.

Port 25 blocking is a good thing. 80% of all spam sent today comes from zombies. By forcing dynamic IP addrs through the ISPs outgoing mail MTAs you drastically reduce the amount of spam that can sent off-net, especially if ISPs spam-filter outbound as well as inbound mail.

I changed the port as suggested and although it worked fine in the office I was in, it still does not work from the hotel.

Any other suggestions ?

My suggestion is that I wouldn't use unsecured SMTP at a hotel. Both your password and your e-mail contents themselves can easily be sniffed.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/sniffing_passwo.html

I changed the port as suggested and although it worked fine in the office I was in, it still does not work from the hotel.

Any other suggestions ?
Though it may not help you on this trip, I suggest installing the free version of Logmein on your home computer. When you are travelling, use it to control your home computer and do all of your surfing from there.

The security is good, and you don't ever have to worry about someone stealing your laptop with all of your data on it -- everything stays on your home computer. And blocked ports don't matter, as long as the Internet works you can use it.

Though it may not help you on this trip, I suggest installing the free version of Logmein on your home computer. When you are travelling, use it to control your home computer and do all of your surfing from there.

The security is good, and you don't ever have to worry about someone stealing your laptop with all of your data on it -- everything stays on your home computer. And blocked ports don't matter, as long as the Internet works you can use it.

Thks. Will be back here again soon, so will give that a try.