Shaw Cable Blocks Port 25

Turns out Shaw Cable did something smart recently, they blocked port 25 for all residential users to help cut down on spam and trojans/viruses. I have two things to say to that.

First, SMART MOVE! this will greatly help on cutting down on all spam and crap emails being sent around by computers infested by trojans and viruses. I don't get a lot of spam in the first place, but i know a lot of people (ie: my dad) do get a lot of spam.

Second, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? That means now residential users on shaw can not see, nor talk to any other email servers on port 25. Which means I all of a sudden don't have email. I can't send any email from hitmenforhire.com, and anyone trying to send me an email AND who is on shaw wont be able to send mail to me.

Turns out, no one on shaw can talk to any mail server on a shaw residential plan, so all those people who run their own web servers/services on their home account, can't talk out to anyone else. There are are few options however.

One is to upgrade to a business plan as business plans are not filtered. This however is a tad on the pricey side as compared to a regular residential shaw account.

Two is to relay mail through a different server. This one can have problems because this is very close to how spam works (relaying through other mail servers). There are steps you can take on both sides so only certain users (or domains/IP addresses) are allowed to relay.

So if you are in the same boat as me, I recommend option two, but be careful about setting up access for relaying privileges otherwise you might accidentally set up your email server as an open relay and that might get you blacklisted.

If anyone has any other solutions to my problem, please add a comment, or post in the forums, I don't think you'll be able to send me an email.