The Hurricane Watch Net - (ISP Unblocking)

Regarding email subscriptions to the Atlantic, Eastern Pacific, and Spanish Atlantic Bulletins:

Around early 2008, we experienced various Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who incorrectly identified our Tropical Weather Bulletins as being suspicious, that is, containing Spam characteristics. Consequently, many ISPs elected to block email deliveries from the HWN Mail Server. The result of that action was that subscribers associated with those ISPs would no longer receive email delivery of their selected Tropical Weather bulletins.

After extensive investigation, we determined the reason for the blockage as follows:

The HWN.org mail subscription service distributes weather bulletins to approximately 3000 subscribers. Those bulletins occur on a 6 hour frequency (and more frequent when a hurricane threatens land). The modern day spam filter convention applied at many ISPs apparently assumes that our multiple mailings per day to a large list of subscribers constitutes "suspicious activity", or in their terms, it appears as Spam. Consequently, this behavior has triggered many ISPs to invoke their "IP blocking" mechanism which therefore, blocks the transmission of our bulletins to affected users.
We learned through negotiations with certain ISPs (Bellsouth and Comcast in specific), that a detailed description of our mailing process which involves potentially life saving information during times of hurricane events serves as ligitimate explanation as to why they (the blocking ISPs) should remove the block of our IP address. So far, we have been successful by lifting the block with those two major ISPs.

If you suspect that our weather bulletin mail distribution is being blocked by your ISP, then we encourage you to apply the above, tested conversation to convince them to remove the block on your behalf.

NOTE: August 08, 2008
We have identified that all subscribers using the Roadrunner email provider network have been blocked from receiving mail from hwn.org mail servers. We have intitiated an urgent request through the "Roadrunner" security help desk, in hopes they will immeditely and permanently remove the block of our mail. As an alternative procedure for all of you, they offer the following instructions:

Open Web Mail
http://webmail.xxxxx.rr.com (the "xxxx" represents your particular roadrunner module, i.e. austin.rr.com, cfl.rr.com, etc.)
Click on Settings Tab on the top
Click on "Allow and Block messages"
Under "Block Senders and Domains"
Remove the e-mail address you want to allow

Once you are assured the block has been removed, it is then necessary for you to return to the hwn.org web site, select the "subscribe" funciton, and re-subscribe to your desired weather bulletins. Good luck.

If you need assistance or additional infomation to confront this issue, please feel free to contact the HWN webmaster at webmaster@hwn.org.

As an alternative approach, we have learned that you might circumvent the issue by subscribing to the bulletins using an address on some other ISP.

We thank you for your understanding and patience on this matter. Please understand that the crew at HWN.org strives to stay in touch with all the latest spam filter techniques, and we attempt to stay ahead of the curve as relates to latest ideas to protect the desires and pleasures of those we serve.

Sincerely,
Hurricane Watch Net, Inc.