Right, I'll explain as briefly as I can.
I've been training Thunderbird's Junk filters on my Virgin.net account (I get a ridiculous amount of spam from them), and I noticed that the raw amount of emails over today has dropped off sharply.
So, thinking it's server problems, I Telnet into their POP3 server (pop.virgin.net:110) and I get this printed across the top of the screen:
+OK POP3 PROXY server ready (7.0.027) <323733ACCE0D5EC48CE772A9087EB114A1FDAA97@n074.sc1.cp.net>
That, immediately, sets alarm bells ringing. Their POP3 server has never displayed anything like that above string, and certainly not "proxy server".
By fiddling with IP lookup tools, I've found that Virgin's main website (virgin.net) is located in Derby, UK, and has a direct backbone connection (duh....). However, this POP3 "server" resolves itself to Cambridge, UK, and has this hostname:
public2-cosh5-6-cust134369.cosh.broadband.ntl.com
This, to me, looks like a customer hostname, used on the NTL Broadband network. Like I said, it resolves itself to somewhere in Cambridge, which is very odd - Cambridge is a fair way from Derby!
This could be resolved as Virgin having email problems and resorting to a backup server, but the amount of email has dropped off significantly, and that hostname is worrying me.
Short of phoning Virgin and asking the helpdesk weenie if someone's h4x0r3d their POP3 server (yeah, that'll get me a really amusing reply), can anyone else explain this?
I've changed my password already, before you ask
I've been training Thunderbird's Junk filters on my Virgin.net account (I get a ridiculous amount of spam from them), and I noticed that the raw amount of emails over today has dropped off sharply.
So, thinking it's server problems, I Telnet into their POP3 server (pop.virgin.net:110) and I get this printed across the top of the screen:
+OK POP3 PROXY server ready (7.0.027) <323733ACCE0D5EC48CE772A9087EB114A1FDAA97@n074.sc1.cp.net>
That, immediately, sets alarm bells ringing. Their POP3 server has never displayed anything like that above string, and certainly not "proxy server".
By fiddling with IP lookup tools, I've found that Virgin's main website (virgin.net) is located in Derby, UK, and has a direct backbone connection (duh....). However, this POP3 "server" resolves itself to Cambridge, UK, and has this hostname:
public2-cosh5-6-cust134369.cosh.broadband.ntl.com
This, to me, looks like a customer hostname, used on the NTL Broadband network. Like I said, it resolves itself to somewhere in Cambridge, which is very odd - Cambridge is a fair way from Derby!
This could be resolved as Virgin having email problems and resorting to a backup server, but the amount of email has dropped off significantly, and that hostname is worrying me.
Short of phoning Virgin and asking the helpdesk weenie if someone's h4x0r3d their POP3 server (yeah, that'll get me a really amusing reply), can anyone else explain this?
I've changed my password already, before you ask
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