[ExI] META: server updates due to spam

[John Klos]

Hello, all,

Since we're all spending more time distancing ourselves from others, it 
seems we're finding different things to do with our time. Spammers and 
scammers are really out in force.

The number of brute force intrusion attempts on our servers has increased 
around tenfold in the last couple of weeks. This isn't an issue for us, 
but it's a sign of people with too much time on their hands.

The amount of spam, on the other hand, both directed at us and directed at 
others claiming to be us has also increased, and this does cause problems.

Companies like Cloudflare are exacerbating the problem by allowing these 
known scammers to use their services with no meaningful way to report 
abuse, and the people who run Cloudflare are unresponsive to attempts to 
ask for their cooperation.

I'm about to block two large netblocks because of this rampant spam:

31.40.128.0/18: A Russian network that has a Gmail address as the contact 
address

89.144.0.0/18: "ghostnet.de", which doesn't respond at all, and which has 
a web site with an SSL certificate which expired two weeks ago

I'm writing this here in case this block affects anyone here. I doubt it 
will, because neither of these networks looks to be in any way legitimate, 
but if it does, please let me know. I'll be watching logs, too, to see if 
any deliveries are affected by these blocks.

Also be warned that if Cloudflare continues to flaunt their disregard for 
responsibility for spammers they facilitate, we may be forced to block 
email from domains hosted by them. I plan to run a script across all of 
our subscribers' domains to see who this might affect, but at very least I 
want to make people aware of the possibility.

Thanks, and stay safe,
John Klos