So after getting nailed by a fairly practiced and aggressive team of pickpockets I'm sitting in a Madrid police station with nothing to do but wait and look at the wanted posters. One of them really caught my eye since the woman seemed very happy to have it taken.

The only thing going through my mind the whole time was what I would say if I actually met her.

Ms Zurutuza, I understand that as a woman you want to be as beautiful for your picture as possible but maybe, given your career choice as an enemy of the state, having a picture out there that no guy could possibly walk past without looking twice at in the hands of the Spanish police was a bit of a mistake? You would think as a terrorist you would want to be as unnoticeable as possible.

So I'm walking though church one day and get stopped by my friends grandmother. What did the little old SriLankan lady want you might ask? she wanted me to chech out her blog.

Signs of the times I guess.

The thing that shocked me the most was that it's better than most of what I read on blog posts

Welcome Gerhard! Please hold while we contact a representative. If a representative does not respond in a few seconds, then he/she is not available at this time.

There is/are currently 2 active support session(s) before you. You may continue to hold or leave a message.

** (16:19:15) You are now speaking with Bryan, Technical Support. **
(16:19:25)Bryan : Welcome
(16:19:29)Bryan : Could you tell me what your phone number so I can access your account ?
(16:19:51)Gerhard : I don't have an account there
(16:20:09)Gerhard : I'm a hosting provider who has several customers on your service
(16:20:19)Bryan : What exactly is blocked?
(16:20:32)Gerhard : my mail server
(16:20:46)Gerhard : anything to videotron is refused
(16:21:12)Bryan : When you send to our server, it is blocked and you receive a bounce back?
(16:21:37)Gerhard : (delivery temporarily suspended: host mx.videotron.ca[24.201.245.37] refused to talk to me: 452 try later)
(16:22:38)Bryan : Do you have the IP adresse of your SMTP?
(16:22:59)Gerhard : yes it's xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
(16:24:34)Bryan : 83% of mail received by this IP address is spam, you only need to reduce the level of spamming we receive, and you will be unblocked automatically
(16:24:59)Gerhard : heh.. I'm running four blacklists and a graylist
(16:25:29)Gerhard : not a lot I can do if my customers sign their email up for things and then forward it all to themselves
(16:26:15)Gerhard : the emails are only forwards customers request and do not originate from my server
(16:26:23)Bryan : We do not use any blacklist or graylist. Our filter relies on this percentage to block or unblock a SMTP. The only way to get unblock is to lower this level of spamming.
(16:28:43)Gerhard : in otherwords there is no fix other than to never allow customers to set forwards to their videotron address ?
(16:29:46)Bryan : When we speak of spam, we are speaking of unsolicited emails. Like emails speaking of viagra and stuff like that. Legitimate emails are not accounted for in this percentage.
(16:30:02)Gerhard : right.. I understand that
(16:30:10)Gerhard : but the spam does not originate from my server
(16:30:22)Bryan : It is sent by your server to ours
(16:30:32)Gerhard : all my server does is host customer email addresses and forward them where they specify
(16:31:42)Bryan : There is someone using your SMTP to spam our server. This spamming need to be lowered and you will be automatically unblocked.
(16:32:45)Gerhard : more to the point.. some customer of mine got spam and my server just forwarded what was sent to him to the videotron account he asked it to be sent to
(16:33:59)Bryan : Even if it is redirection. The spam was received from your server, hence why it is blocked. As soon as the percentage lowers, you will be unblocked
(16:34:09)Gerhard : ok
(16:34:17)Gerhard : I will tell my customers not to forward to videotron
(16:34:29)Gerhard : he can use his google mail or something instead
(16:34:37)Gerhard : or get a real internet provider