GoDaddy is the latest to Attack Anonymizer

In our last chapter, boys and girls, we gave a glimpse into why your privacy is toast and Anonymizer is Doomed. So GoDaddy is evidently the latest to join the Empire's Fleet to crush your puny rebel privacy and co-opt your online identity. When sending a very important business email today via GD's Web-Based Email 4.10, here's what happened multiple times until it finally dawned on my that they'd joined the Empire. Not sure precisely how long this has been going on, as I just now had to resort to the web-based mail as a backup measure with a particular customer.

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at
gem-wbe26.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following
addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<vip1@companycorp.com>:
208.109.NNN.NNN failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 554 The message was rejected because it contains
prohibited virus or spam content

<vip2@companycorp.com>:
208.109.NNN.NNN failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 554 The message was rejected because it contains
prohibited virus or spam content

--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

Return-Path: <me.myself@companycorp.com>
Received: (qmail 29414 invoked by uid 99); 9 Jul 2007 18:15:42 -0000
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:15:42 -0700
From: Me Myself <me.myself@companycorp.com>
Subject: Important Item
To:vip1@companycorp.com
cc:vip2@companycorp.com
Message-ID: <20070709111xxx...@email.secureserver.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/html; CHARSET=US-ASCII
User-Agent: Web-Based Email 4.10.1
X-Originating-IP: 209.59.32.201

Just in case you hadn't notice, it's that last line that is the give away. When using Anonymizer, GoDaddy is flat out lying with the message, "contains prohibited virus or spam content." That's completely false for at least two reasons:

1. It was a plain text email with zero attachments, not even sig blocks.
2. Turning off Anonymizer and getting a new X-Originating-IP allows the mail to go through without a hitch.

So GoDaddy has committed at least two bald-faced, bald-headed, and not-very-cute even in cutoff tank tops offenses:

1. They've blocked or black-listed usage of Anonymizer.
2. They lie about the reason for failure to transport your mail.

Oddly enough, one can login to the Web-Based Mail, one just can't send mail. Or maybe it's not so odd. By bouncing back the LYING error message, perhaps many people wouldn't ever realize that it had to do with their protecting their privacy and online identity with an anonymizing proxy.

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