In recent days, we have received numerous reports regarding issues when sending emails using the service provided by VDC (vnn.vn). Surprisingly, our investigation revealed that the “culprit” was not the machinery or network infrastructure, but rather the enormous amount of spam originating from Vietnam that has caused mail servers worldwide to react negatively!
Paralyzed by Being Blacklisted
Mr. L.V.L., the deputy director of a company in District 6, Ho Chi Minh City, expressed his frustration: since December 26, 2005, his company has been unable to use the email box …@hcm.vnn.vn to send emails to customers abroad.
When he called 18001260, VDC informed him that the vnn.vn mail server was being blocked by other countries because it was on the “blacklist”, with no indication of when it would be resolved. The technical department was seeking advice from the leadership on how to handle the situation, and customers were advised to use Yahoo mail in the meantime.
According to Mr. L., from the day they could not send emails until three days after his call, VDC had not issued any notifications to users regarding this issue, which left him extremely annoyed. The lack of responses from partners regarding orders could lead to significant losses for his company. Consequently, his company decided to switch to a different email service provider.
Mr. Truong Hoai Trang, director of VDC 2, confirmed the situation and stated that there are two main reasons: Vietnam has disseminated too much spam, and Vietnamese ISPs have blocked foreign mail servers arbitrarily. As a result, foreign servers are also blocking emails from Vietnamese servers in retaliation.
Currently, VDC is working with international spam organizations to negotiate, but resolving this issue requires cooperation between multiple authorities such as ISPs, VNNIC, and the police. VNNIC is primarily responsible for contacting spam organizations to remove Vietnam from the blacklist.
Not only VDC is affected; Mr. Mai Sung, CEO of FPT Telecom Joint Stock Company, mentioned that occasionally the email servers managed by FPT also end up on blacklists and get blocked, necessitating direct contact with the provider of these lists to have their names removed, which can take several days.
Mr. L.H.Binh, director of a company providing hosting services at Quang Trung Software Park, revealed that most Vietnamese mail servers are currently being blocked by foreign mail servers. This is an inevitable consequence of indiscriminate spam sending.
Ranked Among the Top 10 Worst Spam Providers
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Will the fifth position of vnn.vn in spam ratings be of concern to the managers? |
Browsing the internet, users can easily find information about e-marketing services primarily focused on sending advertisements via email with “low cost and high efficiency”.
“For only 500,000 VND, you can acquire a list of more than 1,000,000 email addresses of individuals and businesses, mostly from Vietnam. The accuracy rate is over 90%. A professional email sending software is included for free...” Perhaps every email user has received this information at least once.
According to Spamhaus, vnn.vn is ranked fifth in the top 10 ISPs providing spam services. While the entire world is actively fighting against spam due to its economic and emotional damages, in Vietnam, those responsible seem to be rather indifferent to this issue.
Request-based spam sending services are currently thriving, with not only businesses and individuals but also even a computer magazine utilizing this tactic for advertising. Some e-marketing service providers (or request-based spammers) have told us that they are aware that sending spam is illegal in many countries, but since there are currently no specific laws or regulations in Vietnam prohibiting this behavior, they take advantage of this opportunity.
One of the top ten notable events in the IT sector in 2005 was the enactment of the Electronic Transactions Law. However, can e-commerce thrive when previously, many commercial websites banned transactions originating from Vietnamese IPs because Vietnamese users often used “stolen” credit cards for purchases, and now, one of the most common means of transaction, email, is at risk of not reaching its intended recipients?
In our subjective assessment, email addresses with the vnn.vn domain belong to a “serious” level and are commonly used by organizations when they do not have their own mail servers. Will the fifth position of vnn.vn in spam ratings be of concern to the managers?
