Telewest subscribers back on UseNet

NEWS Telewest has lifted its self-imposed UseNet death penalty, allowing its Blueyonder subscribers to regain full access to the popular newsgroups. The cable company voluntarily suspended its UseNet newsgroup access early this week in response to a threat of a UseNet Death Penalty, (UDP) which was mooted by an anti-spam campaigner in response to a stream of inappropriate postings apparently originating from users of Telewest's ISP business, Blueyonder. The company claimed that the offending messages had not originated from its own computers, or those of its customers, but said that external spammers were exploiting "poorly configured customer computers" to post the offending messages onto UseNet. By using vulnerable computers as "relay agents", spammers are able to send messages which appear to originate from Blueyonder computers. According to a company spokesman, Telewest has spent the last few days contacting around 150 customers who were identified as having open relays. The problems were caused by incorrectly installed software.