[nmglug] Interesting development re Comcast imap servers

[Peter Reed]

On Sun, 24 Mar 2019 20:57:53 -0600
Tom Ashcraft <trailerdog234 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Dear NMGLUGers et al,
> 
> Some of you may remember my consternation and annoyance over that 
> situation I had where I could no longer receive email with any Linux 
> desktop client, most notably Thunderbird, from Comcast imap servers; 
> where all of the known Comcast imap servers failed for me; where I 
> eventually discovered a workaround by using the 'canonical' server, 
> imap.ge.xfinity.com, a server that has never provided a valid
> security certificate.
> 
> Where only the Xfinity webmail page worked properly.
> 
> At the time, all of this generated a considerable amount of
> interest. Some of you were exceedingly generous with your
> suggestions, time and effort helping me to work through it all.
> 
> I'm still working to incorporate all the new understandings I gained
> as a result.
> 
> Well guess what.  I think I just discovered the proximate cause of
> the problem:  our rented Comcast router for which we had been paying
> for the privilege of being abused with a for truly embarrassing
> period of time.
> 
> Chalk it up to procrastination and matrimonial politics (aka my own 
> stupidity.)
> 
> Having had the wonderful success of finally figuring out how to set
> up Cloudflare DNS on Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, and Lubuntu machines
> (thank you NMGLUG, especially Anthony B), I decided I wanted to act
> on the notion that I should probably try to set up a Pi Hole
> ad-blocking firewall. But I knew that I'd first have obtain a third
> party router in order to obtain a configurable interface.
> 
> So about a month ago I finally purchased and set up our own Netgear
> unit and returned the Comcast rental (even though the Netgear unit is
> a relatively inexpensive model, it will still take about fifteen
> months to recover the cost via savings from ending the Comcast
> rip-off; thus the decision was not completely trivial.)
> 
> Other than shopping and reading quite a few questionable product 
> reviews, the whole process was entirely simple and painless.  That
> alone should have set me to thinking.
> 
> This afternoon while updating a computer that I don't usually keep in 
> Albuquerque or use online, I noticed that when I opened Thunderbird, 
> email downloaded instantly.  Which I did not expect because I knew 
> Thunderbird was still configured for imap.comcast.net.
> 
> Hmm.  What if I set my other computer back from imap.ge.xfinity.com
> to imap.comcast.net?  Lo and behold imap.comcast.net now works just
> fine.
> 
> I conclude that our rented Comcast modem-router with the default 
> crippled interface had, unknown to me and against my wishes, been 
> configured as a firewall against the use of desktop Linux mail
> clients.
> 
> At least that appears to be the case here in Albuquerque.
> 
> Any new I-told-you-sos or similar tales of woe out there?
> 
> Tom in Albuquerque


We here is ABQ had a huge update to the Comcast network which took down
my home network. I own all my own equipment including the modem. Having
purchased the modem and router I have gained complete control of my
internal network (multiple routers and other devices). Having said that
whatever they did took my internal network down and in fact it was not
untill today I figured out that the patch cable from my main router to
the modem was the problem. A new non-patch cable fixed the problem and
I can now interface with my router. Took days to figure this out. There
was new firmware pushed to my modem by Comcrap but I have no control
over that. Still a mystery to what happend

Peter in ABQ