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Solution to "pathetic email complaints"

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  Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2019-08-19 20:40 +0200
    Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Howard <mike@dewberryfields.co.uk> - 2019-08-19 20:50 +0200
    Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2019-08-19 22:30 +0200
      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-19 22:50 +0200
        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Christopher Marlow <debian@cwm030.com> - 2019-08-19 23:10 +0200
          Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-19 23:20 +0200
            Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-20 13:40 +0200
              Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> - 2019-08-20 14:40 +0200
              Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-20 16:50 +0200
                Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net> - 2019-08-20 17:00 +0200
                  Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-20 17:30 +0200
                    Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net> - 2019-08-20 18:20 +0200
                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-20 19:00 +0200
                        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-20 19:30 +0200
                          Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Alessandro Vesely <vesely@tana.it> - 2019-08-21 16:50 +0200
                            Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-21 16:50 +0200
                              Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2019-08-21 17:30 +0200
                                Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-21 19:50 +0200
                        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net> - 2019-08-20 19:30 +0200
                          Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-20 19:50 +0200
                            Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net> - 2019-08-20 20:20 +0200
                              Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-20 20:50 +0200
                                Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-08-20 21:40 +0200
                                  Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-21 19:20 +0200
                                    Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-08-21 21:10 +0200
                                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2019-08-21 21:40 +0200
                                        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-08-21 22:10 +0200
                                          Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2019-08-21 23:30 +0200
                                            Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-08-21 23:40 +0200
                                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" mick crane <mick.crane@gmail.com> - 2019-08-21 22:10 +0200
                                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2019-08-21 22:20 +0200
                              Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" elvis <elvis@dogonfire.com> - 2019-08-20 23:50 +0200
                                Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-21 02:00 +0200
                                Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-21 19:30 +0200
                                  Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" elvis <elvis@dogonfire.com> - 2019-08-23 10:00 +0200
                            Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-20 22:00 +0200
                              Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-21 19:50 +0200
                        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> - 2019-08-20 21:20 +0200
                          Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> - 2019-08-21 20:20 +0200
                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-20 19:30 +0200
                        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net> - 2019-08-20 19:50 +0200
                          Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-20 21:50 +0200
                            Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Reco <recoverym4n@enotuniq.net> - 2019-08-20 22:20 +0200
                              Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-20 23:20 +0200
                                Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Alessandro Vesely <vesely@tana.it> - 2019-08-21 17:40 +0200
                                  Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2019-08-21 18:00 +0200
                    Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-08-20 20:40 +0200
                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Dan Clery <dan@savevsgeek.com> - 2019-08-20 21:00 +0200
                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> - 2019-08-20 21:40 +0200
                        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2019-08-20 22:10 +0200
                    Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2019-08-20 20:50 +0200
                      Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" rhkramer@gmail.com - 2019-08-21 19:00 +0200
                        Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2019-08-21 20:50 +0200
    Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints" mick crane <mick.crane@gmail.com> - 2019-08-20 16:20 +0200

Page 1 of 3  [1] 2 3  Next page →

#213000 — Solution to "pathetic email complaints"

TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, TNSTAAFL    etc ;/
I have a *PAID* email provider.
I have a *PAID* Usenet provider.


IOW
   *CHEAPSKATES LOSE*

    u get what you paid for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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#213001

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On 19/08/2019 19:35, Richard Owlett wrote:
> TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, TNSTAAFL    etc ;/
> I have a *PAID* email provider.
> I have a *PAID* Usenet provider.
>
>
> IOW
>   *CHEAPSKATES LOSE*
>
>    u get what you paid for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>
>
>
Er, glad you got that off your chest!

-- 
Mike Howard

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#213011

On Mon 19 Aug 2019 at 13:35:13 (-0500), Richard Owlett wrote:
> TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, TNSTAAFL    etc ;/
> I have a *PAID* email provider.
> I have a *PAID* Usenet provider.
> 
> 
> IOW
>   *CHEAPSKATES LOSE*
> 
>    u get what you paid for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's reasonable to demand to know what you're giving in exchange for
a free service. Many of these providers aren't exactly forthcoming
about what that is. But I don't think you've advanced the discussion.

Cheers,
David.

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#213012

On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 10:33:22PM +0200, Étienne Mollier wrote:
>Besides, even when paying for your mail provider does not mean
>Google won't read the mail received on the Gmail inbox of your

And, there are paid mail services which are nonetheless pretty terrible. 
All that using a paid mail service means is that you aren't using a free 
mail service.

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#213014

On 8/19/19 3:41 PM, Michael Stone wrote:
> And, there are paid mail services which are nonetheless pretty 
> terrible. All that using a paid mail service means is that you aren't 
> using a free mail service.
>

I disagree... I like having my domain and email.. I just didn't like the 
way the free email accounts and some of their stupid rules and ways. I 
have had my domain since 2016 and I don't think I'd ever be able to go 
back to a free email address. Yes, I have free accounts but I just keep 
those around because I've had those accounts for years.

-- 
Thanks in advance!
Chris

Chris@CWM030.com

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#213015

On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 03:57:32PM -0500, Christopher Marlow wrote:
>On 8/19/19 3:41 PM, Michael Stone wrote:
>>And, there are paid mail services which are nonetheless pretty 
>>terrible. All that using a paid mail service means is that you 
>>aren't using a free mail service.
>>
>
>I disagree... I like having my domain and email.. 

What does that have to do with whether there are bad paid services? 
Whether the service is free or paid, you need to evaluate whether it's 
meeting your needs and, if not, pick a different service. Just paying 
for it doesn't guarantee anything.

That said, owning a domain does at least make it easier to change 
providers--and I recommend doing so for just that reason--but that's a 
slightly different thing than just paying for an email address. It's 
also worth noting that it's increasingly difficult to implement reliable 
email service for a domain that isn't something like gmail.com (because 
third parties may randomly direct people to stop accepting mail from 
your domain) and smaller email providers may not have the resources to 
deal with the these issues.

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#213024

On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 05:15:41PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 03:57:32PM -0500, Christopher Marlow wrote:
> > On 8/19/19 3:41 PM, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > And, there are paid mail services which are nonetheless pretty
> > > terrible. All that using a paid mail service means is that you
> > > aren't using a free mail service.
> > > 
> > 
> > I disagree... I like having my domain and email..
> 
> What does that have to do with whether there are bad paid services? Whether
> the service is free or paid, you need to evaluate whether it's meeting your
> needs and, if not, pick a different service. Just paying for it doesn't
> guarantee anything.
> 
> That said, owning a domain does at least make it easier to change
> providers--and I recommend doing so for just that reason--but that's a
> slightly different thing than just paying for an email address. It's also
> worth noting that it's increasingly difficult to implement reliable email
> service for a domain that isn't something like gmail.com (because third
> parties may randomly direct people to stop accepting mail from your domain)
> and smaller email providers may not have the resources to deal with the
> these issues.
> 

Well,
while I agree it is difficult setup an email service, but not
prohibitively so.
If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
you do not spam. And just the fact that you think you got an
email address legally (and maybe with some consent) does that
mean You can enter that address anywhere else or send unlimited
amount of junk. But if you are reasonable non of these providers
are difficult to deal with (office365 being the exception, they are
f**king insane)





-- 
Henning Follmann           | hfollmann@itcfollmann.com

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#213025

On Tue, 20 Aug 2019 07:31:57 -0400
Henning Follmann <hfollmann@itcfollmann.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 05:15:41PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 03:57:32PM -0500, Christopher Marlow wrote:
> > > On 8/19/19 3:41 PM, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > > And, there are paid mail services which are nonetheless pretty
> > > > terrible. All that using a paid mail service means is that you
> > > > aren't using a free mail service.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > I disagree... I like having my domain and email..
> > 
> > What does that have to do with whether there are bad paid services? Whether
> > the service is free or paid, you need to evaluate whether it's meeting your
> > needs and, if not, pick a different service. Just paying for it doesn't
> > guarantee anything.
> > 
> > That said, owning a domain does at least make it easier to change
> > providers--and I recommend doing so for just that reason--but that's a
> > slightly different thing than just paying for an email address. It's also
> > worth noting that it's increasingly difficult to implement reliable email
> > service for a domain that isn't something like gmail.com (because third
> > parties may randomly direct people to stop accepting mail from your domain)
> > and smaller email providers may not have the resources to deal with the
> > these issues.
> > 
> 
> Well,
> while I agree it is difficult setup an email service, but not
> prohibitively so.
> If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
> providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
> you do not spam. And just the fact that you think you got an

But IIUC, it's not just that *you* don't spam: other servers will take
into account things like your IP "neighborhood":

https://luxsci.com/blog/how-do-i-fix-the-reputation-of-my-ip-address.html

And, of course, who had that IP address before you, which practically
means that you need a static IP address.

Celejar

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#213031

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:31:57AM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
>If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
>providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
>you do not spam.

That's a nice idea, but simply not true. You'll be ok right up until you 
aren't, and as a small site you have no recourse to find out what the 
problem is. 

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#213032

	Hi.

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 10:48:44AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:31:57AM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
> > If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
> > providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
> > you do not spam.
> 
> That's a nice idea, but simply not true. You'll be ok right up until
> you aren't, and as a small site you have no recourse to find out what
> the problem is.

Such statement is incomplete without some examples.
Judging from your long history of contribution at Debian project,
surely you have some that can be shared with the list.

Reco

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#213033

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 05:57:40PM +0300, Reco wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 10:48:44AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:31:57AM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
>> > If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
>> > providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
>> > you do not spam.
>>
>> That's a nice idea, but simply not true. You'll be ok right up until
>> you aren't, and as a small site you have no recourse to find out what
>> the problem is.
>
>Such statement is incomplete without some examples.
>Judging from your long history of contribution at Debian project,
>surely you have some that can be shared with the list.

It's really hard to share specific examples without naming domains, so 
no. In general terms, It's almost unheard of to get any kind of response 
from the RFC-standard postmaster@ address these days. Most of the time, 
the best you can hope for is a bounce (rather than your message silently 
going into the recipient's spam box). If you're lucky the bounce will 
say something like "sender on blacklist X". If blacklist X is reasonably 
well known you can probably verify that the sender is on blacklist X. If 
you ask blacklist X why the sender is on the blacklist you'll get no 
response. Maybe something misattributed a spoofed email (relatively few 
sites actually care about SPF etc so spoofs are still extremely common), 
maybe someone hit the spam button accidently, maybe somebody doesn't 
like your ISP, maybe they don't like your country, who knows? At that 
point you descend into a shady world of extortion schemes, and need to 
make decisions about whether to pay third parties to "certify" your 
domain to a blacklist. In the old days losing an email was considered 
unacceptible; these days, there is so much junk that false positives are 
expected and routine. Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time--more 
than 20 years of dealing with email servers--but I don't really think 
email in its traditional form will exist much longer. Heck, there are 
even debian contributors whose personal email domains bounce emails from 
other debian contributors. Who knows if they're even aware of that?

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#213034

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 11:24:42AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 05:57:40PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 10:48:44AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:31:57AM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
> > > > If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
> > > > providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
> > > > you do not spam.
> > > 
> > > That's a nice idea, but simply not true. You'll be ok right up until
> > > you aren't, and as a small site you have no recourse to find out what
> > > the problem is.
> > 
> > Such statement is incomplete without some examples.
> > Judging from your long history of contribution at Debian project,
> > surely you have some that can be shared with the list.
> 
> It's really hard to share specific examples without naming domains, so
> no. In general terms, It's almost unheard of to get any kind of
> response from the RFC-standard postmaster@ address these days. Most of
> the time, the best you can hope for is a bounce (rather than your
> message silently going into the recipient's spam box). If you're lucky
> the bounce will say something like "sender on blacklist X". If
> blacklist X is reasonably well known you can probably verify that the
> sender is on blacklist X. If you ask blacklist X why the sender is on
> the blacklist you'll get no response. Maybe something misattributed a
> spoofed email (relatively few sites actually care about SPF etc so
> spoofs are still extremely common), maybe someone hit the spam button
> accidently, maybe somebody doesn't like your ISP, maybe they don't
> like your country, who knows? At that point you descend into a shady
> world of extortion schemes, and need to make decisions about whether
> to pay third parties to "certify" your domain to a blacklist.

So it boils down to "MTA needs care on a regular basis" and "some
blacklist can add your MTA for no good reason". First one is universal
(applies to any Internet-facing service), second one can be beat with a
creative use of hosting. Also, https://mxtoolbox.com. A non-free
service, but a useful one.


> In the old days losing an email was considered unacceptible;

It still is, you just have to consider a corporate communications as
well.


> these days, there is so much junk that false positives are expected
> and routine.

That haven't changed much in the last 15 years.


> Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time--more than 20 years of
> dealing with email servers--but I don't really think email in its
> traditional form will exist much longer.

With all it's disadvantages, SMTP is one of the few examples of
successful federated (i.e. - non-centralized) form of Internet
communications. The other ones are slowly dying IRC and dead XMPP.
So I disagree. They can put all the fancy additions (like SPF, DMARC and
DANE) to it, but SMTP has a strong chance to outlive a current
generation.


> Heck, there are even debian
> contributors whose personal email domains bounce emails from other
> debian contributors. Who knows if they're even aware of that?

I somehow doubt that Debian project membership requires to be an expert
in any MTA, or to have any system administration skills for that matter.
In another words, of course it's not normal, but is something that's to
be expected.

Reco

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#213035

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:14:01PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 11:24:42AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 05:57:40PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 10:48:44AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:31:57AM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
> > > > > If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
> > > > > providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
> > > > > you do not spam.
> > > > 
> > > > That's a nice idea, but simply not true. You'll be ok right up until
> > > > you aren't, and as a small site you have no recourse to find out what
> > > > the problem is.
> > > 
> > > Such statement is incomplete without some examples.
> > > Judging from your long history of contribution at Debian project,
> > > surely you have some that can be shared with the list.
> > 
> > It's really hard to share specific examples without naming domains, so
> > no. In general terms, It's almost unheard of to get any kind of
> > response from the RFC-standard postmaster@ address these days. Most of
> > the time, the best you can hope for is a bounce (rather than your
> > message silently going into the recipient's spam box). If you're lucky
> > the bounce will say something like "sender on blacklist X". If
> > blacklist X is reasonably well known you can probably verify that the
> > sender is on blacklist X. If you ask blacklist X why the sender is on
> > the blacklist you'll get no response. Maybe something misattributed a
> > spoofed email (relatively few sites actually care about SPF etc so
> > spoofs are still extremely common), maybe someone hit the spam button
> > accidently, maybe somebody doesn't like your ISP, maybe they don't
> > like your country, who knows? At that point you descend into a shady
> > world of extortion schemes, and need to make decisions about whether
> > to pay third parties to "certify" your domain to a blacklist.
> 
> So it boils down to "MTA needs care on a regular basis" and "some
> blacklist can add your MTA for no good reason". First one is universal
> (applies to any Internet-facing service), second one can be beat with a
> creative use of hosting. Also, https://mxtoolbox.com. A non-free
> service, but a useful one.
>

Can we be more vague? This is how conspiracy theories spawn.


> 
> > In the old days losing an email was considered unacceptible;
> 
> It still is, you just have to consider a corporate communications as
> well.
> 
> 
> > these days, there is so much junk that false positives are expected
> > and routine.
> 
> That haven't changed much in the last 15 years.

How is that to be expected? This all sounds like hear-say but
did this actually happened?


> 
> 
> > Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time--more than 20 years of
> > dealing with email servers--but I don't really think email in its
> > traditional form will exist much longer.
> 
> With all it's disadvantages, SMTP is one of the few examples of
> successful federated (i.e. - non-centralized) form of Internet
> communications. The other ones are slowly dying IRC and dead XMPP.
> So I disagree. They can put all the fancy additions (like SPF, DMARC and
> DANE) to it, but SMTP has a strong chance to outlive a current
> generation.
>

With this I agree!

> 
> > Heck, there are even debian
> > contributors whose personal email domains bounce emails from other
> > debian contributors. Who knows if they're even aware of that?
>

Are you aware of one? Really _KNOW_ this to be true?

> I somehow doubt that Debian project membership requires to be an expert
> in any MTA, or to have any system administration skills for that matter.
> In another words, of course it's not normal, but is something that's to
> be expected.
> 
> Reco
>

Well, yes,
I block random domains. But doing so is not random.
I first try to contact the e-mail owner and the admin. But if they do
no stop sending spam they are banned (usually forever).
I also block constantcontact and mailchimp, because they are basically
commercial spamming services and anyone can add anyone on any mailing list.

OTOH I really do not have any issues with my mailservices. I run
a couple of domains and there were really no issues in the past.
I am maintaining still the point that being blocked has 99% to do
with how you run your service. If you are not spamming people you
also will not end up on a blacklist. No one is really interested
just to mess with your e-mail if you are not bugging anyone.


-H

-- 
Henning Follmann           | hfollmann@itcfollmann.com

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#213036

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 12:58:05PM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 11:24:42AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
>> > Heck, there are even debian
>> > contributors whose personal email domains bounce emails from other
>> > debian contributors. Who knows if they're even aware of that?
>>
>
>Are you aware of one? Really _KNOW_ this to be true?

Why else would I say it?

>OTOH I really do not have any issues with my mailservices. I run
>a couple of domains and there were really no issues in the past.
>I am maintaining still the point that being blocked has 99% to do
>with how you run your service.

1% of a couple billion people is still a lot of people, no?

>If you are not spamming people you also will not end up on a blacklist.

Well, actual real-world experience shows that to not be true.

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#213070

On Tue 20/Aug/2019 19:26:23 +0200 Michael Stone wrote:
>> If you are not spamming people you also will not end up on a blacklist.
> 
> Well, actual real-world experience shows that to not be true.


You should (noisily) bring out that case!

Blacklists have to balance between reliability and completeness.  Of
course it may happen to be the odd case.  It has to be declared loudly
and repeatedly.

Anyway, the domain name is usually unaffected.  Everybody knows that
domain names can be abused.  DKIM signatures can attach attach some
responsibility of a message to a domain.  Attempts to deploy that
included spamhaus-whitelist and dkim-reputation, and are now closed.


Best
Ale

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#213071

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 04:42:43PM +0200, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
>On Tue 20/Aug/2019 19:26:23 +0200 Michael Stone wrote:
>>> If you are not spamming people you also will not end up on a blacklist.
>>
>> Well, actual real-world experience shows that to not be true.
>
>
>You should (noisily) bring out that case!

Why? This isn't exactly news. It seems that some people are living in a 
fantasy world where there are no false positives and that people selling 
blacklists care.

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#213075

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 10:46:11AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 04:42:43PM +0200, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
> >On Tue 20/Aug/2019 19:26:23 +0200 Michael Stone wrote:
> >>>If you are not spamming people you also will not end up on a blacklist.
> >>
> >>Well, actual real-world experience shows that to not be true.
> >
> >
> >You should (noisily) bring out that case!
> 
> Why? This isn't exactly news. It seems that some people are living
> in a fantasy world where there are no false positives and that
> people selling blacklists care.

I can just offer my own experience. After having implemented
SPF & DKIM (over a year ago) I had just one problem with a
not-delivered mail (German provider web.de). Their SMTP bounced
the message with an informative text. After complaining to them,
they fixed it.

Before SPF & DKIM, big providers (outlook.com, gmail among others)
tended to dump my messages into the receiver's spam folder (an
especially underhanded way of dropping a message without actually
dropping it).

So from my POV, care & feeding of an own SMTP server is some work,
yes, but perfectly doable.

There is some responsability on us, who can do it, to keep it
around for as long as possible: mail is still a decentralized
protocol, and that is very valuable.

Throwing up my hands and saying "it can't be done" is not an
option for me.

Cheers
-- tomás

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#213081

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 05:21:14PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 10:46:11AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 04:42:43PM +0200, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
> > >On Tue 20/Aug/2019 19:26:23 +0200 Michael Stone wrote:
> > >>>If you are not spamming people you also will not end up on a blacklist.
> > >>
> > >>Well, actual real-world experience shows that to not be true.
> > >
> > >
> > >You should (noisily) bring out that case!
> > 
> > Why? This isn't exactly news. It seems that some people are living
> > in a fantasy world where there are no false positives and that
> > people selling blacklists care.
> 
> I can just offer my own experience. After having implemented
> SPF & DKIM (over a year ago) I had just one problem with a
> not-delivered mail (German provider web.de). Their SMTP bounced
> the message with an informative text. After complaining to them,
> they fixed it.
> 
> Before SPF & DKIM, big providers (outlook.com, gmail among others)
> tended to dump my messages into the receiver's spam folder (an
> especially underhanded way of dropping a message without actually
> dropping it).
> 
> So from my POV, care & feeding of an own SMTP server is some work,
> yes, but perfectly doable.
> 
> There is some responsability on us, who can do it, to keep it
> around for as long as possible: mail is still a decentralized
> protocol, and that is very valuable.
> 
> Throwing up my hands and saying "it can't be done" is not an
> option for me.
> 

Amen, and thank you.

-H




-- 
Henning Follmann           | hfollmann@itcfollmann.com

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#213037

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 12:58:05PM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:14:01PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 11:24:42AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 05:57:40PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 10:48:44AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:31:57AM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
> > > > > > If you setup your DNS properly create SPF an DKIM almost all
> > > > > > providers will accept your email IF (and that's a very big if)
> > > > > > you do not spam.
> > > > > 
> > > > > That's a nice idea, but simply not true. You'll be ok right up until
> > > > > you aren't, and as a small site you have no recourse to find out what
> > > > > the problem is.
> > > > 
> > > > Such statement is incomplete without some examples.
> > > > Judging from your long history of contribution at Debian project,
> > > > surely you have some that can be shared with the list.
> > > 
> > > It's really hard to share specific examples without naming domains, so
> > > no. In general terms, It's almost unheard of to get any kind of
> > > response from the RFC-standard postmaster@ address these days. Most of
> > > the time, the best you can hope for is a bounce (rather than your
> > > message silently going into the recipient's spam box). If you're lucky
> > > the bounce will say something like "sender on blacklist X". If
> > > blacklist X is reasonably well known you can probably verify that the
> > > sender is on blacklist X. If you ask blacklist X why the sender is on
> > > the blacklist you'll get no response. Maybe something misattributed a
> > > spoofed email (relatively few sites actually care about SPF etc so
> > > spoofs are still extremely common), maybe someone hit the spam button
> > > accidently, maybe somebody doesn't like your ISP, maybe they don't
> > > like your country, who knows? At that point you descend into a shady
> > > world of extortion schemes, and need to make decisions about whether
> > > to pay third parties to "certify" your domain to a blacklist.
> > 
> > So it boils down to "MTA needs care on a regular basis" and "some
> > blacklist can add your MTA for no good reason". First one is universal
> > (applies to any Internet-facing service), second one can be beat with a
> > creative use of hosting. Also, https://mxtoolbox.com. A non-free
> > service, but a useful one.
> >
> 
> Can we be more vague? This is how conspiracy theories spawn.

What's so vague about "you've got into some blacklist, and they require
some monetary compensation to whitelist you"? These things happen.
Said blacklist does not affect your ability to receive mail, but can
affect sending it.


> > > In the old days losing an email was considered unacceptible;
> > 
> > It still is, you just have to consider a corporate communications as
> > well.
> > 
> > > these days, there is so much junk that false positives are expected
> > > and routine.
> > 
> > That haven't changed much in the last 15 years.
> 
> How is that to be expected? This all sounds like hear-say but
> did this actually happened?

Either you filter spam, and accept a certain amount of collateral damage
(i.e. some legitimate mail goes into spam), or you accept anything and
your users are drown in spam and viri (viruses? whatever). Or you try to
find a reasonable in-between and accept that occasional spam letter once
in a while. Surely you agree that it's been this way for a long time.


> > > Heck, there are even debian
> > > contributors whose personal email domains bounce emails from other
> > > debian contributors. Who knows if they're even aware of that?
> 
> Are you aware of one? Really _KNOW_ this to be true?

No, but I'm not a Debian contributor. I see no reason not to trust
Michael's word on this.


> > I somehow doubt that Debian project membership requires to be an expert
> > in any MTA, or to have any system administration skills for that matter.
> > In another words, of course it's not normal, but is something that's to
> > be expected.
> 
> Well, yes,
> I block random domains. But doing so is not random.
> I first try to contact the e-mail owner and the admin. But if they do
> no stop sending spam they are banned (usually forever).
> I also block constantcontact and mailchimp, because they are basically
> commercial spamming services and anyone can add anyone on any mailing list.

I see a certain amount of confusion here. What you're talking about is
receiving mail. An important part of any mail system, sure.
What the quoted sentence refers is sending e-mail.

So, a Debian contributor Alice sends a private e-mail to a Debian
contributor Bob. Both Alice and Bob use arbitrary e-mail servers, most
likely beyond their control. E-mail bounces, Alice does not get any
meaningful diagnostics, Bob does not get a e-mail. It can happen.


> OTOH I really do not have any issues with my mailservices. I run
> a couple of domains and there were really no issues in the past.
> I am maintaining still the point that being blocked has 99% to do
> with how you run your service. If you are not spamming people you
> also will not end up on a blacklist. No one is really interested
> just to mess with your e-mail if you are not bugging anyone.

My point exactly.

Reco

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#213041

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 08:22:23PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 12:58:05PM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:14:01PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 11:24:42AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 05:57:40PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 10:48:44AM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > > > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:31:57AM -0400, Henning Follmann wrote:
> > > 
> > > So it boils down to "MTA needs care on a regular basis" and "some
> > > blacklist can add your MTA for no good reason". First one is universal
> > > (applies to any Internet-facing service), second one can be beat with a
> > > creative use of hosting. Also, https://mxtoolbox.com. A non-free
> > > service, but a useful one.
> > >
> > 
> > Can we be more vague? This is how conspiracy theories spawn.
> 
> What's so vague about "you've got into some blacklist, and they require
> some monetary compensation to whitelist you"? These things happen.
> Said blacklist does not affect your ability to receive mail, but can
> affect sending it.

I was referring to "add your MTA for no good reason".
That is vague and really not true.

> 
> 
> > > > In the old days losing an email was considered unacceptible;
> > > 
> > > It still is, you just have to consider a corporate communications as
> > > well.
> > > 
> > > > these days, there is so much junk that false positives are expected
> > > > and routine.
> > > 
> > > That haven't changed much in the last 15 years.
> > 
> > How is that to be expected? This all sounds like hear-say but
> > did this actually happened?
> 
> Either you filter spam, and accept a certain amount of collateral damage
> (i.e. some legitimate mail goes into spam), or you accept anything and
> your users are drown in spam and viri (viruses? whatever). Or you try to
> find a reasonable in-between and accept that occasional spam letter once
> in a while. Surely you agree that it's been this way for a long time.
>

Sure, I understand this.
However as a person I depend on e-mail and I really never had any of
these issues.
I look at how these heuristic based filter work and it is easy to
maintain a form of communication where the likelihood of blocked
is low.
Pretty much don't do anything marketers do.
Do not use binary content.
Do not use HTML
No links either
Avoid explicit words.
I could go on.


> 
> > > > Heck, there are even debian
> > > > contributors whose personal email domains bounce emails from other
> > > > debian contributors. Who knows if they're even aware of that?
> > 
> > Are you aware of one? Really _KNOW_ this to be true?
> 
> No, but I'm not a Debian contributor. I see no reason not to trust
> Michael's word on this.
> 
> 
> > > I somehow doubt that Debian project membership requires to be an expert
> > > in any MTA, or to have any system administration skills for that matter.
> > > In another words, of course it's not normal, but is something that's to
> > > be expected.
> > 
> > Well, yes,
> > I block random domains. But doing so is not random.
> > I first try to contact the e-mail owner and the admin. But if they do
> > no stop sending spam they are banned (usually forever).
> > I also block constantcontact and mailchimp, because they are basically
> > commercial spamming services and anyone can add anyone on any mailing list.
> 
> I see a certain amount of confusion here. What you're talking about is
> receiving mail. An important part of any mail system, sure.
> What the quoted sentence refers is sending e-mail.
>

Sorry I wasn't clear in my text.
I absolutely understand We are talking about getting your e-mail out and
accepted. I was basically describing the thought process of the
receiving side, why you could be ending up being blocked. And
how it is mainly your responsibility if you end up in trouble (not
only as an e-mail admin, applies to life in general).


> So, a Debian contributor Alice sends a private e-mail to a Debian
> contributor Bob. Both Alice and Bob use arbitrary e-mail servers, most
> likely beyond their control. E-mail bounces, Alice does not get any
> meaningful diagnostics, Bob does not get a e-mail. It can happen.
>

It can happen, you could win the lottery :)
Could, Would, if and but. All vague forms of arguing.


> 
> > OTOH I really do not have any issues with my mailservices. I run
> > a couple of domains and there were really no issues in the past.
> > I am maintaining still the point that being blocked has 99% to do
> > with how you run your service. If you are not spamming people you
> > also will not end up on a blacklist. No one is really interested
> > just to mess with your e-mail if you are not bugging anyone.
> 
> My point exactly.
> 
> Reco
> 

-- 
Henning Follmann           | hfollmann@itcfollmann.com

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