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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 3 of 3 — ← Prev page 1 2 [3]

#213040

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 01:22:27PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:14:01PM +0300, Reco 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.
> 
> Way to oversimplify, and "creative use of hosting" basically means
> "hope and pray". It's also not actually true that there's hosting
> magic which makes you immune to blacklist stupidity unless your
> hosting is gmail or something equally too large to block.

Unless a blacklist adds victims by AS number, a change of MTA's IP
(hence the hosting) and an appropriate DNS reconfiguration is
sufficient to sidestep it.
Of course, one can get an already blacklisted IP, so a certain amount of
"hope and pray" applies here.


> > 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.
> 
> We can agree to disagree. I think like the regular old telephone,
> people will suddenly realize that as a communication tool the noise is
> outweighing the signal and drop it.

Landlines still have their use here. They are shrinking to business and
government communications, sure. But it's curious how many people still
rely on that "you leave your job at office" principle.


> In my experience with the younger generation, they already don't
> consider email a primary means of communication except within a closed
> environment like a school.

That's something I agree with. Still, I propose to wait until
post-Generation Z gets their first job.


> In business the trend is increasingly toward outsourcing email to a
> large cloud provider (e.g., MS/outlook) so a future in which
> businesses mainly communicate between a small number of very large
> providers is not all that remote.

The trend is here, sure, as long as you consider small business.
Large one - not so much.


> > 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.
> 
> So which is it? A small email domain isn't a big deal to manage or it is?

I saw no unsolvable problems in doing it so far, hence my interest to
your statements. And yes, I do not consider myself an expert in all
things related to SNMP, MTAs and the like.

Reco

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#213052

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 08:39:43PM +0300, Reco wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 01:22:27PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:14:01PM +0300, Reco 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.
>>
>> Way to oversimplify, and "creative use of hosting" basically means
>> "hope and pray". It's also not actually true that there's hosting
>> magic which makes you immune to blacklist stupidity unless your
>> hosting is gmail or something equally too large to block.
>
>Unless a blacklist adds victims by AS number, a change of MTA's IP
>(hence the hosting) and an appropriate DNS reconfiguration is
>sufficient to sidestep it.

And cause different issues, because you're no longer on an IP with an 
established history. You're also assuming that they're blocking by IP 
rather than domain, which is quite bold assumption since the blacklist 
is a black box and domain based blacklists most certainly exist. That 
said, I have in the past configured specific domains to recieve email 
from specific IPs because they arbitrarily stopped accepting mail from 
other IPs. 

>Of course, one can get an already blacklisted IP, so a certain amount of
>"hope and pray" applies here.

Or, you're trying to send to someone who's blacklisting broad ranges of 
IPs or ASs and you're just wasting your time changing IPs. Nothing like 
find that out after going down that road.

>> In my experience with the younger generation, they already don't
>> consider email a primary means of communication except within a closed
>> environment like a school.
>
>That's something I agree with. Still, I propose to wait until
>post-Generation Z gets their first job.

Why? Current young working age people are alredy far less invested in 
email than their older peers. This isn't changing as they continue to 
work. If anything, they're pushing companies away from using email as a 
primary means of internal communication.

>> In business the trend is increasingly toward outsourcing email to a
>> large cloud provider (e.g., MS/outlook) so a future in which
>> businesses mainly communicate between a small number of very large
>> providers is not all that remote.
>
>The trend is here, sure, as long as you consider small business.
>Large one - not so much.

Maybe not ten years ago, but CIOs need to now have a good answer to why 
*not* outsource email. For the most part, large businesses that aren't 
IT providers don't particularly want to manage email servers. It might 
be hard for them to change their existing infrastructure, but in my 
experience it's something they're definitely looking at.

>> So which is it? A small email domain isn't a big deal to manage or it is?
>
>I saw no unsolvable problems in doing it so far, hence my interest to
>your statements. And yes, I do not consider myself an expert in all
>things related to SNMP, MTAs and the like.

I never said the problems were unsolvable. (For the most part. I have 
seen horror stories where the best solution was to abandon a domain.) I 
do propose that the effort involved is so large that for most people it 
isn't worth it. As the number of people who care to try continues to 
shrink, the motivation for the large providers to bother worrying about 
small providers shrinks even faster. At some point the percentage of 
non-spam email originating from providers with less than a million users 
will be so small that the benefits in just cutting it off will outweigh 
the cost of doing so. We're already well past the point where sending 
from a gmail account is an accepted diagnostic step--which makes it hard 
to explain to an ordinary person why it wouldn't be the default.

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#213056

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 03:45:31PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 08:39:43PM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 01:22:27PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:14:01PM +0300, Reco 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.
> > > 
> > > Way to oversimplify, and "creative use of hosting" basically means
> > > "hope and pray". It's also not actually true that there's hosting
> > > magic which makes you immune to blacklist stupidity unless your
> > > hosting is gmail or something equally too large to block.
> > 
> > Unless a blacklist adds victims by AS number, a change of MTA's IP
> > (hence the hosting) and an appropriate DNS reconfiguration is
> > sufficient to sidestep it.
> 
> And cause different issues, because you're no longer on an IP with an
> established history.

A blank slate. There's nothing wrong with it. Blacklists are called that
for a reason, they do not block whole IPv4/IPv6 address space.


> You're also assuming that they're blocking by IP rather than domain,
> which is quite bold assumption since the blacklist is a black box and
> domain based blacklists most certainly exist.  That said, I have in
> the past configured specific domains to recieve email from specific
> IPs because they arbitrarily stopped accepting mail from other IPs.

Haven't encountered one yet, but I trust you on this.


> > Of course, one can get an already blacklisted IP, so a certain amount of
> > "hope and pray" applies here.
> 
> Or, you're trying to send to someone who's blacklisting broad ranges
> of IPs or ASs and you're just wasting your time changing IPs. Nothing
> like find that out after going down that road.

And that's where "hosting" comes into play. Blacklisting, say, whole
Amazon AS is a little extreme, don't you think?


> > > In my experience with the younger generation, they already don't
> > > consider email a primary means of communication except within a closed
> > > environment like a school.
> > 
> > That's something I agree with. Still, I propose to wait until
> > post-Generation Z gets their first job.
> 
> Why? Current young working age people are alredy far less invested in
> email than their older peers. This isn't changing as they continue to
> work.

I disagree. "We do things this way because we got used to it" still
holds some weight.

> If anything, they're pushing companies away from using email as
> a primary means of internal communication.

But they lack weight to do so effectively yet. Certain positions come
with an age.


> > > In business the trend is increasingly toward outsourcing email to a
> > > large cloud provider (e.g., MS/outlook) so a future in which
> > > businesses mainly communicate between a small number of very large
> > > providers is not all that remote.
> > 
> > The trend is here, sure, as long as you consider small business.
> > Large one - not so much.
> 
> Maybe not ten years ago, but CIOs need to now have a good answer to why *not* outsource email.

Privacy of internal communications? Risk limiting? A good CIO should
always have pro- and contra- arguments for any proposition.


> For the most part, large businesses that aren't IT providers don't
> particularly want to manage email servers. It might be hard for them
> to change their existing infrastructure, but in my experience it's
> something they're definitely looking at.

I'll believe it then I'll see it.

Reco

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#213059

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 11:10:08PM +0300, Reco wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 03:45:31PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 08:39:43PM +0300, Reco wrote:
>> > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 01:22:27PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
>> > > On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 07:14:01PM +0300, Reco 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.
>> > >
>> > > Way to oversimplify, and "creative use of hosting" basically means
>> > > "hope and pray". It's also not actually true that there's hosting
>> > > magic which makes you immune to blacklist stupidity unless your
>> > > hosting is gmail or something equally too large to block.
>> >
>> > Unless a blacklist adds victims by AS number, a change of MTA's IP
>> > (hence the hosting) and an appropriate DNS reconfiguration is
>> > sufficient to sidestep it.
>>
>> And cause different issues, because you're no longer on an IP with an
>> established history.
>
>A blank slate. There's nothing wrong with it. 

Except that other anti-spam algorithms take into account how long a 
domain has been around, and how long a specific IP has been in use for 
that domain. (In order to try to counteract spammers doing exactly what 
you're recommending in order to avoid IP based blocklists.)

>Blacklists are called that
>for a reason, they do not block whole IPv4/IPv6 address space.

Sure they do. Even in this thread you've heard people advocate blocking 
entire countries. You seem to be arguing based on some particular 
blacklist implementation without recognizing that other recipients use 
other blacklists, some of which may even have policies that you might 
think are idiotic. If you're trying to send an email to someone whose 
provider implements idiotic policies, your assessment of their policies 
is basically irrelevant. (Though it may eventually encourage you to 
simply stop caring about whether the email gets delivered.)

>> You're also assuming that they're blocking by IP rather than domain,
>> which is quite bold assumption since the blacklist is a black box and
>> domain based blacklists most certainly exist.
>
> Haven't encountered one yet, but I trust you on this.

As an example, see https://www.spamhaus.org/dbl/ and "RHSBL"

>> Or, you're trying to send to someone who's blacklisting broad ranges
>> of IPs or ASs and you're just wasting your time changing IPs. Nothing
>> like find that out after going down that road.
>
>And that's where "hosting" comes into play. Blacklisting, say, whole
>Amazon AS is a little extreme, don't you think?

See above. Also, there are certainly recipients who are more skeptical 
of amazon IPs exactly because they're so easy to spin up. Also, amazon 
themselves will ask questions if you start hopping IPs and asking for 
PTRs on each of them for email delivery.

Again, each of these things is usually surmountable, but rational people 
eventually have to ask whether it's worth the effort vs throwing in the 
towel and outsourcing to a first tier provider.

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#213076

On Tue 20/Aug/2019 23:11:27 +0200 Michael Stone wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 11:10:08PM +0300, Reco wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 03:45:31PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
>>> On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 08:39:43PM +0300, Reco wrote:
>>>> Unless a blacklist adds victims by AS number, a change of MTA's IP
>>>> (hence the hosting) and an appropriate DNS reconfiguration is
>>>> sufficient to sidestep it.
>>>
>>> And cause different issues, because you're no longer on an IP with an
>>> established history.
>>
>> A blank slate. There's nothing wrong with it. 
> 
> Except that other anti-spam algorithms take into account how long a
> domain has been around, and how long a specific IP has been in use for
> that domain. (In order to try to counteract spammers doing exactly
> what you're recommending in order to avoid IP based blocklists.)


Normally, change of IPs occurs every time you find a better ISP.


>> Blacklists are called that for a reason, they do not block whole
>> IPv4/IPv6 address space.>
> Sure they do. Even in this thread you've heard people advocate
> blocking entire countries. You seem to be arguing based on some
> particular blacklist implementation without recognizing that other
> recipients use other blacklists, some of which may even have policies
> that you might think are idiotic. If you're trying to send an email to
> someone whose provider implements idiotic policies, your assessment of
> their policies is basically irrelevant. (Though it may eventually
> encourage you to simply stop caring about whether the email gets
> delivered.)


Widely used domains usually adopt policies which grant decent
deliverability.  Hotmail users are obviously happy having every new
contact's message delivered in their spam folder.  I prefer a spam
folder not having to be rummaged through —SA score ≥ 9.


>>> You're also assuming that they're blocking by IP rather than domain,
>>> which is quite bold assumption since the blacklist is a black box and
>>> domain based blacklists most certainly exist.
>>
>> Haven't encountered one yet, but I trust you on this.
> 
> As an example, see https://www.spamhaus.org/dbl/ and "RHSBL"


These lists are used for content inspection.  If a message contains a
link to a bad web site, presumably inviting recipient to click on it,
it is worth blocking it.  That's a somewhat poor technique.  M$
rewrites links so as to redirect them to a local proxy.  Another
approach is to use DNS RPZ.


>>> Or, you're trying to send to someone who's blacklisting broad ranges
>>> of IPs or ASs and you're just wasting your time changing IPs. Nothing
>>> like find that out after going down that road.
>>
>> And that's where "hosting" comes into play. Blacklisting, say, whole
>> Amazon AS is a little extreme, don't you think?
> 
> See above. Also, there are certainly recipients who are more skeptical
> of amazon IPs exactly because they're so easy to spin up. Also, amazon
> themselves will ask questions if you start hopping IPs and asking for
> PTRs on each of them for email delivery.
> 
> Again, each of these things is usually surmountable, but rational
> people eventually have to ask whether it's worth the effort vs
> throwing in the towel and outsourcing to a first tier provider.


It is true that many people turn to Gmail and similar services.  The
reasons why they do so are certainly complex, but I don't think
getting out of blacklists holds a relevant position in the overall
statistic.  I, for one, never had this problem after 20+ years of
running my own mail site.


Best
Ale

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#213077

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 05:32:28PM +0200, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
>On Tue 20/Aug/2019 23:11:27 +0200 Michael Stone wrote:
>> As an example, see https://www.spamhaus.org/dbl/ and "RHSBL"
>
>These lists are used for content inspection

So you didn't look for what RHSBL means? The level of "my experience 
defines how everyone else does things" in this thread is amazing.

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#213043

On Tue 20 Aug 2019 at 11:24:42 -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. 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?

The existence of an Internet swamped with spam has led to spam fighters
policing it and users demanding a means not to receive it. Between the
two, sending email directly has become more and more difficult. Spam
hasn't disappeared or been reduced, but the spam fighters have impacted
on the basic concept of email communication and are achieving what the
spammers haven't achieved - making email communication fraught and
unreliable.

-- 
Brian.
 

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#213046

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

An eye opener for me was when my site got blacklisted as a spammer because
I was sending bounce messages for every email I refused to accept (due to
spam).

False positives happen more often then you'd think when you're receiving
legitimate emails in English, from international non-native speakers,
discussing legitimate wire-transfers (because when you send your kid to
another country for school, you might want to send them money). I still
think that it's super important to know when your email gets dropped on the
floor.

On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 2:30 PM Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:

> On Tue 20 Aug 2019 at 11:24:42 -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. 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?
>
> The existence of an Internet swamped with spam has led to spam fighters
> policing it and users demanding a means not to receive it. Between the
> two, sending email directly has become more and more difficult. Spam
> hasn't disappeared or been reduced, but the spam fighters have impacted
> on the basic concept of email communication and are achieving what the
> spammers haven't achieved - making email communication fraught and
> unreliable.
>
> --
> Brian.
>
>
>

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#213049

On Tue, 20 Aug 2019 19:29:54 +0100
Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:

...

> The existence of an Internet swamped with spam has led to spam fighters
> policing it and users demanding a means not to receive it. Between the
> two, sending email directly has become more and more difficult. Spam
> hasn't disappeared or been reduced, but the spam fighters have impacted

The potential fallacy here is that spam may not have been reduced from
its levels of previous years, but the real question is whether it is
less than it would be *today* without the efforts of the spam fighters.

Celejar

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#213054

On Tue 20 Aug 2019 at 15:29:41 -0400, Celejar wrote:

> On Tue, 20 Aug 2019 19:29:54 +0100
> Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> > The existence of an Internet swamped with spam has led to spam fighters
> > policing it and users demanding a means not to receive it. Between the
> > two, sending email directly has become more and more difficult. Spam
> > hasn't disappeared or been reduced, but the spam fighters have impacted
> 
> The potential fallacy here is that spam may not have been reduced from
> its levels of previous years, but the real question is whether it is
> less than it would be *today* without the efforts of the spam fighters.

It is your job to demonstrate that the spam fighters have had a
significant impact on the flow of spam over the internet. My
contention is that they will have simply brought the use of mail
to the point of uselessness if their ideas gain a significant
amount of traction.

-- 
Brian.

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#213045

On Tue, 20 Aug 2019 11:24:42 -0400
Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> 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?
> 

I would be. Every day I read an email from my server listing every
sender's email address where my server has refused to accept the mail
and which were sent to one of the three real names my server deals
with. 

It's not a big task, as the overwhelmingly vast majority of refused spam
is sent to obviously made-up names on my domains in the hope of getting
a bounce to the spoofed From: address.

Fifteen or so years ago, out of curiosity, I said to hell with fake
email addresses, I'd go on using the Net with a real address (the one
in the headers has been my main address all those years) and see if I
could deal with the consequences. I've had to give up one of my main
weapons, the DNS check, as so many small businesses now outsource to
some other small business which doesn't really understand email. Also,
a lot of domestic ISPs now give their users PTR records. I've
compromised by routing the PTR-less stuff straight to a spam folder.
and glancing at it occasionally. 

It has worked out pretty well, I don't see a lot of spam, because I
refuse all the NDR stuff, and don't have a backup mail server. Much of
what I do see is 'real' spam, bloody idiots in my own country who
genuinely believe that the way to sell me stuff is to send me
unsolicited email. Repeatedly. 

I keep my own blacklist, and the mailing companies and tiny ISPs who
provide services to these spammers go into it. I used to complain a lot
to abuse addresses, but it never helped, and the big people don't even
have abuse addresses now.

-- 
Joe

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#213078

On Tuesday, August 20, 2019 02:44:22 PM Joe wrote:
> I would be. Every day I read an email from my server listing every
> sender's email address where my server has refused to accept the mail
> and which were sent to one of the three real names my server deals
> with.

So, is that from your own email server or from an ISP -- if from an ISP, which 
ISP?

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#213084

On Wed, 21 Aug 2019 12:51:35 -0400
rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:

> On Tuesday, August 20, 2019 02:44:22 PM Joe wrote:
> > I would be. Every day I read an email from my server listing every
> > sender's email address where my server has refused to accept the
> > mail and which were sent to one of the three real names my server
> > deals with.  
> 
> So, is that from your own email server or from an ISP -- if from an
> ISP, which ISP?
> 

My own server, I'm afraid. I can't imagine any ISP offering a service
like that, it requires a valid account list, and the only way to
achieve that through an ISP is to have named mailboxes there.

-- 
Joe

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#213027

On 2019-08-19 19:35, Richard Owlett wrote:

> IOW
>   *CHEAPSKATES LOSE*

You've been to the Isle of Wight haven't you.

-- 
Key ID    4BFEBB31

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