Have all the Email systems of the world been broken by ISP's SPAM filters?
BeamGuy
email stopped working a few weeks back when their ISP installed a new SPAM filter. Now it is fixed... but only 2/5 of my test
messages get through.
Searching Google I find that they are not alone. There are not only ample complaints about their own tiny ISP.
And their ISP is not alone either. Several months back a friend had to give up sending mail to my home DSL account because her
messages were bouncing... - Google has huge numbers of complaints about my own Verizon DSL provider as well.
Here is my matrix of what does not work.
Verizon.net CANNOT send mail to worldkey.net
axcelis.com CANNOT send mail to worldkey.net
princeton.edu CANNOT send mail to worldkey.net
netzero.com CAN send mail to worldkey.net
samus.securehbs.com CAN send mail to worldkey.net
worldkey.net CANNOT send mail to verizon.net
worldkey.net CAN send mail to samus.securehbs.com
worldkey.net CAN send mail to princeton.edu
worldkey.net CAN send mail to netzero.net
worldkey.net CAN send mail to axcelis.com
comcast.net sometimes CANNOT send mail to verizon.net
verizon.net CAN send mail to comcast.net
samus.securehbs.com CANNOT send mail to godaddy.com for forwarding either... In this case they were nice
enough to send back this response:
"smtp.secureserver.net [64.202.166.12]: 553 69.93.45.234 rejected due to spam, contact 480-505-8877 (Attack detected)"
-------------
It is not my job to fill in the rest of the matrix. It looks like as many as 50% of the relays
from one mail to another mail server are broken! Please tell me this is not happening.
I make a living making parts for computers.... if you guys in the interest of security break
everyone's confidence that email will get through... well everyone will switch back to
paper mail and leave all of us with rusty expensive toys that no one uses anymore!
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/
"BeamGuy" <nob...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:egzb$jH8EH...@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
BeamGuy
on hold at verizon.net before someone who did not know what a mail server was
could tell me it was not their problem - there was no one else in the company I
could talk with - and my friend should contact her service. After describing my
experience she did not choose to contact comcast.net - instead she just started
using another email address that worked.
worldkey.net is my inlaw's ISP - and most of the time we get some fellow who
speaks with an indian accent who gives out incorrect information. When I called
and could keep him on the line while I tried it he switched to what sounded like
the only english he knew...
"We are having problems with out mail servers due to spam"
how long till it is fixed.
"We are having problems with out mail servers due to spam"
Is there anyone else I can talk with
"We are having problems with out mail servers due to spam"
...
I have an email contact at worldkey.net, but have not recieved a response.
Presumeably godaddy.com and samus.securehbs.com are
different ISP's... I just don't have the energy to spend tracking that one down,
and it is not my main problem of today - just another example that shows
that we are facing a widespread problem here.
In general - who should be the responsible party, the guy at the recieving end
who refuses the connection or the guy at the sending end who sent something
that looked suspicious?
"Jupiter Jones [MVP]" <jones_...@hotnomail.com> wrote in message news:%23HEXRrH...@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
If you ask around, you will get a great many different answers.
About equal to the number of people you ask.
If your ISP is filtering legitimate mail as spam, that is where you need to
start.
If it is blocked as spam there are several possible reasons:
The sender is sending in a way that resembles spam to the ISP:
The sender needs to change to agree with BOTH sending and receiving ISP.
One or both have spam filters that are to tight.
The ISP user needs to contact your ISP.
If the problem is at your friends service and she will not contact them,
there is little you can do since there is no problem as far as your friends
ISP is concerned.
--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/
"BeamGuy" <nob...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:O2vgW5H8...@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
PA Bear
</quote> and see what happens. <eg>
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE)
Vanguard
If you can define server-side rules (i.e., use their webmail interface
to look at options to see if you can define filters or rules on their
server for your mailbox) the you have some options on how to handle your
good e-mails.
Some mail servers let you define server-side rules. One, for example,
is the whitelist any sender that is listed in your address book. The
rule is at the top of the rules list (and stops any further rules
processing) and if the sender is known then no action is taken against
that message (it stays in the inbox) and no more rules are exercised
against that message. You could even make your account exclusive in
that only known senders can send you e-mail. Make your known-sender
rule delete all messages unless the sender is in your address book.
Hotmail lets you do this as an option while other webmail and POP3
accounts can do it with a rule (server- or client-side). I'd rather use
the known-sender rule to stop any further processing of rules (if known,
no more rules need to be exercised). If it gets past that rule, the
subsequent rules do some spam filtering. That way not every sender has
to be a known sender but known senders are guaranteed to get their
e-mails to me.
You could also define a rule that looks for a passcode (aka magic
string) in your good e-mails from known senders. They put the passcode
in the Subject header and your server-side rules detects it, leaves that
message alone (so it stays in the Inbox), and uses a stop-clause or
option to prevent exercising any more rules. You could also define
server-side rules to look for that passcode in the To or Cc header (so
you are looking for it in the Subject, To, or Cc headers). Just tell
the sender to add the passcode to your name in their contact record in
their address book. When they send you an e-mail, the comment portion
of the e-mail address in the To or Cc header will have the passcode and
your server-side rule will catch it. In fact, if you notice my
signature, I use the reverse test: if the sender doesn't put the
passcode in the Subject (or To or Cc) header then a rule checks that it
is missing (but just for that account) and will delete the message. If
it isn't passcoded, I don't get it. Spambots harvest e-mail addresses
and sometimes spammers or a-holes in the newsgroups will unmunge e-mail
addresses and post them for spambots to harvest. But the spambots don't
understand instructions in signatures and the signature isn't included
in the harvested list sent to the spammer so they'll never know to put
the passcode in the headers and it gets deleted upon receipt. I use a
special-use e-mail account for usenet because of this passcode
requirement.
If you have the option of server-side rules, or what they provide really
sucks (I can do the above using Yahoo's rules but Gmail's rules really
suck), and if the ISP's spam filtering is generating way too many false
positives, then disable the ISP's spam filtering and define these rules
as client-side rules (i.e., in your e-mail client). If you disable your
ISP's spam filtering, you'll probably want to include a client-side
anti-spam product, like SpamPal, SpamBayes, or Spamihilator to assist
you in getting rid of spam. Defining a tons of rules in your e-mail
client to eliminate spam is a management nightmare and often not that
effective.
There have been times when my ISP's spam filtering has been too
aggressive and generated too many false positives (good e-mails it
thought were spam). Usually you can configure to immediately delete the
suspect e-mails or to hold them for 1, 2, or 4 weeks after which they
expire and get deleted (so you can catch false positives). If I get any
more false positives from my ISP (more than 1 or 2 per month is too
many), I'll just disable their spam filtering and rely on my own
solutions over which I have far more control. If you don't the spam
filtering behavior provided by your ISP, well, then the obviously
solution is to not use it. Gmail doesn't let you disable spam filtering
(and I've send a trouble report to them to report that defect), so you
might not want to use an ISP who doesn't let you disable their spam
filtering. They gave you protection without choice (i.e., they force
protection down your throat). No thanks. I must be able to
enable/disable spam filtering by the ISP. A good set of server-side
rules or filters is definitely a bonus. An e-mail client with a potent
set of rules is a requirement. OE's and Thunderbird's rule set are the
absolute bare minimum for rule functionality that I will accept,
Outlook's rules set is better, but SpamPal's RegEx is much better (and
can be used in conjuction with the e-mail client's rules). Even if I
can define server-side rules and if I decide to use server-side spam
filtering, I still end up needing client-side rules and anti-spam
solutions.
--
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Karl Levinson, mvp
tech support. Or when you call tech support, try demanding to speak to a
manager.
If you switched to, say, AOL or MSN, you might not get the right answer the
first time, but I would think you would be able to escalate the issue to
someone else who would take your problem seriously.
Or, wait until worldkey gets their spam filters working.
It seems to me the bulk of the problems here are with worldkey. I've never
heard of them. Your results notwithstanding, my experience has been that
major ISPs generally have more reliable spam filtering than what worldkey is
using, and care more if their filtering causes major problems.
> worldkey.net CANNOT send mail to verizon.net
Sounds like worldkey may be listed as a spammer, perhaps their email servers
are configured to permit relays. Or possibly worldkey.net is using dnsrbl
and thinks verizon.net is a spammer. Either way, I suspect worldkey.
> worldkey.net CAN send mail to samus.securehbs.com
> worldkey.net CAN send mail to princeton.edu
> worldkey.net CAN send mail to netzero.net
> worldkey.net CAN send mail to axcelis.com
Sounds to me like things are working as expected for all of the five ISPs
above.
> comcast.net sometimes CANNOT send mail to verizon.net
What's the error message you get?
> samus.securehbs.com CANNOT send mail to godaddy.com for forwarding
either... In this case they were nice
> enough to send back this response:
> "smtp.secureserver.net [64.202.166.12]: 553 69.93.45.234 rejected due to
spam, contact 480-505-8877 (Attack detected)"
I'm not at all surprised about this. You could call the phone number and
try to get help. It could be that you will not be able to do this or may
need to change something. How are you sending this email? And what email
addresses are in the From: and To: fields of your email? Generally, to
prevent spam relaying, I would think that godaddy.com would have to be in
either the From: or To: field, or else the mail would be rightfully rejected
by most any sane email server.
"BeamGuy" <nob...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:egzb$jH8EH...@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
Jeff Cochran
>I am sitting here in this new year trying to figure out how on earth I am supposed to send email to my in-laws this year. Their
>email stopped working a few weeks back when their ISP installed a new SPAM filter. Now it is fixed... but only 2/5 of my test
>messages get through.
>
>Searching Google I find that they are not alone. There are not only ample complaints about their own tiny ISP.
>
>And their ISP is not alone either. Several months back a friend had to give up sending mail to my home DSL account because her
>messages were bouncing... - Google has huge numbers of complaints about my own Verizon DSL provider as well.
>
>Here is my matrix of what does not work.
>
>Verizon.net CANNOT send mail to worldkey.net
>axcelis.com CANNOT send mail to worldkey.net
>princeton.edu CANNOT send mail to worldkey.net
>netzero.com CAN send mail to worldkey.net
>samus.securehbs.com CAN send mail to worldkey.net
>
>worldkey.net CANNOT send mail to verizon.net
>worldkey.net CAN send mail to samus.securehbs.com
>worldkey.net CAN send mail to princeton.edu
>worldkey.net CAN send mail to netzero.net
>worldkey.net CAN send mail to axcelis.com
>
>comcast.net sometimes CANNOT send mail to verizon.net
>verizon.net CAN send mail to comcast.net
>
>samus.securehbs.com CANNOT send mail to godaddy.com for forwarding either... In this case they were nice
>enough to send back this response:
>"smtp.secureserver.net [64.202.166.12]: 553 69.93.45.234 rejected due to spam, contact 480-505-8877 (Attack detected)"
From all of this, looks like you, your friend or both need to switch
ISP's, or swicth to a different email provider. If any of the
broadband accounts are using home-based SMTP servers, this is expected
and you shoudl use the ISP's main account. At any rate, since this is
your business, you really should geta web host with an email account
to use and your own domain, what happens to your business when you
change providers?
Jeff
Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]
I'd presume NDRs would be generated if all is working as it should be- that
can provide a clue. SMTP servers are supposed to send NDRs - it isn't good
practice to disable this.
The sender should contact his/her ISP as well as the recipient's. Spam
filtering can be a great thing, but if the settings are too severe, there
will be a lot of false positives. Also, a lot of mail servers block mail
from specific domains, or dynamic IP address ranges, etc -
I don't like server-side spam filtering that doesn't allow the users access
to a quarantine folder.
S. Pidgorny <MVP>
"Jeff Cochran" <jeff....@zina.com> wrote in message
news:41dd1f77...@msnews.microsoft.com...
> From all of this, looks like you, your friend or both need to switch
> ISP's, or swicth to a different email provider.
Problem being, ISPs now are stipulated to install spam filters, and
sometimes the solutions have performance or quality problems, or both. So if
somebody switches to a new ISP, they might have the problem later on, when
the ISP installs or upgrades their spam filters.
I'd suggest a "known good" approach. Yahoo! Mail doesn't tend to lose any of
my e-mails to junk (however, it delivers substantial but tolerable amounts
of junk to the Inbox). Definitely they don't use blacklists.
--
Svyatoslav Pidgorny, MVP, MCSE
-= F1 is the key =-