This appears to happen more often these days: I send a message to a user and some blacklist system blocks my message. I have no control over what my ISP does, these services simply block my message without a way for me to fix this. Please, don't use these blacklist services, they are very annoying. They think they can reduce spam, but only by blocking legitimate messages. I rather have 100 spam messages than losing one real message. Also, there is no reliable way to tell if a message is spam or not. Some of these services even ask money to be removed from the list, which is close to extortion. Specifically my message to George Reilly started failing today. Messages to Mattias Winther were blocked for a longer time. -- FATHER: One day, lad, all this will be yours ... PRINCE: What - the curtains? "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" PYTHON (MONTY) PICTURES LTD /// Bram Moolenaar -- [hidden email] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ /// sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\ download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org /// \\\ help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org /// -- You received this message from the "vim_dev" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php |
On 11/07/10 16:04, Bram Moolenaar wrote:
> > This appears to happen more often these days: I send a message to a user > and some blacklist system blocks my message. I have no control over > what my ISP does, these services simply block my message without a way > for me to fix this. > > Please, don't use these blacklist services, they are very annoying. > They think they can reduce spam, but only by blocking legitimate > messages. I rather have 100 spam messages than losing one real message. > Also, there is no reliable way to tell if a message is spam or not. > Some of these services even ask money to be removed from the list, which > is close to extortion. > > Specifically my message to George Reilly started failing today. > Messages to Mattias Winther were blocked for a longer time. > In most cases the problem lies with the receiving ISP (Matthias's and George's, in this case). Some ISPs will drop on the floor incoming mail that "they think" is spam, others let you customize your email account to enable or disable filtering (but do they do what they say?), still others will filter "spam" to someplace where you can inspect it (let's say a webmail or IMAP folder other than Inbox). This way you may "fish back" false positives, and in some cases, by marking both false positives and false negatives (the latter being what spam went through the filters without being recognized as such) "teach" a Bayesian filtering system to recognize legit vs. spam mail with better and better (though of course never perfect) accuracy. This possibility to inspect what was labeled as spam is why I switched to Gmail (which offers it; I'm sure there are others); of course I have to periodically check, on their webmail interface, "Trash" for spam that was delivered to me over POP3 as legit and "Spam" for legit mail that was held when it shouldn't have been. Best regards, Tony. -- The wind doth taste so bitter sweet, Like Jaspar wine and sugar, It must have blown through someone's feet, Like those of Caspar Weinberger. -- P. Opus -- You received this message from the "vim_dev" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php |
Tony Mechelynck wrote: > On 11/07/10 16:04, Bram Moolenaar wrote: > > > > This appears to happen more often these days: I send a message to a user > > and some blacklist system blocks my message. I have no control over > > what my ISP does, these services simply block my message without a way > > for me to fix this. > > > > Please, don't use these blacklist services, they are very annoying. > > They think they can reduce spam, but only by blocking legitimate > > messages. I rather have 100 spam messages than losing one real message. > > Also, there is no reliable way to tell if a message is spam or not. > > Some of these services even ask money to be removed from the list, which > > is close to extortion. > > > > Specifically my message to George Reilly started failing today. > > Messages to Mattias Winther were blocked for a longer time. > > In most cases the problem lies with the receiving ISP (Matthias's and > George's, in this case). Some ISPs will drop on the floor incoming mail > that "they think" is spam, others let you customize your email account > to enable or disable filtering (but do they do what they say?), still > others will filter "spam" to someplace where you can inspect it (let's > say a webmail or IMAP folder other than Inbox). This way you may "fish > back" false positives, and in some cases, by marking both false > positives and false negatives (the latter being what spam went through > the filters without being recognized as such) "teach" a Bayesian > filtering system to recognize legit vs. spam mail with better and better > (though of course never perfect) accuracy. It's indeed that the receiving ISP is the one refusing the mail. But it's worse than what you describe: they block ALL mail from a certain IP address. That this IP address is used by hundreds of thousands of users doesn't appear to make a difference. I'm sure that if you have so many users there are always a few that will send spam (through a botnet). > This possibility to inspect what was labeled as spam is why I switched > to Gmail (which offers it; I'm sure there are others); of course I have > to periodically check, on their webmail interface, "Trash" for spam that > was delivered to me over POP3 as legit and "Spam" for legit mail that > was held when it shouldn't have been. Sometimes mail from Gmail is also blocked... -- I'd like to meet the man who invented sex and see what he's working on now. /// Bram Moolenaar -- [hidden email] -- http://www.Moolenaar.net \\\ /// sponsor Vim, vote for features -- http://www.Vim.org/sponsor/ \\\ \\\ download, build and distribute -- http://www.A-A-P.org /// \\\ help me help AIDS victims -- http://ICCF-Holland.org /// -- You received this message from the "vim_dev" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php |
In reply to this post by Bram Moolenaar
I don't know about anyone else, but I just use the built-in spam and
message routing facilities within Thunderbird. The message routing stuff I use to direct any/all vim related activities to the vim folder and spam just gets put into the junk folder where I review everything. I am a member of spamcop because I run an e-mail server but I review each and every message before sending it to them. Vim mail has never been sent to spamcop. Most of my real spam is easy to find. It starts with [hidden email] or [hidden email] or some other fictitious e-mail address. So that makes it really easy to tell. There is one add-on I used to use (but haven't for a while now). It used to use the blacklists. However, you can direct it to just put the spam in the junk folder and then you can check it there. Blacklists do help with spam but you also have to make sure that they, like anything else, aren't being abused. So when the bad guys grab your site's id and start doing something bad with it - you sometimes get caught in the middle ground. I have and it took a while to clear my site's name. But now better detections are showing the e-mail doesn't come from me. And I have no idea why they decided to even start using my site's id. They just did. So I fight back via Spamcop and, like I said, I am now a paid member. Recently I upgraded my server from a desktop unit to a laptop unit to run the sites. I did this because the laptop has a built-in battery (so no more brown-out shutdowns of the system) and because the laptop has two cpus. In doing this I found out that someone had installed something that allowed spammers to use our system to redirect the e-mail out into the internet. I reset all of the ports so no one could send e-mail at all, waiting a while, and then began allowing e-mail to go again. This reset everything in the e-mail program and now I see hundreds of rejected attempts to redirect e-mail. I'm keeping a log so I can notify all of those people that their computers are sending spam. I've also notified the company (in South Africa called Capesoft) that there is a problem with their software. They are investigating to find out why it did this. So you have to be on the lookout for things happening when you are not expecting them to be happening. The e-mail server was running just fine. It was human error that didn't notice others were using the server to send out spam. (ie: My fault) At least I have corrected the problem. On 7/11/2010 9:04 AM, Bram Moolenaar wrote: > This appears to happen more often these days: I send a message to a user > and some blacklist system blocks my message. I have no control over > what my ISP does, these services simply block my message without a way > for me to fix this. > > Please, don't use these blacklist services, they are very annoying. > They think they can reduce spam, but only by blocking legitimate > messages. I rather have 100 spam messages than losing one real message. > Also, there is no reliable way to tell if a message is spam or not. > Some of these services even ask money to be removed from the list, which > is close to extortion. > > Specifically my message to George Reilly started failing today. > Messages to Mattias Winther were blocked for a longer time. > -- You received this message from the "vim_dev" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php |
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