Re: Solution to "pathetic email complaints"
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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