Re: [44net] Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
13 Nov
2018
13 Nov
'18
5:05 a.m.
The subject line of this message is clearly wrong.
255 of the 821 subscribers to this mailing list use
@gmail.com
mailboxes.
If there were a problem with gmail, it would have
shown up long
ago.
I have a bit mixed feelings about it. As a coordinator I get regular mail
from gmail users and often experience that my replies do not arrive or get
marked as SPAM. I get reminders about requests that I have already processed,
and sometimes a message "oh sorry I found your reply in the SPAM folder".
At first I blamed my use of an @amsat.org address, and also using that address
as a From: address in my replies. Due to the SPF record on amsat.org it can be
expected that such use leads to marking of mail as suspicious.
So I switched to using another alias service (@vrza.nl being offered by one of
our amateur radio societies), but the situation did not improve. I still get
reports of my mail ending up in the SPAM folder at gmail. But the vrza.nl
domain has no SPF record.
Apparently there is some relation to the user receiving the mail. Some users
receive all my mail without problem, no matter if sent from @amsat.org @vrza.nl
or another source. Others report that it is treated as SPAM for each of those.
Not being a gmail.com user myself, I do not exactly know what features it offers
for whitelisting or other special treatment of mail, or maybe what it learns
automatically. It could be that sending back and forth several mails eventually
leads to an address getting on the whitelist automatically. The same could be
true for mail server IP addresses (like a mailinglist server), and it could be
that knowledge built in the past also affects the results of new SPAM criteria
added later.
It is all a bit opaque, and when you want reliable and predictable mail service,
using those mailservices certainly is not the best choice... or at the least
check the SPAM folder regularly. (but I have also received reports of mail
being dropped and not placed there)
Rob
13 Nov
13 Nov
5:53 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
Doing some DNS digging it appears that amsat.org's DKIM records are invalid
(It's returning an SPF record).
(and it is a CNAME record, not a TXT record).
;amsat.org._domainkey.amsat.org. IN TXT
;; ANSWER SECTION:
amsat.org._domainkey.amsat.org. 3329 IN CNAME amsat.org.
amsat.org. 3260 IN TXT "v=spf1 a a: ip4:67.227.252.196 ip4:64.91.254.28
ip4:64.91.254.149 ~all"
vrza.nl publishes neither a SPF or DKIM record.
Further research indicates that Google doesn't necessarily mark every piece
of mail as spam if it fails spf and dkim checks.
Google uses the data as part of an algorithm to determine the "reputation"
of the sender. If the reputation is good despite failing SPF and DKIM
checks the mail will not be marked as spam.
*I apologize again for starting this thread*, It was based off of issues I
and another site were having with emails going to google users being marked
as SPAM. Turns out our hosting provider is using an old version of mailman
that doesn't incorporate more nuanced handling of SPF, DKIM, DMARC enabled
mail.
-Neil
-Neil
On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 4:05 PM Rob Janssen <pe1chl(a)amsat.org> wrote:
--
Neil Johnson
The subject
line of this message is clearly wrong.
255 of the 821 subscribers to this mailing list
use @gmail.com
mailboxes.
If there were a problem with gmail, it would have
shown up long
ago.
I have a bit mixed feelings about it. As a coordinator I get regular mail
from gmail users and often experience that my replies do not arrive or get
marked as SPAM. I get reminders about requests that I have already
processed,
and sometimes a message "oh sorry I found your reply in the SPAM folder".
At first I blamed my use of an @amsat.org address, and also using that
address
as a From: address in my replies. Due to the SPF record on amsat.org it
can be
expected that such use leads to marking of mail as suspicious.
So I switched to using another alias service (@vrza.nl being offered by
one of
our amateur radio societies), but the situation did not improve. I still
get
reports of my mail ending up in the SPAM folder at gmail. But the vrza.nl
domain has no SPF record.
Apparently there is some relation to the user receiving the mail. Some
users
receive all my mail without problem, no matter if sent from @amsat.org @
vrza.nl
or another source. Others report that it is treated as SPAM for each of
those.
Not being a gmail.com user myself, I do not exactly know what features it
offers
for whitelisting or other special treatment of mail, or maybe what it
learns
automatically. It could be that sending back and forth several mails
eventually
leads to an address getting on the whitelist automatically. The same
could be
true for mail server IP addresses (like a mailinglist server), and it
could be
that knowledge built in the past also affects the results of new SPAM
criteria
added later.
It is all a bit opaque, and when you want reliable and predictable mail
service,
using those mailservices certainly is not the best choice... or at the
least
check the SPAM folder regularly. (but I have also received reports of mail
being dropped and not placed there)
Rob
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
7:13 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
On Mon, 2018-11-12 at 16:53 -0600, Neil Johnson via 44Net wrote:
Doing some DNS digging it appears that amsat.org's
DKIM records are
invalid
(It's returning an SPF record).
(and it is a CNAME record, not a TXT record).
;amsat.org._domainkey.amsat.org. IN TXT
I've yet to see a DKIM signature from amsat.org. What you are seeing is
a wildcard RR.
-Jim P.
6:12 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
When I retired, I switched email servers from UCSD.EDU to my own
domain, and mail from me was occasionally marked as spam by gmail.
That gradually stopped. But mail from me as brian(a)ampr.org that
was NOT in reply to a message I'd received was FREQUENTLY marked
as spam by gmail. Now, a year later, that is rare. I believe this
shows that Google is constantly adjusting its spam filtering
mechanism, and that some part of that adjustment is automated.
Microsoft's email service (with all the names it goes by) has a
reputation of occasionally just discarding inbound mail with no
notification to either the sender or the recipient. I have proven
this with certain email contents such as long lists of IP addresses
in the body of the message; the message just vanishes. Attachments
seem to be better tolerated, gzip'd or bzip'd attachments seem to
get through most of the time.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater seems to be tolerable to
customers of these services. Or it could be they don't know what
they're missing; ignorance can be bliss.
In any case, that's why I run my own mail server instead of using
gmail; if something goes wrong, I know who to blame and can usually
figure out how to fix it.
- Brian
On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 11:05:11PM +0100, Rob Janssen wrote:
The subject
line of this message is clearly wrong.
255 of the 821 subscribers to this mailing list
use @gmail.com
mailboxes.
If there were a problem with gmail, it would have
shown up long
ago.
I have a bit mixed feelings about it. As a coordinator I get regular mail
from gmail users and often experience that my replies do not arrive or get
marked as SPAM. I get reminders about requests that I have already processed,
and sometimes a message "oh sorry I found your reply in the SPAM folder".
At first I blamed my use of an @amsat.org address, and also using that address
as a From: address in my replies. Due to the SPF record on amsat.org it can be
expected that such use leads to marking of mail as suspicious.
So I switched to using another alias service (@vrza.nl being offered by one of
our amateur radio societies), but the situation did not improve. I still get
reports of my mail ending up in the SPAM folder at gmail. But the vrza.nl
domain has no SPF record.
Apparently there is some relation to the user receiving the mail. Some users
receive all my mail without problem, no matter if sent from @amsat.org @vrza.nl
or another source. Others report that it is treated as SPAM for each of those.
Not being a gmail.com user myself, I do not exactly know what features it offers
for whitelisting or other special treatment of mail, or maybe what it learns
automatically. It could be that sending back and forth several mails eventually
leads to an address getting on the whitelist automatically. The same could be
true for mail server IP addresses (like a mailinglist server), and it could be
that knowledge built in the past also affects the results of new SPAM criteria
added later.
It is all a bit opaque, and when you want reliable and predictable mail service,
using those mailservices certainly is not the best choice... or at the least
check the SPAM folder regularly. (but I have also received reports of mail
being dropped and not placed there)
Rob
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net 
5:08 p.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
On 13/11/18 10:12, Brian Kantor wrote:
When I retired, I switched email servers from UCSD.EDU
to my own
domain, and mail from me was occasionally marked as spam by gmail.
That gradually stopped. But mail from me as brian(a)ampr.org that
was NOT in reply to a message I'd received was FREQUENTLY marked
as spam by gmail. Now, a year later, that is rare. I believe this
shows that Google is constantly adjusting its spam filtering
mechanism, and that some part of that adjustment is automated.
Gmail users can help
train the filter. Simply take any mail wrongly
marked as spam out of spam, and Gmail will use this as a training
input. If enough affected people do it enough times, the spam filter
does eventually learn.
Microsoft's email service (with all the names it goes by) has a
reputation of occasionally just discarding inbound mail with no
notification to either the sender or the recipient. I have proven
this with certain email contents such as long lists of IP addresses
in the body of the message; the message just vanishes. Attachments
seem to be better tolerated, gzip'd or bzip'd attachments seem to
get through most of the time.
Another thing is simple scripted email posters, as
commonly used by
scripts are also often victims of Microsoft mail deletion. I proved
this many years ago when clients of a training company I worked for at
the time were complaining that they weren't getting booking
information. It soon became apparent that all of the affected clients
had a Hotmail address, and testing with Hotmail showed that their
service silently deleted the automatic emails from our booking system.
--
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com
6:21 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
And just so there's no mistaking my opinions: I think DMARC is a
misbegotten failed abortion that should have a stake driven through
its heart.
- Brian
6:23 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
+1
On Nov 12, 2018, at 17:22, Brian Kantor
<Brian(a)bkantor.net> wrote:
And just so there's no mistaking my opinions: I think DMARC is a
misbegotten failed abortion that should have a stake driven through
its heart.
- Brian
_________________________________________
44Net mailing list
44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org
https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net
7:48 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
On Mon, 2018-11-12 at 15:21 -0800, Brian Kantor wrote:
And just so there's no mistaking my opinions: I
think DMARC is a
misbegotten failed abortion that should have a stake driven through
its heart.
The only thing worse is wildcard DNS records. ;-)
(and stripping PGP sigs from emails)
-Jim P.
7:53 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
Oddly enough, I find that every single email from this list winds up not being placed in
any logical mailbox. It can’t be found in my inbox or my junk mail, I have to find it in
my “All Mail” special mailbox that shows mail from all boxes. I suspect that I have some
sort of incorrect setting myself that is automatically moving it somewhere and not an
issue with gmail itself.
This is why I am moving to my own mail server. I should probably update my subscription to
this list.
5:11 p.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
On 13/11/18 11:53, Bryce Wilson via 44Net wrote:
Oddly enough, I find that every single email from this
list winds up not being placed in any logical mailbox. It can’t be found in my inbox or my
junk mail, I have to find it in my “All Mail” special mailbox that shows mail from all
boxes. I suspect that I have some sort of incorrect setting myself that is automatically
moving it somewhere and not an issue with gmail itself.
This is why I am moving to my own mail server. I should probably update my subscription
to this list.
I've never had a problem. Gmail filtering is very good, if you
know how
to use it.
--
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com
8:03 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
As for AMSAT's wildcard DNS records: the man who currently maintains
the amsat.org DNS is not a subscriber to this list; I no longer do it.
As for stripping attachments from this mailing list, it's done
because so many submitters have never figured out how to make their
mailers send ONLY PLAINTEXT and so we were getting immense amounts
of duplicate HTML crap, as well as pictures, business cards, and
who-knows-what-else. The 'confidentiality' lawyer-droppings that
so many submitters unwittingly attach to their postings are bad
enough. Mailman doesn't have a way to filter them out, YET. The
stupidity of a paragraph claiming that a message is confidential
when it's posted to a mailing list with 800+ subscribers should be
obvious.
- Brian
On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 07:48:19PM -0500, Jim Popovitch via 44Net wrote:
On Mon, 2018-11-12 at 15:21 -0800, Brian Kantor
wrote:
And just so there's no mistaking my opinions:
I think DMARC is a
misbegotten failed abortion that should have a stake driven through
its heart.
The only thing worse is wildcard DNS records. ;-)
(and stripping PGP sigs from emails)
-Jim P. 
8:32 a.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
Brian I agree, however some use their company email for everything and dont
have a choice about the content of the signature.
I would suggest to everyone that using your company email is not a good
idea.
For me it is my company so no big deal, but I use my call sign domain name
for ham radio related email communications.
BTW not everyone lives in a plain txt world or has an easy way to make the
change in their email client.
Most people don't even see the attached chain that are on gmail it just
sows up as three dots in a grey oval.
While it chews bandwidth most current mail clients don't show the chain
unless you drill down and try to read the info.
Lin N4YCI
5 p.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
On 13/11/18 09:05, Rob Janssen wrote:
Not being a gmail.com user myself, I do not exactly
know what features
it offers
for whitelisting or other special treatment of mail, or maybe what it
learns
automatically. It could be that sending back and forth several mails
eventually
leads to an address getting on the whitelist automatically. The same
could be
true for mail server IP addresses (like a mailinglist server), and it
could be
that knowledge built in the past also affects the results of new SPAM
criteria
added later.
Gmail has an automated spam filter, which supposedly learns from the
vast body of email that flows through Gmail. It's not bad, but being
somewhat reliant on learning from user reactions and traffic patterns,
it does make a mistake every now and then.
However, the good news is you can override the spam filter by creating a
filter that finds list posts and in the filter set the action "Never
send to Spam", in addition to any other filtering actions you'd like to
take. That is your whitelist.
It is all a bit opaque, and when you want reliable and predictable
mail service,
using those mailservices certainly is not the best choice... or at
the least
check the SPAM folder regularly. (but I have also received reports of
mail
being dropped and not placed there)
That I haven't seen with Gmail, but it is very common with Hotmail.
--
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com
8:08 p.m.
New subject: Why if you are yahoo.com or gmail.com mail user, you probably won't see this message :-)
We ran our own mail server for years using linux and a spam filtering
software I can't remember.
While I would prefer to have my email on my own box the abilities of Gmail
are pretty amazing.
I see far less spam than before what I do see is a bunch of people that
don't know their own email address giving my email to their friends,
school, kids school, car dealership, accountant (yes got someones tax
return), pharmacy notifications. My biggest gripe is the number of
companies that don't conduct email verification before signing someone up
for something.
Of course if I would just pay for the services to host my domains email
addresses then I would not have to deal with this instead of spoofing the
outbound address.
BTW a company that I conduct contract work for uses Gmail and it works
great as well, but has many of the features to administer users content
such as the required signature, logo, required photo ect.
But all of this is quite off topic for the list as it seems to work for
gmail, yahoo ect.
Lin N4YCI
2231
days inactive
2232
days old
13 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
Brian Kantor -
Jim Popovitch -
John Ricketts -
Lin Holcomb -
Neil Johnson -
Rob Janssen -
secret.memail.com＠gmail.com -
Tony Langdon