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Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#181

Post by maxwell86 »

teddyh wrote: post #129
maxwell86 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like an email service where, when someone wants to send me an email, they have to first get some hash, e.g., "{hash}.myaccount@myprovider.com". Then, in order to get the hash, they have to paypal me 20 cents. If my attention is not worth 20 cents to them, then they should not be contacting me in the first place. Further replies to the same thread should be free for some period of time (e.g. a month or so).

https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

So according to that list, my idea would work.

According to the sibling comments, it does not only work, but some people are already using it in practice.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#182

Post by ColinWright »

throwawayvibes wrote: post #178
ColinWright wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, I'm genuinely pleased to hear that your experience of server-side filters is a positive one. Mine is negative. The fact that you have a positive experience does not refute that mine is negative. Please: I've experimented with this for over two decades, and continue to do so. I know that lots of people say that server-side filtering is fine. My direct personal experience is that for me it is not fine, including…

Never had much of a problem with Gmail's filter. An odd newsletter end up in spam once every while. How does your issue manifest?

> How does your issue manifest?

I regularly have emails to my GMail from colleagues end up in the spam folder. Perhaps as many as 5 or 10 per week, enough that I have to trawl through the spam folder every few days to make sure I've not missed something important.

Similarly, reasonably often when people reply to me, often after being prompted with a second email, or even a phone call, people tell me that emails from my "other" ISP to their GMail provided mailboxes have ended up in the spam folder.

It happens in waves ... it can be fine for months, and I start to think it's all good and I can trust it, and then there's a spate of emails going to spam when they really shouldn't. It's simply unreliable.

So for incoming email I do my own filtering. I can do nothing about my outgoing emails ending up in someone else's GMail spam folder except to be aware that it happens, and to keep track of when I'm expecting a reply. With some colleagues I've gone to a "positive acknowledge" system to preempt what have been expensive problems in the past.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#183

Post by MerelyMortal »

vidanay wrote: post #84
MerelyMortal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the content previews in the emails look like they're for your area, or could it be someone with a similar name registered somewhere else with the wrong email address and NextDoor never validated the email address? I hate it when companies allow people to signup with email addresses that aren't theirs, never validate the email address, and then start spamming me. I mark all of those as spam. The latest offender is…

It's definitely the correct geographical location.

Despite me unsubscribing two days ago, I just received another email from NextDoor. *marks as spam*

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#184

Post by nerdponx »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #51
low_tech_love wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess what happens when you click "unsubscribe"?

I don't receive any emails for about 6-12 months, and then I start receiving emails again. At least that's what has happened with NextDoor, twice - once each for different emails months/years apart. NextDoor also used to violate the CanSpam Act by requring you to log in to unsubscribe, but they fixed that a couple of years ago.

Fun fact about CAN-SPAM: your recourse is supposed to be reporting them to your ISP.

Except that Comcast/Xfinity itself is violating the CAN-SPAM act. I constantly get product offers and other junk from them, despite being clearly marked as "unsubscribed from all" when I click the unsubscribe link.

They are also a local monopoly and I have no affordable alternative for "basic broadband".

There does not seem to be any facility to report this to any regulatory agency of the US government or my state government.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#185

Post by thraxil »

ColinWright wrote: post #182
throwawayvibes wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never had much of a problem with Gmail's filter. An odd newsletter end up in spam once every while. How does your issue manifest?

> How does your issue manifest? I regularly have emails to my GMail from colleagues end up in the spam folder. Perhaps as many as 5 or 10 per week, enough that I have to trawl through the spam folder every few days to make sure I've not missed something important. Similarly, reasonably often when people reply to me, often after being prompted with a second email, or even a phone call, people tell me that emails from…

A couple things I can think of:

* What's your DKIM/SPF/DMARC setup like? That all needs to be on point to get delivery to gmail to be reliable.

* Are you using a provider like Sendgrid, Mailchimp, etc. to send mail? Are you on a plan that gives you a dedicated IP address or is it part of their shared pool? The "it happens in waves" sounds a lot like a common problem with the shared pools where spammers send a bunch of mail through a service, the IP gets blacklisted, and it takes them a couple days to notice and remove it from the pool.

* do you have any "noisy" alerts or similar going out to people? Not necessarily spam, but eg, sometimes users getting frequent notifications, daily summaries, etc. will sometimes just flag them as "spam" rather bother to turn them off or manage them properly. At some point, that trains Gmail's filters to increase the spam likelihood on your entire domain.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#186

Post by ColinWright »

thraxil wrote: post #185
ColinWright wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does your issue manifest? I regularly have emails to my GMail from colleagues end up in the spam folder. Perhaps as many as 5 or 10 per week, enough that I have to trawl through the spam folder every few days to make sure I've not missed something important. Similarly, reasonably often when people reply to me, often after being prompted with a second email, or even a phone call, people tell me that emails from…

A couple things I can think of: * What's your DKIM/SPF/DMARC setup like? That all needs to be on point to get delivery to gmail to be reliable. * Are you using a provider like Sendgrid, Mailchimp, etc. to send mail? Are you on a plan that gives you a dedicated IP address or is it part of their shared pool? The "it happens in waves" sounds a lot like a common problem with the shared pools where spammers send a bunch o…

* I am assured by my ISP provider that the settings are as squeaky clean as they can be.

* No, I'm sending email from my domain on my domain host. That has a single IP address shared among all their customers, but it's a very small ISP, and there are no spammers, and the IP address is not on any blocklists.

* No, I send standard email "by hand", and I know that people are not marking them as spam.

It's nice to see you go through these things because these are exactly the things I've gone through several times, so it serves to confirm that I've addressed the right things.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#187

Post by thraxil »

ColinWright wrote: post #186
thraxil wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple things I can think of: * What's your DKIM/SPF/DMARC setup like? That all needs to be on point to get delivery to gmail to be reliable. * Are you using a provider like Sendgrid, Mailchimp, etc. to send mail? Are you on a plan that gives you a dedicated IP address or is it part of their shared pool? The "it happens in waves" sounds a lot like a common problem with the shared pools where spammers send a bunch o…

* I am assured by my ISP provider that the settings are as squeaky clean as they can be. * No, I'm sending email from my domain on my domain host. That has a single IP address shared among all their customers, but it's a very small ISP, and there are no spammers, and the IP address is not on any blocklists. * No, I send standard email "by hand", and I know that people are not marking them as spam. It's nice to see yo…

You should be able to look at the SPF/DKIM/DMARC related DNS entries yourself with dig and verify that they are correct. I wouldn't trust an ISP's word, especially if you are experiencing problems. I would also recommend setting up weekly DMARC digests via Postmark's free service: https://dmarc.postmarkapp.com/ which should allow you to actually see whether emails are getting rejected and why and give you a lot more data about your actual SPF and DKIM alignment.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#188

Post by ColinWright »

thraxil wrote: post #187
ColinWright wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* I am assured by my ISP provider that the settings are as squeaky clean as they can be. * No, I'm sending email from my domain on my domain host. That has a single IP address shared among all their customers, but it's a very small ISP, and there are no spammers, and the IP address is not on any blocklists. * No, I send standard email "by hand", and I know that people are not marking them as spam. It's nice to see yo…

You should be able to look at the SPF/DKIM/DMARC related DNS entries yourself with dig and verify that they are correct. I wouldn't trust an ISP's word, especially if you are experiencing problems. I would also recommend setting up weekly DMARC digests via Postmark's free service: https://dmarc.postmarkapp.com/ which should allow you to actually see whether emails are getting rejected and why and give you a lot more…

I'm not a computer person, certainly not a networks person, and I know nothing about any of these things, so everything you say might very well be true, but it amounts to days even to work out what you're saying. It's very likely you could talk me through it all, or I could embark on a course of finding out about these things, but I really just don't have time. I'm already over committed.

You say:

> ... look at the SPF/DKIM/DMARC related DNS entries with dig ...

I don't know how to do that.

> ... verify that they are correct.

I wouldn't know what it means for them to be correct.

As a further example, in trying to use postmark's service I get this:

    In order for us to send you email digests,
    you must set up a DMARC policy associated
    with your domain. This allows us to collect
    reports from the major ISPs about your DMARC
    alignment.
OK, that's fine. Then:

    Add this TXT record to your domain’s DNS at
    _dmarc.solipsys.co.uk. with the following
    data:

    ...
I have no idea how to do that, and suddenly I'm down the rabbit hole of things that other people think are obvious and easy, but leave me with no idea of what to do.

I really appreciate your feedback, and I'm passing it on to the people I pay to do this for me. The thing is, that's my ISP, and you tell me I shouldn't trust them.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#189

Post by thraxil »

ColinWright wrote: post #188
thraxil wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be able to look at the SPF/DKIM/DMARC related DNS entries yourself with dig and verify that they are correct. I wouldn't trust an ISP's word, especially if you are experiencing problems. I would also recommend setting up weekly DMARC digests via Postmark's free service: https://dmarc.postmarkapp.com/ which should allow you to actually see whether emails are getting rejected and why and give you a lot more…

I'm not a computer person, certainly not a networks person, and I know nothing about any of these things, so everything you say might very well be true, but it amounts to days even to work out what you're saying. It's very likely you could talk me through it all, or I could embark on a course of finding out about these things, but I really just don't have time. I'm already over committed. You say: > ... look at the S…

Yeah, the thing is that if you have your own domain and want to send mail from it, that's really no longer the sort of thing where you can just connect to port 25, send mail and expect it to work. Spammers ruined that a long time ago and now you need to understand a lot about DNS and those mail related standards and do a significant amount of work to stay on top of the configuration to have a snowball's chance in hell of your mail getting through. It's not a Gmail thing, it's the entire landscape of email delivery. If you don't have the knowledge and time for that, you're much better off delegating it to Google, AWS SES, Sendgrid, Mailchimp, or some other service that takes care of it properly. If you're paying your ISP to handle sending mail for you and that mail's not getting through, you need to take it up with them.

Re: Ask HN: Why is spam email still a thing?

#190

Post by ColinWright »

thraxil wrote: post #189
ColinWright wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a computer person, certainly not a networks person, and I know nothing about any of these things, so everything you say might very well be true, but it amounts to days even to work out what you're saying. It's very likely you could talk me through it all, or I could embark on a course of finding out about these things, but I really just don't have time. I'm already over committed. You say: > ... look at the S…

Yeah, the thing is that if you have your own domain and want to send mail from it, that's really no longer the sort of thing where you can just connect to port 25, send mail and expect it to work. Spammers ruined that a long time ago and now you need to understand a lot about DNS and those mail related standards and do a significant amount of work to stay on top of the configuration to have a snowball's chance in hel…

I have passed this conversation to them, and they say that all the records and settings are correct. They say that the problem is the recipients' servers are marking the emails as spam, even though all the settings are correct, and the emails are clearly legitimate.

> ... now you need to understand a lot about DNS and those mail related standards and do a significant amount of work to stay on top of the configuration to have a snowball's chance in hell of your mail getting through.

That's exactly what I pay someone else to do, and they are doing it correctly (as best I can tell).

So ... I just have to live with it. As far as I can tell, short of simply giving up entirely and using Google, I've done everything I can.

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