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Spam blacklisting is out of control

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Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#71

Post by basilgohar »

This has literally just recently (re-)become an issue for me because after a good year or so of not being blocked, several emails from my server started getting filtered as spam by both Google and then just being outright blocked by both Google and Microsoft. When I got through Microsoft's steps to unblock, after several days and steps, they send me the message that actually my IP is not blocked.

Google's recent message was more helpful - apparently forwarding emails from the accounts I setup for my kids to my wife's Gmail account triggered some obscure rule that ruined my server's reputation with Google, and I think Google & Microsoft collaborate because the issues cropped up within a week of each other.

The interesting thing was I discovered the Outlook issue by trying to reply to an email sent from an Outlook customer. Yes, my reply to an Outlook customer's email to me was blocked because of my server's reputation.

To be clear, I run no mailing lists nor solicit any business with my email server. I use it for personal use only and my consulting work which involves know contacts. The forwarding I spoke of before is solely to our own personal accounts.

I use Mail-In-A-Box, for what it's worth, on a Linode VPS.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#72

Post by contravariant »

dredmorbius wrote: post #38
rsync wrote: post #31

I'm dealing with this right now. Both my personal domain and rsync.net are on a distinct subnet, but that subnet is smaller than a /24 and someone on a different subnet has, apparently, behaved badly. Enter "abusix" ... One of my engineers had an enlightening webchat with one of their engineers where we were shown the "offending" IP and it was explained that they have no ability to distinguish subnets (and no interes…

Those unsubscribe links should be there, for several reasons. - The service-based economy means that entities (individuals and businesses) have numerous relationships. For the typical individual the number of password-based accounts crossed the 100 threshold years ago, at a doubling rate of every 2--3 years. - Responsibilities can be transferred. The person who signed up for your service 5 years ago may no longer be…

I've also had email from the wrong person delivered to me some times. One company in particular kept sending updates for a service I had no way of using. An unsubscribe link would have been handy, though confirming email addresses before linking them to an account would also be a good idea, probably.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#73

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

zamadatix wrote: post #61
rsync wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You should have an unsubscribe link. You should also have your business address and identify yourself." What would that even look like ? You're a paying customer of a service - they charge you every month - and you use that service ~daily ... and then you unsubscribe to emails ... So then what ? We just keep taking your money and when the service fails or there is an outage or critical notification we ... just don't…

Yes, just because I use your service doesn't mean I want to see every outage notification status update as an email. Preferably email subscription status would be granular so I can select what I want to get not what some idealized average user would want to get.

I've been a paying customer of rsync's service for more than a decade. The only mail I get is the monthly invoice, and roughly once-per-year notice of infrastructure changes that may temporarily affect availability.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#74

Post by spookthesunset »

scarface74 wrote: post #70
rsync wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You should have an unsubscribe link. You should also have your business address and identify yourself." What would that even look like ? You're a paying customer of a service - they charge you every month - and you use that service ~daily ... and then you unsubscribe to emails ... So then what ? We just keep taking your money and when the service fails or there is an outage or critical notification we ... just don't…

Yes. I explicitly told you I didn’t want any emails from you.

That is gonna lead to all kinds of misunderstandings and complaints.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#75

Post by thaumaturgy »

boopmaster wrote: post #65
thaumaturgy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~rsync runs a storage service for offsite backups. You think they should add a one-click "unsubscribe" link to service alerts?

if the service is managed: customers should be able to manage notification preferences tailored to the severity of the issue, methinks.

That's not how unsubscribe links are supposed to work.

Once the unsubscribe is activated -- and it's supposed to be very easy to activate -- then it's permanent. There's no "un-unsubscribe", "oops I clicked it again", "some other service glitched and clicked it for me".

Further, there's a distinction made between "commercial" and "transactional" messages in both law and etiquette. The unsubscribe link is expected in commercial messages, not transactional ones.

Abusix didn't know what they were talking about.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#76

Post by Silhouette »

mjrpes wrote: post #34

I fought the battle to keep my SMTP server IP off blacklists, and lost. You can do everything possible, have a perfectly clean IP, have a good amount of outbound email traffic, only send transactional email, etc. Still, there will be edge cases where email does not go through. AT&T email servers would constantly blacklist me and not respond to requests to remove me, gmail/yahoo/outlook would silently put emails in th…

While I am happy for you that you have found a solution, the solution you found is symptomatic of a very dangerous situation: it is increasingly impossible for individuals or SMEs to use essential online facilities like sending messages or transferring money reliably unless they use a broker service as an intermediary. We are allowing small numbers of tech firms to take control of vital functionality that should be using open, standardised protocols in a decentralised way. This leaves everyone who isn't big enough to run their own implementation that others can't afford to ignore beholden to those brokers and subject to arbitrary charges and/or denial of service.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#77

Post by zamadatix »

rsync wrote: post #31

I'm dealing with this right now. Both my personal domain and rsync.net are on a distinct subnet, but that subnet is smaller than a /24 and someone on a different subnet has, apparently, behaved badly. Enter "abusix" ... One of my engineers had an enlightening webchat with one of their engineers where we were shown the "offending" IP and it was explained that they have no ability to distinguish subnets (and no interes…

The inability to generate IP reputation smaller than a /24 is inherent to the way internet routing works. Nothing smaller than a /24 can be publicly assigned or advertised to prevent the route table from becoming too bloated. On IPv6 the smallest advertise able block is a /48 for the same reason. Privately managed assignments in shared or further split subnets aren't publicly visible, verifiable, or accountable to anything but the organization owning and advertising the /24 (or larger).

As such the reputation score of a subnet is the reputation of the entity advertising itself as publicly controlling and maintaining that network, not the reputation of individual sub entities inside that subnet (which is known only to the controlling entity). If that entity is constantly allowing bad actors onto their block then that block is considered poor reputation.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#78

Post by Godel_unicode »

pandemicsoul wrote: post #7

Spam blocklists are run by an unaccountable cowboy cult that somehow has managed to consolidate a ton of power simply for the fact that most people who run email inbox services didn't want to deal with the problem of spam, so they were more than willing to just hand over anti-spam "enforcement" to anyone who was allegedly doing "what was best for the internet." There's no check on these people who run these blacklist…

> antithetical to the principles of the open internet.

No. These blocklists are employed by the actor receiving the email. They have a perfect right, even on "the open internet", to decide that they want to limit who can send them messages.

There are tons of checks on the people who provide those blacklists, in the form of their users complaining about lack of mail delivery and ultimately not using their list anymore. We vote with our wallets, and as a group we have decided that these blocklists are useful.

> and for what?

To make email usable. Full stop.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#79

Post by rsync »

dredmorbius wrote: post #38
rsync wrote: post #31

I'm dealing with this right now. Both my personal domain and rsync.net are on a distinct subnet, but that subnet is smaller than a /24 and someone on a different subnet has, apparently, behaved badly. Enter "abusix" ... One of my engineers had an enlightening webchat with one of their engineers where we were shown the "offending" IP and it was explained that they have no ability to distinguish subnets (and no interes…

Those unsubscribe links should be there, for several reasons. - The service-based economy means that entities (individuals and businesses) have numerous relationships. For the typical individual the number of password-based accounts crossed the 100 threshold years ago, at a doubling rate of every 2--3 years. - Responsibilities can be transferred. The person who signed up for your service 5 years ago may no longer be…

Everything you've said makes perfect sense - for a contact management function.

We have that. You can change contact info, set owner/technical/emergency contacts, alert thresholds, etc.

But unsubscribe means something totally different:

When I click on unsubscribe I want it to be the end of all communications. Period.

In this case, that makes no sense. Ceasing communications for all purposes implies service cancellation and, in our case, service cancellation implies a human interaction confirming data destruction.

How would we confirm data destruction for your implied cancellation if no further contact is permitted ?

You, and the blacklist operators, have become so jaded by the abuse you've suffered that you've forgotten that legitimate, paid services exist. I'm sorry.

Re: Spam blacklisting is out of control

#80

Post by wl »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #75
boopmaster wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the service is managed: customers should be able to manage notification preferences tailored to the severity of the issue, methinks.

That's not how unsubscribe links are supposed to work. Once the unsubscribe is activated -- and it's supposed to be very easy to activate -- then it's permanent. There's no "un-unsubscribe", "oops I clicked it again", "some other service glitched and clicked it for me". Further, there's a distinction made between "commercial" and "transactional" messages in both law and etiquette. The unsubscribe link is expected in…

> Further, there's a distinction made between "commercial" and "transactional" messages in both law and etiquette. The unsubscribe link is expected in commercial messages, not transactional ones.

Most of the junk that gets through my spam filter are transactional or other "mandatory" messages intended for someone who fat fingered their email address. If those senders don't want to be marked as spam, they need to provide a way for me to make the messages stop.

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