Digest members of one domain marked bouncing
Recently we've had a lot of members from one particular domain ( bigpond.com/bigpond.com.au) marked bouncing, and it looks like it's only digest members who are affected. I haven't checked yet if all digest members from that domain are affected. We unticked their nomail box, but a few days later they're marked bouncing again.
I'm guessing that for some reason, that mail server thinks our digest emails are spam. Any ideas what to do about this?
Peter Shute
On 08/07/2018 03:33 PM, Peter Shute wrote:
I'm guessing that for some reason, that mail server thinks our digest emails are spam. Any ideas what to do about this?
Look in the server's mail logs for a reason or if you don't have access or for some reason the bounces are more indirect and not logged there, ensure that Bounce processing -> bounce_notify_owner_on_disable and if available, bounce_notify_owner_on_bounce_increment are set to yes and the list owner will receive a copy of the disabling (and incrementing) DSNs.
This will tell you the receiving server's reason for not accepting the mail and you can follow up on that.
I should have mentioned we've done that, and the reason for all of them is " 558 5.7.1 5B04183724647A17 Message content rejected due to suspected spam. IB703 "
On 8 August 2018 at 08:45, Mark Sapiro mark@msapiro.net wrote:
On 08/07/2018 03:33 PM, Peter Shute wrote:
I'm guessing that for some reason, that mail server thinks our digest emails are spam. Any ideas what to do about this?
Look in the server's mail logs for a reason or if you don't have access or for some reason the bounces are more indirect and not logged there, ensure that Bounce processing -> bounce_notify_owner_on_disable and if available, bounce_notify_owner_on_bounce_increment are set to yes and the list owner will receive a copy of the disabling (and incrementing) DSNs.
This will tell you the receiving server's reason for not accepting the mail and you can follow up on that.
-- Mark Sapiro mark@msapiro.net The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
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On 8/7/18 6:33 PM, Peter Shute wrote:
Recently we've had a lot of members from one particular domain ( bigpond.com/bigpond.com.au) marked bouncing, and it looks like it's only digest members who are affected. I haven't checked yet if all digest members from that domain are affected. We unticked their nomail box, but a few days later they're marked bouncing again.
I'm guessing that for some reason, that mail server thinks our digest emails are spam. Any ideas what to do about this?
Peter Shute
I have seen bounce issues with a number of the larger email providers with digests on the list I run. I suspect that the format of the digest just looks strange to the scoring algorithms, and the embedded message Ids will look like there are a lot of email addresses in the message, which would be also unusual.
Have you been able to do anything about it? If we can't get their server to believe it's not spam, we're going to have to take all these people off digest, and some won't like it.
I don't know if getting these people to whitelist us would let these emails through, even if it was possible to steer all of them through the process.
On 8 August 2018 at 11:48, Richard Damon Richard@damon-family.org wrote:
On 8/7/18 6:33 PM, Peter Shute wrote:
Recently we've had a lot of members from one particular domain ( bigpond.com/bigpond.com.au) marked bouncing, and it looks like it's only digest members who are affected. I haven't checked yet if all digest members from that domain are affected. We unticked their nomail box, but
a
few days later they're marked bouncing again.
I'm guessing that for some reason, that mail server thinks our digest emails are spam. Any ideas what to do about this?
Peter Shute
I have seen bounce issues with a number of the larger email providers with digests on the list I run. I suspect that the format of the digest just looks strange to the scoring algorithms, and the embedded message Ids will look like there are a lot of email addresses in the message, which would be also unusual.
-- Richard Damon
Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/ mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/ pshute%40nuw.org.au
Peter Shute writes:
Have you been able to do anything about it? If we can't get their server to believe it's not spam, we're going to have to take all these people off digest, and some won't like it.
There are two digest formats, MIME and RFC 934 (older and somewhat less robust, but still pretty usable). If all of the affected users are on one, you could try switching to the other, possibly with some loss of functionality depending on the MUAs in use and the content of the messages.
The only other reasonable thing I can suggest is to contact bigpond.com and ask them if you can get on a whitelist or if they're willing to tell you about digest formats that pass their spam checker. Usually the less competent the spam-checker, the less they're willing to tell you about what features of your mail stream are triggering the checker, but you might get lucky.
Steve
We mostly have the Plain option ticked. Is that RFC 934? And unticked is Mime?
I can’t see an obvious pattern, but I several unticked that aren’t marked bouncing. There are also some ticked that aren’t marked bouncing, but I can tell if these have fixed the problem themselves (if that’s possible), or have perhaps whitelisted us.
I’ll have a more thorough look, and if there’s a pattern, we can try unticking them all.
I’ll try contacting bigpond, but as a non customer, I suspect I’ll be ignored at best. In my own organisation, a young colleague wanted to leave our new spam filter on the default setting to quarantine all mailing list emails, which it called “suspicious newsletters”. He thought our users would appreciate that. I suspect many tech support people think the same way.
Sent from my iPhone
On 8 Aug 2018, at 6:14 pm, Stephen J. Turnbull turnbull.stephen.fw@u.tsukuba.ac.jp wrote:
Peter Shute writes:
Have you been able to do anything about it? If we can't get their server to believe it's not spam, we're going to have to take all these people off digest, and some won't like it.
There are two digest formats, MIME and RFC 934 (older and somewhat less robust, but still pretty usable). If all of the affected users are on one, you could try switching to the other, possibly with some loss of functionality depending on the MUAs in use and the content of the messages.
The only other reasonable thing I can suggest is to contact bigpond.com and ask them if you can get on a whitelist or if they're willing to tell you about digest formats that pass their spam checker. Usually the less competent the spam-checker, the less they're willing to tell you about what features of your mail stream are triggering the checker, but you might get lucky.
Steve
Peter Shute writes:
We mostly have the Plain option ticked. Is that RFC 934? And unticked is Mime?
Yes and yes.
I’ll try contacting bigpond, but as a non customer, I suspect I’ll be ignored at best.
True, but you're in a lot better position vis-a-vis petulant bigpond customers if you can say "I care, and have done what I can. I'm sorry that it's not enough. Your provider evidently doesn't care; they won't even answer my mail asking what else I can do."
I suspect many tech support people think the same way.
It's not hard to understand why. If spam gets through, they're the last line of defense, they *should* catch it. After all, the user recognized it as spam from a single summary line! If wanted mail doesn't get through, first of all, the user may not even notice. If they do, you can claim it never got to your system. If they get the bounce or a SMTP log from the other side proving it was a spam reject, you can blame the author or mailing list for doing the same things that spammers do (even if they're entirely reasonable and explicitly provided for by the relevant RFCs -- nobody reads RFCs).
Many admins end up convincing themselves that they're doing a good job by worrying more about keeping spam out than by ensuring that legit mail gets through, and only then preventing spam. Even using that approach, they probably get more complaints about spam than they do about lost mail. :-(
Some services provide a feedback link that you can send a copy of a message to, and those that do generally will white list you get around the problem.
Others don't have such a feedback link, and for those I tell the subscribers to try to whitelist the list by adding the related addresses to their address book (the list address, -request and -bounces adderesses), which sometimes works, and if that doesn't for THEM to complain to the provider about the email problem (if they don't list a feedback address, then my complaints never seem to matter). I also suggest they can change off digest, but few want to do that.
I will never just convert a subscriber from digest to regular, as that will just upset them.
On 8/8/18 1:29 AM, Peter Shute wrote:
Have you been able to do anything about it? If we can't get their server to believe it's not spam, we're going to have to take all these people off digest, and some won't like it.
I don't know if getting these people to whitelist us would let these emails through, even if it was possible to steer all of them through the process.
On 8 August 2018 at 11:48, Richard Damon <Richard@damon-family.org mailto:Richard@damon-family.org> wrote:
On 8/7/18 6:33 PM, Peter Shute wrote: > Recently we've had a lot of members from one particular domain ( > bigpond.com/bigpond.com.au <http://bigpond.com/bigpond.com.au>) marked bouncing, and it looks like it's only > digest members who are affected. I haven't checked yet if all digest > members from that domain are affected. We unticked their nomail box, but a > few days later they're marked bouncing again. > > I'm guessing that for some reason, that mail server thinks our digest > emails are spam. Any ideas what to do about this? > > Peter Shute I have seen bounce issues with a number of the larger email providers with digests on the list I run. I suspect that the format of the digest just looks strange to the scoring algorithms, and the embedded message Ids will look like there are a lot of email addresses in the message, which would be also unusual. -- Richard Damon ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list Mailman-Users@python.org <mailto:Mailman-Users@python.org> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users <https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users> Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ <http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/> Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/pshute%40nuw.org.au <https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/pshute%40nuw.org.au>
participants (4)
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Mark Sapiro -
Peter Shute -
Richard Damon -
Stephen J. Turnbull