[dba-Tech] Seeking your advice regarding false positives for spam lists

Jim Lawrence accessd at shaw.ca
Fri Feb 5 12:45:32 CST 2010


It is possible that they got themselves blacklisted but ISPs use as much
content appraisal to decide whether something is spam or otherwise. Some of
the criteria are:

1. A large batch of emails being sent being identical or almost identical.
That can be gotten around by as little as adding the recipients name to the
content of each email.
2. Particular content that says of implies drug or sexual content. I have
had mail rejected that had three 'X' in a row. The mere mention of children
or youth can be a trigger. Then there is the possible mention of money which
can also be a trigger. (Check their standard emails to see if there is any
possibility that their messages could misinterpreted.)
3. Very plain emails, ones without pictures or images or any professional
layout imbedded may be considered suspect...or subject lines or body content
that may appear coded.

Other possibilities are that some computer within an organization may have
become compromised at one point and ended up being used as a zombie. This
could get the whole address range blocked. Maybe someone at the site has
been using the system to do load porn.

If you suspect that the client is blacklisted you could check their various
main IPs against the following site:
http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx?AG=GBL&gclid=CNyq8dzr258CFQYXagodlC
DUGQ  (watch for wrap...) If some of their IPs are found to be on any
blacklist it will take a number of phones call to get their good name
reinstated.

HTH
Jim


-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Mark Breen
Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 1:24 AM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: [dba-Tech] Seeking your advice regarding false positives for spam
lists

Hello All,

I have a customer with six employees.  They are a government linked
childcare related organisation.  Their primary role in life is to dispense
funds to local pre-school child care businesses here in Ireland.

They have been noticing that they often get told that their emails were in
the spam folder of their recipient.

I did some tests yesterday sending from their email addresses to a few of my
gmail accounts and all of their emails went to google's spam folder.

Could they have gotton themselves onto a so called black list?
Do such things really exist and is it really so easy to get on one of these
lists?
I have to presume that if they exist and if you get on one, there is no easy
way to get off such a list?
If so, what do you suggest?  Register a similar domain name and cease use of
the old domain name?

Thanks for your suggestions and comments.

Mark
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