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

Jim Lawrence accessd at shaw.ca
Sat Feb 6 09:56:36 CST 2010


How do you resolve the email address so it reads:

george at GeorgesDomain.com

...instead of...

george at gmail.com

?

Jim



-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Mark Breen
Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 3:29 AM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Seeking your advice regarding false positives for
spam lists

Hello Guys,

Thank you all for your input, this was useful.

I looked up the domain name and yes, it is on one of the blacklists.  IIUC,
It is actually the smtp server that is on the blacklist, and not the domain
or the IP address my customer is assigned.

In that case, I have options of

a) switch smtp servers
b) switch to google apps for the email serving.

I favor Google apps because I can then cease to use Exchange (they have only
5 employees) and I do not have to worry about restoring Exchange in the
event of a disaster.  I may have mentioned here that I recently installed
two USB disks for alternating offs-site backups.  I also mentioned that I
installed TrueCrypt on the two disks.  All that works well, but I have to
use Veritas BackupExec to backup the Exchange folders and I fear having to
do a restore of that stuff.

Is this the golden opportunity to move the email off exchange and onto
Google Apps?
If so, they may opt to continue to use Outlook as the mail client, which is
fine.
However, what about calendars.  Has anyone here used Outlook as a email
client and attempted to interface the calender of outlook to the Google App
Calendar?

TIA for input and comments.

Mark


So that leaves me with a few options

On 5 February 2010 18:45, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote:

> 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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