Re: How I deal with (false positive) IP-address blacklists...

At 23:58 08-12-2008, Theodore Tso wrote:
>Well, the intended recipient, is a Linux Kernel Developer.  He posted
>a message on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, about Linux Kernel
>Developement.  I responded, on-topic, with a message that had no
>advertising material, soliticted, or unsolicited.  I think that meets
>the definition of "legitimate e-mail", don't you think?  It seems

By that definition this message would be legitimate 
too.  Fortunately, this message is being sent through a service 
provider that does not add a message footer with advertising material.

>pretty clear the recipient probably wnated to receive it, and in this
>case, an IP address-based blacklist is causing him not to receive the
>e-mail.  It has been made unreliable for him.

The mail server of the recipient rejected the message because the IP 
address of the sender is listed locally in a blacklist.  This doesn't 
seem like a mail rejection solely based on information provided by a 
third-party.

For classification purposes, this is a false positive if the 
recipient wants the message.  Obviously, the recipient must be aware 
that he/she was not able to receive the message for that to happen.

The rejection message contained a phone number.  That can be used to 
contact the postmaster of the site if the rejection was 
incorrect.  That may be adequate for people exchanging mail 
locally.  As you pointed out, it's not a convenient means of 
communication when the sender is in another country and he/she might 
not bother to make a long distance call to resolve the problem.  In 
this case, the message is of little value to the sender; it's the 
recipient that stands to benefit from it.

Sometimes the IP address of the sending mail server is blacklisted 
because it's from a country or a region commonly associated with 
"illegitimate e-mails".  Maybe that's the case here. :-)

Even if the postmaster of the receiving server takes all reasonable 
steps to avoid false positives, it can still happen.  The postmaster 
can either provide an alternative means of communication which is not 
a burden to the sender or else stick to the belief that his/her mail 
filtering is perfect and it's up to the sender to jump through hops 
to get his/her message through.

Regards,
-sm 

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