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Re: (OT)Verizon problems

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Subject: Re: (OT)Verizon problems
From: Matt Simpson <net-qmlist@jmatt.net>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 08:27:49 -0500
Comment: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
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At 1:06 AM 3/9/07, Russel Oliver wrote:
Kyle Wheeler wrote:
Read that carefully. They're not saying they couldn't verify the sender by talking to YOUR server, they're saying that 206.46.232.11 didn't like the sender for some reason, and unless you own relay.verizon.net (aka 206.46.232.11), that's not you.

sender is meaning the "mail from" sender in my understanding.

You're both right. It's the "mail from" sender (which is in your domain) that is being rejected. But Kyle's point is that it's being rejected by relay.verizon.net, for unknown reasons. It might be, as you suspect, that it's trying to verify the sender by talking to your server. But it might be some completely different reason. They're not telling you why. You can make some assumptions, which may or may not be correct. As Kyle points out, all you know is something about your mail is bothering them.

In general, this message from them usually means "we think your message is spam, so why don't you keep it." (Say it in a snooty voice, and you'll get the sentiment a bit more accurately.) It doesn't mean something simple like "we couldn't verify your sender when we contacted your server", it means "somewhere in the bowels of our anti-spam heuristics, this message triggered a no-no rule."

You might see them connecting to your SMTP server in your logs. But that doesn't necessarily indicate where the problem is. It's possible that they're connecting, verifying the sender exists, and then rejecting your message for some other reason.


I have an ethical problem with the fact that I need to configure my own
domain in anyway to conform to what one particular isp thinks is the
right way to control email servers.

In this case, it may well be true that Verizon's behavior is moronic and unreasonable. But, as a blanket statement, your "ethical problem" is not valid. As an extreme example, suppose you were running an open relay. You would be very likely to find that your mail was rejected by several ISPs. But I doubt that anybody here would sympathize with your refusal to close your open relay "to conform to what one particular isp thinks is the right way to control email servers." If you don't know what Verizon thinks you should/shouldn't be doing, it's hard to say they're wrong. But they should definitely do a better job of telling you what they want.

At 1:06 AM 3/9/07, Russel Oliver wrote:
I have made no changes in over 2 years.  qmail has just been humming
away.  This is in no way a qmail problem, it is verizon.

Again, very likely correct in this particular case, but also not valid as a blanket statement. Just because you have made no changes in over 2 years doesn't prove it's Verizon's problem and not yours. Using the open relay example again, suppose you had been running an open relay for over 2 years, and Verizon suddenly decided to start blocking mail from open relays. No changes on your end, yet Verizon suddenly stops blocking your mail. Whose problem is it?

I realize you are (probably) not running an open relay. I just used that as an easy example of a situation where it is reasonable for some other ISP to decide how people who send email to them should configure their own servers. So you can't say that's always an unreasonable demand. At this point, about all you can confuse Verizon of is being unreasonable by rejecting mail without an adequate explanation of what their reason is.

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