The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[Renate]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

The song is about what you accomplish in your lifetime...

Wait. I was supposed to accomplish something? Dang.

[DNSB]

Probably not the correct place but... I have several author newsletters that come to me through a gmail account. I noticed that I hadn't received anything in the last while so I checked a couple of their websites and the newsletters had been produced though gmail online didn't show anything in the inbox or spam. Turns out that gmail had decided to classify those newletters as malware.

[mrscoach]

Is that what happened to my ILVN emails? I just realized Friday that I hadn't received one last week, maybe longer.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Probably not the correct place but... I have several author newsletters that come to me through a gmail account. I noticed that I hadn't received anything in the last while so I checked a couple of their websites and the newsletters had been produced though gmail online didn't show anything in the inbox or spam. Turns out that gmail had decided to classify those newletters as malware.

Also no-one with email not using multiple Google approved security can now send to gmail, or even reply to a gmail. Many domains/email servers have only one of the required security.
Also years ago they effectively blocked most desktop email clients from using a gmail account without their authorization system forcing users to use only gmail on the website and thus no local record of what is sent and received. Their auth system connects all gmail accounts you use as one user.

[ownedbycats]

I've had emails sent to my Outlook.com accounts also get eaten (they don't even make it to spam). It's annoying.

[JSWolf]

You have to put the from address in your address book to get the system to say all email from that address are safe. I hope that works for when the mail server thinks the content is unsafe.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You have to put the from address in your address book to get the system to say all email from that address are safe. I hope that works for when the mail server thinks the content is unsafe.

The particular problem sending to gmail addresses that a lot of people are having is particular proof that the controller of the from address acount is the actual sender. Quoth has listed the particular proofs required, which have to come from the mail system in the from domain.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You have to put the from address in your address book to get the system to say all email from that address are safe. I hope that works for when the mail server thinks the content is unsafe.

On Outlook.com, whitelisting didn't work.

[Quoth]

Three issues:
1) Sending or replay to any gmail address

If you use an email service provider, verify that they authenticate your domain’s email with SPF and DKIM.
We recommend you always use the same domain for email authentication and hosting your public website.

For instance all my hosted domains already have DKIM, but I also need to manually add SPF to my accounts on the hosting site.
https://support.google.com/a/answer/...401349025&rd=1

2) Using a desktop client (or real client on iOS or Android) to fetch email from gmail (POP3 or IMAP)
You need OAuth. You can't use different credentials. All you gmail address for one client must be connected.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...bird-and-gmail
This applies to ANY desktop or real email client (K9 on Andriod). The Android Mail application is really giving Google the user accounts and passwords. Their servers then fetch and send that email, so I use K9 mail on Android.

3) Sending email from a desktop client, or real client on iOS or Android (SMTP).
I used to use one account and simply edit the from field. I can still do that with non-Gmail if I use my ISP SMTP. But if I use my hosting company SMTP, since last month I have to use a matching account. Not a problem. My desktop client can have as many accounts as I need.
If the email from address is a gmail account I can no longer since some years ago use the ISP. You have to use the google SMTP. For this on an email client you need OAuth.

This is actually all more about Google being able to scan all emails to and from all gmail accounts for their 'slurping'. It's delusional to believe that phishing and spammers will be stopped.

I receive all gmail by having forwarding to non-gmail accounts on all my gmail accounts since OAuth came in a few years ago. Till last month I simply spoofed the gmail 'from' via my ISP if I had to send/reply from a gmail account and had no problem sending to any gmail user via my hosting company SMTP or ISP from my own domains' email addresses.
But now I can't send any email to a gmail recipent from my own domain email addresses till I figure out SPF. The Website of my Hosting company is entirely in German.

Meanwhile I have to use Gmail on web or Android to Gmail users and can only use my Gmail addresses, not my "proper ones".

Another issue is that some ISPs ONLY let you use their SMTP, they block the ports to all others. Unless they have SPF and DKIM you can't send to a gmail account!

But really Google want you to use their Gmail on Web, ChromeOS and Android for gmail from addresses (or their SMTP), because they want to 'read' not just all incoming email to gmail addresses from anyone (which they have always done), but also read all outgoing email from any gmail address. Also they want you to to use Gmail, not your ISP email nor your paid for domain hosting company email.
Gmail is free because the content and metadata is useful to Google.

Whitelisting won't work.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

The particular problem sending to gmail addresses that a lot of people are having is particular proof that the controller of the from address acount is the actual sender.

The real problem is that knowing that the e-mail really came from "joe@WeAreSpammers.com" doesn't do anything to help.

Less than 5 years ago, I blocked 90% of spam simply by not accepting e-mail from any machine that didn't retry when it receives a "temporary failure" result. This stopped pretty much all the bot networks, because they were one-shot send.

Now, though, the vast majority of spam comes from "legitimate" domains. In other words, somebody pays for a domain name, sets up the DNS entries required for "verification", sets up a proper mail server that follows all the rules (including DKIM), and proceeds to send out spam. From nothing to sending spam can be done in a couple of hours. When too many mail servers stop accepting the spam, abandon the domain name and repeat with a new one.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

Now, though, the vast majority of spam comes from "legitimate" domains. In other words, somebody pays for a domain name, sets up the DNS entries required for "verification", sets up a proper mail server that follows all the rules (including DKIM), and proceeds to send out spam. From nothing to sending spam can be done in a couple of hours. When too many mail servers stop accepting the spam, abandon the domain name and repeat with a new one.

Yes.
And by definition in some countries it's not even spam!

My definition, and most of Europe:
Spam is unsolicited email selling something.

Most of what I get is from real companies. I've dealt with almost none of them. A tiny amount is from companies where I did buy and carefully filled the option to have no offers etc. These are almost always American.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003

All these Google changes are either inept or to do with increasing google's share of email hosting. They are dressed as security, anti-phising and anti-spam. If they really believe it I have a nice bridge over the Shannon that they can buy from me.

EDIT:
Even a "charge per message sent" wouldn't work. Many of the commercial companies sending spam have their own infrastructure. I've been using the Internet for email since 1987 (though web sites are later) and passed exams in computer and security stuff. I don't see any solution that simply doesn't benefit big companies and Google/Alphabet, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

The real problem is that knowing that the e-mail really came from "joe@WeAreSpammers.com" doesn't do anything to help.

I didn't mean to imply that it is a legitimate, practical, or even actual reason, just google's excuse.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I didn't mean to imply that it is a legitimate, practical, or even actual reason, just google's excuse.

I assumed that.

[Lukusaukko]

Oh why are the covers of fantasy ebook reprints so soulless? Compare the appropriately cheesy original cover of Offutt's Demon in the Mirror with the Kindle edition ... no soul at all ... And that's not even the worst example, way too many look like they've been drawn by an industrious-but-not-that talented fan (looking at you whoever did the covers for Jack Vance's Lyonesse series...) or have been AI-generated and rather badly at that. Bring back the cheesy fantasy covers with the seriously doubtful chainmail bikinis and damsels in distress only because they are about to fall over due to too-high center of gravity!

(it's just not ebooks though, rather pedestrian covers seem to be a thing these days even in paper books).

[DNSB]

According to one person I was chatting with, unless the female character on the cover is the heroine, having under-dressed and over-endowed women on a cover is now frowned upon. Why the exception for the heroine since inside the book they tend to dress appropriately for their activities, I didn't quite understand. One recent fantasy, the cover had a battle scene where the heroine was wearing an outfit that reminded me of the cover of Chicks in Chainmail while inside the book, she wore light weight dwarven forged armour.