Here is an example of a grossly mistaken anti-spam measure: My emails have contained no "irregular formatting", whatever that means. Usually formatting checks look for html formatted text with lots of centered text. My messages contained none of that. But it also contained nothing irregular, that wouldn't be found in a typical message. The message below shows that you have to be very, very careful and not make false assumptions about the content of messages when making anti-spam checks. The poor unfortunate user probably has no idea that his email is being interfered with by his/her IT department. Luckily, the IETF list is content-free, and so the user missed nothing of value ;-) ;-) --Dean ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 19:24:37 -0500 From: mailscreen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: dean@xxxxxxx Subject: Email quarantined The following message has not been delivered: Message: BA000ba224.00000001.mml From: dean@xxxxxxx To: dbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: proposal for built-in spam burden & email privacy protection This is due to automatic rules that have determined that the message contains irregular formatting that is often used by spammers. If this is a legitimate business related email that you believe has been blocked in error, you may contact the intended recipient and have them notify the ITS Help Desk. This message will be retained for ten days. Please do not reply to this message.