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
_______________________________________________
Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf