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Posted to users@spamassassin.apache.org by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> on 2014/07/28 18:10:40 UTC
Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Hi All,
Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes
who some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
No it's not going to break us.
But this is what I see happening.
SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the
box, doing nothing other than using defaults.
If the users feed the learner, it's even better. But, the spam is
coming in at such a tremendously high volume now that when a user
account gets 5,000 pieces of mail a day, all of it except for maybe
5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
they don't see the 4,950 pieces of mail we deleted for them. They
just see the 50 pieces that got past, compared to their 5 legitimate
pieces.
So naturally the users figure we are rat bastards who aren't doing a
good job filtering. So they setup a test account at Google and "try it
out for a month"
Of course, the account gets very little spam. Why would it otherwise?
It's brand new. It hasn't had a chance to be disseminated to all of the
mailing lists, the websites, the other coorespondents's computers of
theirs that get hit by harvesting viruses.
Their ignorance then reinforces their invalid perception and then they
figure we are liars. So they move their domain.
A year later, when Gmail is doing the same thing to them, they finally
figure out it's not the provider, its the spammers and oh boy maybe
we weren't lying after all. But, it's a lot of work to shift back to
us, so why bother if all the mail services are the same way?
So they are gone, permanently, never to return.
We have tried educating them. But spamfighting today is complex. If
you explain it completely and they understand the explanation and
believe you, they give up hope because they realize that just hitting
the delete button on those 50 pieces of spam is easier than shifting
their poor email behaviors that got them into the mess in the first
place. But then a month later the complex explanation is forgotten
and they are once more vulnerable to any snake oil sales consultant
selling them gmail. But most of them don't understand anyway.
And if you just try to dumb down the explanation it starts making no
sense at all very quickly.
What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an
Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either on
Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to
hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a warrant?
And to add insult to injury - this small company is a dental office -
subject to HIPAA - and Gmail is not (and has stated they will not) be
HIPAA complaint. We are!
Ted
---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/28/2014 10:56 AM, Mauricio Tavares wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 1:44 PM, John Hardin<jh...@impsec.org> wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Jul 2014, David F. Skoll wrote:
>>
>>> Unfortunately, people usually only care about crappy support and
>>> service after it's too late. You might win back some ex-Google
>>> customers, but it's really hard to stem the tide beforehand.
>>
> I think there is also the tolerance level people have depending
> on who they are dealing with. If they are dealing with a smaller/local
> company, they expect 24/7 support and solutions for problems before
> said problems are even conceived. But, when dealing with a large
> corporation, they accept the fact they are just another customer in
> hundreds of thousands who should be glad they are given the time of
> the day. Hence the "it is HP/Microsoft/IBM/Google/Apple" shrug while
> throwing money at those companies. After all, a bigger company must be
> better than a smaller one, right?
>
Except of course when it's MY product and industry, then the smaller
company is definitely better!!!! (you were paying attention when I
mentioned the company that left for the "bigger is better" provider is
itself small - 6 boxes)
After all do as I say not as I do, eh!!!!!
Ted
>>
>> See if the people you won back are willing to talk about their experiences
>> to the people considering leaving.
>>
>>
>> --
>> John Hardin KA7OHZ http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
>> jhardin@impsec.org FALaholic #11174 pgpk -a jhardin@impsec.org
>> key: 0xB8732E79 -- 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Gun Control is marketed to the public using the appealing delusion
>> that violent criminals will obey the law.
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 8 days until the 279th anniversary of John Peter Zenger's acquittal
---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Dave Warren <da...@hireahit.com>.
On 2014-07-28 10:56, Mauricio Tavares wrote:
> I think there is also the tolerance level people have depending
> on who they are dealing with. If they are dealing with a smaller/local
> company, they expect 24/7 support and solutions for problems before
> said problems are even conceived.
While that's sometimes true, as a very small service provider, a lot of
my customers appreciate that they're speaking to a person and not a
department, and it allows me to to provide solutions to customers based
on /their/ needs rather than their demographic's needs.
But as with so many other markets, most customers will opt for a bigger,
generic level of solution rather than going for a small local business
when it can save them a few dollars.
Google, Office 365 and Outlook.com are the Walmart of our industry, and
that's okay, there's still room for competition, but you do have to work
a lot harder at areas that the big guys can't compete with.
--
Dave Warren
http://www.hireahit.com/
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davejwarren
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Mauricio Tavares <ra...@gmail.com>.
On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 1:44 PM, John Hardin <jh...@impsec.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jul 2014, David F. Skoll wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, people usually only care about crappy support and
>> service after it's too late. You might win back some ex-Google
>> customers, but it's really hard to stem the tide beforehand.
>
I think there is also the tolerance level people have depending
on who they are dealing with. If they are dealing with a smaller/local
company, they expect 24/7 support and solutions for problems before
said problems are even conceived. But, when dealing with a large
corporation, they accept the fact they are just another customer in
hundreds of thousands who should be glad they are given the time of
the day. Hence the "it is HP/Microsoft/IBM/Google/Apple" shrug while
throwing money at those companies. After all, a bigger company must be
better than a smaller one, right?
>
> See if the people you won back are willing to talk about their experiences
> to the people considering leaving.
>
>
> --
> John Hardin KA7OHZ http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
> jhardin@impsec.org FALaholic #11174 pgpk -a jhardin@impsec.org
> key: 0xB8732E79 -- 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Gun Control is marketed to the public using the appealing delusion
> that violent criminals will obey the law.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 8 days until the 279th anniversary of John Peter Zenger's acquittal
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by John Hardin <jh...@impsec.org>.
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014, David F. Skoll wrote:
> Unfortunately, people usually only care about crappy support and
> service after it's too late. You might win back some ex-Google
> customers, but it's really hard to stem the tide beforehand.
See if the people you won back are willing to talk about their experiences
to the people considering leaving.
--
John Hardin KA7OHZ http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
jhardin@impsec.org FALaholic #11174 pgpk -a jhardin@impsec.org
key: 0xB8732E79 -- 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gun Control is marketed to the public using the appealing delusion
that violent criminals will obey the law.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 days until the 279th anniversary of John Peter Zenger's acquittal
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:49:24 -0400
Rob McEwen <ro...@invaluement.com> wrote:
> PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong as my example above is anecdotal.. but
> from what I understand, Google doesn't provide ANSWERS and SOLUTIONS
> for situations like this. You just get excuses and delays.
That has been my experience too. We had a customer who had problems
emailing someone and once we determined that Google was blocking the
mail, my customer gave up. He said there's no point in bothering to
contact Google; he just phoned the original recipient instead.
> If you can verify that this is true (and continues to be
> true)... then use this info as a rebuttal the next time you have a
> client talk about leaving you for gmail.
Unfortunately, people usually only care about crappy support and
service after it's too late. You might win back some ex-Google
customers, but it's really hard to stem the tide beforehand.
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Rob McEwen <ro...@invaluement.com>.
On 7/28/2014 12:10 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Small company with about 6 mailboxes who some consultant gave them a
> song and dance about how Gmail's such a
> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
Ted,
fwiw, I had a situation last year where a friend (not one of my own
clients) called me up asking me about a situation where legit hand-typed
messages to their paid business-class gmail service... were getting blocked.
So I ask, "why are you asking me, ask gmail!"
He responded by saying that they are a paid business class gmail user,
sending from their own domain name... and when he called his paid
support line at google (again, this isn't the regular free gmail)... the
tech support consultant was not able to lift a finger to help them. No
research.. no SMTP logs... nothing. The paid subscriber was told that
"there must be some kind of problem... you'll have to wait this out"
In contrast, if one of my mail hosting clients reports that a hand-typed
message to them is blocked, i get the details about the message and
search through the SMTP logs, and report back to them exactly what
happened and fix it if it were something controllable on my end.
(usually there is a more innocent explanation, like the sender making a
typo in the e-mail address, etc)... but I first ASSUME it is my
problem... THEN research it.. then give the client ANSWERS and SOLUTIONS.
PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong as my example above is anecdotal.. but
from what I understand, Google doesn't provide ANSWERS and SOLUTIONS for
situations like this. You just get excuses and delays.
Maybe Google has improved since then?... or maybe my report is not
accurate (but it came to me first hand from a trustworthy source).
Definately double check this. If you can verify that this is true (and
continues to be true)... then use this info as a rebuttal the next time
you have a client talk about leaving you for gmail.
--
Rob McEwen
+1 (478) 475-9032
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Axb <ax...@gmail.com>.
On 07/29/2014 09:11 AM, Matus UHLAR - fantomas wrote:
> On 28.07.14 10:29, Nate Metheny wrote:
>> Sadly, until SMTP is rewritten and we're not using protocols on the
>> Internet that have been based on very very old code and then just
>> patched and updated ad infinitum, there isn't a "sure fire" solution.
>> More patches, more fixes, more filters, more overhead, more wasted CPU
>> time and bandwidth.
>
>
> You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If...
> The FUSSP involves replacing SMTP.
> http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html#programmer-11
and in the meantime, one has to be creative....
SA offers an arsenal of tools but we shouldn't take it for granted that
volunteers to do the job for us.
"we could", "one should", "SA should" are pipe dreams as long as admins
are not willing to contribute.
This is one of the reasons why projetcs like SARE died (wave @Chris
Santerre!)
It seems to be sign of the times that ppl have a hard time with
commitment, spamfighters are getting closer to retirement age and
apparently, the "next generation" doesn't find spam fighting sexy.
So what can be done? raise your hand if you're willing to contribute, is
a starting point...
...
best regards from yet another retired SARE Ninja....
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Matus UHLAR - fantomas <uh...@fantomas.sk>.
On 28.07.14 10:29, Nate Metheny wrote:
>Sadly, until SMTP is rewritten and we're not using protocols on the
>Internet that have been based on very very old code and then just
>patched and updated ad infinitum, there isn't a "sure fire" solution.
>More patches, more fixes, more filters, more overhead, more wasted
>CPU time and bandwidth.
You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If...
The FUSSP involves replacing SMTP.
http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html#programmer-11
--
Matus UHLAR - fantomas, uhlar@fantomas.sk ; http://www.fantomas.sk/
Warning: I wish NOT to receive e-mail advertising to this address.
Varovanie: na tuto adresu chcem NEDOSTAVAT akukolvek reklamnu postu.
Saving Private Ryan...
Private Ryan exists. Overwrite? (Y/N)
RE: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by John Hardin <jh...@impsec.org>.
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014, Greg Ledford wrote:
> Spammer hire staff in foreign countries to format emails until they get
> around the filters. Many of them BUY the filters and bounce emails
> against them until they get through and THEN send them out.
The only thing that evolves faster than bacteria is spammers.
--
John Hardin KA7OHZ http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
jhardin@impsec.org FALaholic #11174 pgpk -a jhardin@impsec.org
key: 0xB8732E79 -- 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
When people get used to preferential treatment,
equal treatment seems like discrimination. -- Thomas Sowell
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 days until the 279th anniversary of John Peter Zenger's acquittal
RE: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Greg Ledford <gl...@phhwtechnology.com>.
I think it goes a little deeper, too. I just went to Postfix-Spamassassin-Amavis setup as a front-end for Exchange because I had a Sonicwall ES300 for two years and it didn't even work as well as this new setup. Exchange filtration is a joke. I paid $2,000 for two years of service on the junky ES300 for 100 users and EVERYONE complained about its lack of effectiveness for two solid years. I feel your pain but to be honest, I've paid more and received way less. I hope your clients get to be as understanding as mine. There's no perfect solution, unless you hire staff to maintain it around the clock and even then it's only as good as the attention that's paid to it. Spammer hire staff in foreign countries to format emails until they get around the filters. Many of them BUY the filters and bounce emails against them until they get through and THEN send them out. We are always going to be fighting an uphill battle with spam as long as a computer is attached to the internet.
Greg Ledford
PHHW Technology Services LLC
1000 Corporate Centre Dr, Ste 200
Franklin, TN 37067
Office (615) 778-1777
Cell (615) 403-6989
Fax (615) 771-0081
Email gledford@phhwtechnology.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Nate Metheny [mailto:nate@santafe.edu]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 11:30 AM
To: users@spamassassin.apache.org
Subject: Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
I definitely appreciate your rant and your point of view.
Sadly, until SMTP is rewritten and we're not using protocols on the
Internet that have been based on very very old code and then just
patched and updated ad infinitum, there isn't a "sure fire" solution.
More patches, more fixes, more filters, more overhead, more wasted CPU
time and bandwidth.
There's plenty who won't agree with my point of view and think of it as
unrealistic, but that's just the way opinions go. :)
Independent email providers will never have the resources of
conglomerates. We have the security and the ability to guarantee data
control, delivery and confidentiality, but as far as SPAM filtering and
other time and resource intensive things go, we'll never compete at the
same level.
Keep on keepin' on.
On 07/28/2014 10:10 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes
> who some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
>
> No it's not going to break us.
>
> But this is what I see happening.
>
> SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the
> box, doing nothing other than using defaults.
>
> If the users feed the learner, it's even better. But, the spam is
> coming in at such a tremendously high volume now that when a user
> account gets 5,000 pieces of mail a day, all of it except for maybe
> 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
> STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
> compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
>
> they don't see the 4,950 pieces of mail we deleted for them. They
> just see the 50 pieces that got past, compared to their 5 legitimate
> pieces.
>
> So naturally the users figure we are rat bastards who aren't doing a
> good job filtering. So they setup a test account at Google and "try it
> out for a month"
>
> Of course, the account gets very little spam. Why would it otherwise?
> It's brand new. It hasn't had a chance to be disseminated to all of the
> mailing lists, the websites, the other coorespondents's computers of
> theirs that get hit by harvesting viruses.
>
> Their ignorance then reinforces their invalid perception and then they
> figure we are liars. So they move their domain.
>
> A year later, when Gmail is doing the same thing to them, they finally
> figure out it's not the provider, its the spammers and oh boy maybe
> we weren't lying after all. But, it's a lot of work to shift back to
> us, so why bother if all the mail services are the same way?
>
> So they are gone, permanently, never to return.
>
> We have tried educating them. But spamfighting today is complex. If
> you explain it completely and they understand the explanation and
> believe you, they give up hope because they realize that just hitting
> the delete button on those 50 pieces of spam is easier than shifting
> their poor email behaviors that got them into the mess in the first
> place. But then a month later the complex explanation is forgotten
> and they are once more vulnerable to any snake oil sales consultant
> selling them gmail. But most of them don't understand anyway.
>
> And if you just try to dumb down the explanation it starts making no
> sense at all very quickly.
>
> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an
> Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either on
> Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to
> hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a warrant?
>
> And to add insult to injury - this small company is a dental office -
> subject to HIPAA - and Gmail is not (and has stated they will not) be
> HIPAA complaint. We are!
>
> Ted
>
> ---
> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus
> protection is active.
> http://www.avast.com
--
.==== === -- - -- - - - - - ---.
| Nate Metheny IT Group Leader |
| Santa Fe Institute office 505.946.2730 |
| cell 505.930.9390 fax 505.982.0565 |
| http://www.santafe.edu nate@santafe.edu |
`--- - -- - - -- - = == ==='
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Nate Metheny <na...@santafe.edu>.
I definitely appreciate your rant and your point of view.
Sadly, until SMTP is rewritten and we're not using protocols on the
Internet that have been based on very very old code and then just
patched and updated ad infinitum, there isn't a "sure fire" solution.
More patches, more fixes, more filters, more overhead, more wasted CPU
time and bandwidth.
There's plenty who won't agree with my point of view and think of it as
unrealistic, but that's just the way opinions go. :)
Independent email providers will never have the resources of
conglomerates. We have the security and the ability to guarantee data
control, delivery and confidentiality, but as far as SPAM filtering and
other time and resource intensive things go, we'll never compete at the
same level.
Keep on keepin' on.
On 07/28/2014 10:10 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes
> who some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
>
> No it's not going to break us.
>
> But this is what I see happening.
>
> SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the
> box, doing nothing other than using defaults.
>
> If the users feed the learner, it's even better. But, the spam is
> coming in at such a tremendously high volume now that when a user
> account gets 5,000 pieces of mail a day, all of it except for maybe
> 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
> STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
> compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
>
> they don't see the 4,950 pieces of mail we deleted for them. They
> just see the 50 pieces that got past, compared to their 5 legitimate
> pieces.
>
> So naturally the users figure we are rat bastards who aren't doing a
> good job filtering. So they setup a test account at Google and "try it
> out for a month"
>
> Of course, the account gets very little spam. Why would it otherwise?
> It's brand new. It hasn't had a chance to be disseminated to all of the
> mailing lists, the websites, the other coorespondents's computers of
> theirs that get hit by harvesting viruses.
>
> Their ignorance then reinforces their invalid perception and then they
> figure we are liars. So they move their domain.
>
> A year later, when Gmail is doing the same thing to them, they finally
> figure out it's not the provider, its the spammers and oh boy maybe
> we weren't lying after all. But, it's a lot of work to shift back to
> us, so why bother if all the mail services are the same way?
>
> So they are gone, permanently, never to return.
>
> We have tried educating them. But spamfighting today is complex. If
> you explain it completely and they understand the explanation and
> believe you, they give up hope because they realize that just hitting
> the delete button on those 50 pieces of spam is easier than shifting
> their poor email behaviors that got them into the mess in the first
> place. But then a month later the complex explanation is forgotten
> and they are once more vulnerable to any snake oil sales consultant
> selling them gmail. But most of them don't understand anyway.
>
> And if you just try to dumb down the explanation it starts making no
> sense at all very quickly.
>
> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an
> Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either on
> Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to
> hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a warrant?
>
> And to add insult to injury - this small company is a dental office -
> subject to HIPAA - and Gmail is not (and has stated they will not) be
> HIPAA complaint. We are!
>
> Ted
>
> ---
> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus
> protection is active.
> http://www.avast.com
--
.==== === -- - -- - - - - - ---.
| Nate Metheny IT Group Leader |
| Santa Fe Institute office 505.946.2730 |
| cell 505.930.9390 fax 505.982.0565 |
| http://www.santafe.edu nate@santafe.edu |
`--- - -- - - -- - = == ==='
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Axb <ax...@gmail.com>.
On 07/29/2014 09:37 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> The commercial RBL's let spam through also. As to whether they let as
> much spam through as, say, spamcops RBL, I'll let others argue that
> point. But that is NOT the issue I raised in the beginning. The issue
> is this automatic assumption that companies like Gmail and
> Hotmail/MSN/Live/Microsoft/365/whatever-the-name-o-the-week-they-call-themselves
> all have SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER spam filtering than
> Spamassassin+free/public RBLs+some judicious blacklists. This
> assumption is apparently based on the notion bigger is better, not the
> notion that it's not the size of the wand but the magic in it.
>
> This is a perception I'm seeing some responders to this thread echo! I
> have to ask you if you think those guys are better why are you even
> using Spamassassin at all? Just throw in the towel and find something
> else to do, you don't even have faith in your own mailserver.
They're not better, they're just cheaper.
As long as I can detect all the spam THEY throw at me, I don't consider
them any better than anybody else, using a nicely customized sA setup.
Give the amount of money they throw at subsidizing their services, we
all know how it paysback. Thankfully there' a whole lot of clients who
don't buy that.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/29/2014 2:23 PM, Dave Warren wrote:
> On 2014-07-29 13:29, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 7/29/2014 12:44 PM, David F. Skoll wrote:
>>> On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 12:37:00 -0700
>>> Ted Mittelstaedt<te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hotmail/MSN/Live/Microsoft/365/whatever-the-name-o-the-week-they-call-themselves
>>>>
>>>> all have SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER spam filtering than
>>>> Spamassassin+free/public RBLs+some judicious blacklists.
>>>
>>> My experience is only with Gmail. And I have to say: Gmail's spam
>>> filtering is pretty darn good. I almost never get spam on my gmail.com
>>> account and I almost never get false-positives either.
>>>
>>
>> Yet you don't use your gmail address to post here - so how is this a
>> fair apples to apples comparison. It isn't. All you saying is - an
>> email address at gmail that I hardly use, doesn't get a lot of spam -
>> and an email address at roaringpenguin.com which I use all the time -
>> gets more spam.
>>
>> Therefore google's spam filter is better?
>
> I own (but don't use) my firstname.lastname over there, and a I get a
> metric boatload of misdirected junk. I've narrowed it down to a couple
> regular users who can't figure out their email address, one who was dumb
> enough to have my address printed on his business cards (I got a
> recipient of such a business card to send me a photo)
>
> So while I don't personally use it everywhere, I have tons of people
> that do spread it far and wide. I get Amazon orders, RMA status from
> very legitimate companies, invitations to movie premieres, contact from
> wanna-be actors, restaurant reservations, etc. All legit, from companies
> that can't be bothered to verify user-supplied addresses. Plus I get the
> fallout as these companies sell their lists, subscribe me thinking I'm a
> customer, etc.
>
> One day I got bored and started flagging this stuff as spam. Took just
> about a month to get it under control (read: routed to my spam folder)
>
> If spam filtering were the only consideration, I'd switch to Gmail
> (well, Google Apps) in a heartbeat, and I'd figure out a way to make
> money putting my customers over on Google Apps too.
>
There isn't such a way. I watched the large elephant Telcos do this
with the dialup ISPs with DSL.
The come-on was offering the dialup ISPs a way to interconnect to sell
DSL.
In the beginning, the ISPs were able to make money selling their data
Then the elephant Telcos jacked up access prices and the only offer
was a "wholesale/partnership" where the ex-dialup ISPs could "brand"
the Telco DSL and network connectivity as their own.
Then the Telcos undercut the partner prices and the old Dialup ISPs
were out of business.
The same thing today is going on with Google and Microsoft Office 365
Both companies offer street-level consultants "partnerships" and the
ability to brand their stuff.
But it only is a way of getting existing customers who perhaps have
a small network with Exchange 2003 running mail/file/print services,
into a Cloud-serviced customer, serviced by one of the 2.
I guarantee that 5 years from now Microsoft and Google will be dealing
direct with those people and the street-level consultants will be out
of the picture.
Eventually the business owner will be able to login to their Google Apps
interface, click on "provision a new employee" and a week later
UPS will deliver a fully configured HP or Dell, and that former
street level consultant who owned his own consultancy will now be a
minimum wage employee of Geek Squad, who will simply spend 20 minutes
setting up the machine, plugging it into the router, adjusting the
monitor, then turning it on and the rest of the work will be entirely
done remotely. And the Geek Squad guy will be fired if he mentions
"Linux" or anything other than the company line to the business owner.
That's the plan that these companies like Microsoft and Google have
designed. It's all about vendor lock-in.
Ted
> But it isn't the only consideration.
>
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Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Dave Warren <da...@hireahit.com>.
On 2014-07-29 13:29, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
>
> On 7/29/2014 12:44 PM, David F. Skoll wrote:
>> On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 12:37:00 -0700
>> Ted Mittelstaedt<te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Hotmail/MSN/Live/Microsoft/365/whatever-the-name-o-the-week-they-call-themselves
>>>
>>> all have SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER spam filtering than
>>> Spamassassin+free/public RBLs+some judicious blacklists.
>>
>> My experience is only with Gmail. And I have to say: Gmail's spam
>> filtering is pretty darn good. I almost never get spam on my gmail.com
>> account and I almost never get false-positives either.
>>
>
> Yet you don't use your gmail address to post here - so how is this a
> fair apples to apples comparison. It isn't. All you saying is - an
> email address at gmail that I hardly use, doesn't get a lot of spam -
> and an email address at roaringpenguin.com which I use all the time -
> gets more spam.
>
> Therefore google's spam filter is better?
I own (but don't use) my firstname.lastname over there, and a I get a
metric boatload of misdirected junk. I've narrowed it down to a couple
regular users who can't figure out their email address, one who was dumb
enough to have my address printed on his business cards (I got a
recipient of such a business card to send me a photo)
So while I don't personally use it everywhere, I have tons of people
that do spread it far and wide. I get Amazon orders, RMA status from
very legitimate companies, invitations to movie premieres, contact from
wanna-be actors, restaurant reservations, etc. All legit, from companies
that can't be bothered to verify user-supplied addresses. Plus I get the
fallout as these companies sell their lists, subscribe me thinking I'm a
customer, etc.
One day I got bored and started flagging this stuff as spam. Took just
about a month to get it under control (read: routed to my spam folder)
If spam filtering were the only consideration, I'd switch to Gmail
(well, Google Apps) in a heartbeat, and I'd figure out a way to make
money putting my customers over on Google Apps too.
But it isn't the only consideration.
--
Dave Warren
http://www.hireahit.com/
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davejwarren
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Dave Warren <da...@hireahit.com>.
On 2014-07-31 07:39, David F. Skoll wrote:
> Gmail's spam filtering is at least as good as stock SpamAssassin, and
> honestly I think it's better. You can achieve equal quality with SpamAssassin
> if you're willing to work at it. But it does take a lot of work.
This is the real difference with Gmail -- You don't have to work at it.
Gmail controls the client and the server, their spam filtering learns
based on how you interact with messages.
They also have some impressive bayes-type categorization which narrows
messages into far more specific categories than just a "spam" or "not
spam", and it profiles what types of messages you are likely to *want*
vs *not want* rather than what is technically spam.
Open messages frequently? Click on multiple links? Those messages, and
messages similar to them, are less likely to be spam. Leave something in
your mailbox for days/weeks and delete it without reading it? You might
not miss it next time.
It's the level of personalization that makes Gmail appear to be so
amazing to users, it has an understanding that one message might be spam
to you, and not spam to someone else, and it uses your own history to
make that decision on freshly received messages.
To me, it's not worth the price as a primary mailbox (privacy, security,
control of data, terrible UI usability), but the filtering alone is
impressive.
--
Dave Warren
http://www.hireahit.com/
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davejwarren
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 18:05:11 -0700
Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
> > Eventually something will supplany MSFT and yes, even
> > Google will fade eventually.
> People used to say that about General Motors & Ford Motor Company 100
> years ago.
Except for unconscionable intervention by the US and Canadian governments,
General Motors would have been history. And Ford has nowhere near
the dominance it had 100 years ago.
[...]
> Email providing IT NOT A NICHE MARKET. That is crazy and false. It
> is a commodity market.
Yes, exactly. And there is *no way* you can compete in a commodity market
with behemoths. So you need to find some differentiating niche that you
can service that the behemoths either cannot service or don't care to service.
[...]
> This is why your "we only want to sell to the smart people" plays so
> well. It's absolutely spot on that same line of sales baloney, and
> since your small you can make it believable, as an added bonus.
It works for me.
> That is one of the other reasons that this perception that Gmails
> spam filtering is superior.
Gmail's spam filtering is at least as good as stock SpamAssassin, and
honestly I think it's better. You can achieve equal quality with SpamAssassin
if you're willing to work at it. But it does take a lot of work.
> Because the public swallows the advertising that their product IS
> unique and special, and NOT commodity, because when weak people are
> yelled at with the same thing every day, they start to believe it
> must be true.
I don't think that's why most customers use Gmail or O-365. IMO, they
use those products because they've heard of them. Brand awareness is key
in a commodity market.
> Email today IS COMMODITY. We are all selling the same product. This
> baloney about there being a special niche in email is just baloney.
You are confusing a niche market with a niche product.
Yes, email is commodity, but there are indeed niche markets. We
service several of them quite nicely: Managed Service Providers,
educational institutions, European national research and education
networks. These niche markets care about things that Microsoft and
Google don't offer.
The Achilles heel of Google and Microsoft is that they cannot provide
decent customer service and remain profitable. We and most small
companies can and that's a huge differentiator.
For example, we recently had a support ticket created by someone who
wasn't a customer of ours, but who was trying to email a customer of
ours and got a bounce. Within 20 minutes, we'd tracked down the
email, found out what happened, and reported back. Both the requestor
and our customer were impressed with the care we took to track down
the email and resolve the problem. Try that with Google sometime...
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/29/2014 3:20 PM, David F. Skoll wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:36:51 -0700
> Ted Mittelstaedt<te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
>
>> There are those who would define disgustingly rich as a requirement
>> for happiness...
>
> Yes, and most of them are unhappy. But I fear we drift OT again...
>
>> That's the plan that these companies like Microsoft and Google have
>> designed. It's all about vendor lock-in.
>
> Yes, it is. That's been the history of computing since IBM. Nothing
> lasts forever; IBM is nowhere near the dominant player it used to be.
> Eventually something will supplany MSFT and yes, even Google will fade
> eventually.
>
People used to say that about General Motors & Ford Motor Company 100
years ago.
> The key is to find something you enjoy, find a niche in which you can
> enjoy it profitably, and go for it. There's no use bemoaning the
> situation when your niche disappears. You just have to find a new
> one.
>
Email providing IT NOT A NICHE MARKET. That is crazy and false. It is
a commodity market.
Google and Microsoft understand this and they aren't out there selling
their "cloud" email solutions to people looking for "special" email.
They are selling their solutions to people looking for commodity email.
Companies that supply commodity products DON'T follow this "something
will supplant" them notion of yours. Westinghouse is still around.
Consolidated Edison is still around. Ford Motor Company is still
around. They were never "supplanted"
Your "rise and fall" theory only applies to High Tech companies that
prefer to think of themselves as "innovators" and turn up their nose at
"commodity" products. Like Apple. Microsoft. Sun. And dozens of
others, most of them gone now.
Google is almost unique in high tech because while they embrace
innovation they DON'T turn up their nose at commodity products, and they
actively seek to sell them.
And Microsoft in my opinion got in Cloud email right now because Google
is doing it - and they thought that since Google is there, they better
be there too. They didn't quite understand WHY they needed to be there,
but they were paranoid about all this talk about Android taking over
Windows. I think that they are learning, though.
One of the fundamental things you learn with the commodity market is
people don't like to admit to themselves that they are buying commodity
products.
This is why your "we only want to sell to the smart people" plays so
well. It's absolutely spot on that same line of sales baloney, and
since your small you can make it believable, as an added bonus.
The big guys, Microsoft and Google spend oodles of money assuring every
one of their customers they sell Google Apps to, or Office 365 to, that
they are "special" that their Google Apps or Office 365 is "unique" and
"special" They say the same thing you do. Exactly the same, just
worded a bit differently. (a little less snooty)
That is one of the other reasons that this perception that Gmails
spam filtering is superior. Because the public swallows the advertising
that their product IS unique and special, and NOT commodity, because
when weak people are yelled at with the same thing every day, they start
to believe it must be true. Google and Microsoft have enough money they
can scream at the sheep that "our stuff is better" every day so the
sheep start believing them. McDonalds does exactly the same thing with
their excuse for hamburgers.
Even though, the real truth is that Gmail and Office 365 is the very
definition and essence of commodity email. The people buying them are
the same as everyone else. They just THINK they are different.
Email today IS COMMODITY. We are all selling the same product. This
baloney about there being a special niche in email is just baloney.
It's all the same stuff. What you sell is the same as what Google sells
which is the same as what I sell. It is like selling milk. We are all
dairies with cows squirting out the same stuff.
So please stop with the niche market talk. It is simply not true.
The problem we have right now is that the two biggest dairies -
Microsoft Office 365, and Google Apps - are being selected by the people
because the people have drunk their advertising. The rest of us cannot
afford to go up against their advertising. So what is our
story, and why is it better and how can we use it against their
pack of advertising lies?
I'm not willing to roll over and just give up. Some responders to this
thread aren't either and I have loved their responses. I'll summarize
them to this thread.
Ted
> Regards,
>
> David.
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Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:36:51 -0700
Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
> There are those who would define disgustingly rich as a requirement
> for happiness...
Yes, and most of them are unhappy. But I fear we drift OT again...
> That's the plan that these companies like Microsoft and Google have
> designed. It's all about vendor lock-in.
Yes, it is. That's been the history of computing since IBM. Nothing
lasts forever; IBM is nowhere near the dominant player it used to be.
Eventually something will supplany MSFT and yes, even Google will fade
eventually.
The key is to find something you enjoy, find a niche in which you can
enjoy it profitably, and go for it. There's no use bemoaning the
situation when your niche disappears. You just have to find a new
one.
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/29/2014 1:39 PM, David F. Skoll wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:29:25 -0700
> Ted Mittelstaedt<te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Yet you don't use your gmail address to post here - so how is this a
>> fair apples to apples comparison. It isn't. All you saying is - an
>> email address at gmail that I hardly use, doesn't get a lot of spam -
>> and an email address at roaringpenguin.com which I use all the time -
>> gets more spam.
>
> I use my gmail.com address a lot. Just not for work-related topics.
>
> [...]
>
If I was working on a Masters or a doctorate, a good thesis topic
I think would be to register equal addresses on all major providers as
well as run your own domain, then start using them identically - on
public blogs, websites, etc. - as address harvesting bait. Just to see
how well these big guys are really doing.
>>> Because I don't trust Google with anything important. I would
>>> rather put in the effort to run my own mail server than let Google
>>> have all my mail.
>
>> The average user doesn't think like that I am afraid.
>
> Yes, I know. I've given up trying to service the average user.
>
> [...]
>
>>> I spend my time and energy with people who understand the
>>> issues, rather than trying to get dumb and/or closed-minded people
>>> to the point where they understand. It's a simple business
>>> decision.
>
>> And the problem is that those understanding people represent .00001%
>> of the customers out there.
>
> I think that is overly pessimistic. I would put it at around 1%. My
> ten-person company can easily survive on 0.01% of Google's annual
> revenue (that works out to around $5.5 million/year... I can
> dream...), so if we can capture 1% of the 1%, we're happy. We're not
> getting disgustingly rich... but we're happy.
>
There are those who would define disgustingly rich as a requirement for
happiness...
Ted
> Regards,
>
> David.
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Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:29:25 -0700
Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
[...]
> Yet you don't use your gmail address to post here - so how is this a
> fair apples to apples comparison. It isn't. All you saying is - an
> email address at gmail that I hardly use, doesn't get a lot of spam -
> and an email address at roaringpenguin.com which I use all the time -
> gets more spam.
I use my gmail.com address a lot. Just not for work-related topics.
[...]
> > Because I don't trust Google with anything important. I would
> > rather put in the effort to run my own mail server than let Google
> > have all my mail.
> The average user doesn't think like that I am afraid.
Yes, I know. I've given up trying to service the average user.
[...]
> > I spend my time and energy with people who understand the
> > issues, rather than trying to get dumb and/or closed-minded people
> > to the point where they understand. It's a simple business
> > decision.
> And the problem is that those understanding people represent .00001%
> of the customers out there.
I think that is overly pessimistic. I would put it at around 1%. My
ten-person company can easily survive on 0.01% of Google's annual
revenue (that works out to around $5.5 million/year... I can
dream...), so if we can capture 1% of the 1%, we're happy. We're not
getting disgustingly rich... but we're happy.
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/29/2014 12:44 PM, David F. Skoll wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 12:37:00 -0700
> Ted Mittelstaedt<te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
>
>> Hotmail/MSN/Live/Microsoft/365/whatever-the-name-o-the-week-they-call-themselves
>> all have SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER spam filtering than
>> Spamassassin+free/public RBLs+some judicious blacklists.
>
> My experience is only with Gmail. And I have to say: Gmail's spam
> filtering is pretty darn good. I almost never get spam on my gmail.com
> account and I almost never get false-positives either.
>
Yet you don't use your gmail address to post here - so how is this a
fair apples to apples comparison. It isn't. All you saying is - an
email address at gmail that I hardly use, doesn't get a lot of spam -
and an email address at roaringpenguin.com which I use all the time -
gets more spam.
Therefore google's spam filter is better?
>> This is a perception I'm seeing some responders to this thread echo!
>> I have to ask you if you think those guys are better why are you even
>> using Spamassassin at all?
>
> Because I don't trust Google with anything important. I would
> rather put in the effort to run my own mail server than let Google
> have all my mail.
>
The average user doesn't think like that I am afraid.
> [...]
>
>> You and your neighbor farmer do the same damn thing to your fields,
>> and both of you agree the grass is exactly the same but you just
>> can't get these 3 dumb cows to see logic.
>
>> What do you do?
>
> I wish the cows who want to go to Gmail Farm the best of luck and move
> on. I spend my time and energy with people who understand the issues,
> rather than trying to get dumb and/or closed-minded people to the point
> where they understand. It's a simple business decision.
>
And the problem is that those understanding people represent .00001% of
the customers out there. In the city I live in there's probably 20
people like that. And I can't make a living off selling them email.
Most older customers think like this:
"That goddam email why can't we go back to the good old days when they
sent a fax. Now where's my damn secretary I need her to print out my
email. Hey, look an email for free Braves tickets, gotta respond to
that one - why is my screen suddenly filling up with red windows?!?!"
Most younger customers think like this:
"That goddam email why can't they send a text...Oh shit I nearly got hit
by that semi-truck....Ha Ha, dropped the cell before you saw me,
copper!!!...."
Seriously, the problem is the average user thinks if something takes
them more than 3 minutes to understand, there's a problem. It's like we
have a society of people today who are unable to concentrate on anything
requiring more than a 5th grade education. They operate off perception
of reality, not off of actual reality.
Are you unaware of the TV show "jackass"? Yes this is what we got to
explain spam to.
Ted
> Regards,
>
> David.
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Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 12:37:00 -0700
Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
> Hotmail/MSN/Live/Microsoft/365/whatever-the-name-o-the-week-they-call-themselves
> all have SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER spam filtering than
> Spamassassin+free/public RBLs+some judicious blacklists.
My experience is only with Gmail. And I have to say: Gmail's spam
filtering is pretty darn good. I almost never get spam on my gmail.com
account and I almost never get false-positives either.
> This is a perception I'm seeing some responders to this thread echo!
> I have to ask you if you think those guys are better why are you even
> using Spamassassin at all?
Because I don't trust Google with anything important. I would
rather put in the effort to run my own mail server than let Google
have all my mail.
[...]
> You and your neighbor farmer do the same damn thing to your fields,
> and both of you agree the grass is exactly the same but you just
> can't get these 3 dumb cows to see logic.
> What do you do?
I wish the cows who want to go to Gmail Farm the best of luck and move
on. I spend my time and energy with people who understand the issues,
rather than trying to get dumb and/or closed-minded people to the point
where they understand. It's a simple business decision.
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Nate Metheny <na...@santafe.edu>.
>
> The commercial RBL's let spam through also. As to whether they let as
> much spam through as, say, spamcops RBL, I'll let others argue that
> point. But that is NOT the issue I raised in the beginning. The issue
> is this automatic assumption that companies like Gmail and
> Hotmail/MSN/Live/Microsoft/365/whatever-the-name-o-the-week-they-call-themselves
> all have SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER spam filtering than
> Spamassassin+free/public RBLs+some judicious blacklists. This
> assumption is apparently based on the notion bigger is better, not the
> notion that it's not the size of the wand but the magic in it.
>
> This is a perception I'm seeing some responders to this thread echo! I
> have to ask you if you think those guys are better why are you even
> using Spamassassin at all? Just throw in the towel and find something
> else to do, you don't even have faith in your own mailserver.
>
> Your a farmer. You have a bunch of cows. 3 of those cows are convinced
> the grass in the neighbor farmer's field is greener so every time you
> let them out to pasture they go running over there and bust down the
> barbed wire fence and then the rest of the herd follows them
> over.
I believe, personally, using your cow and farmer metaphor would include
your farm being limited and your fields and operation being smaller,
while the cows look at a major farming operation across the way with
hundreds of people seemingly do really green and wonderful things with
grass, regardless of the fact that grass is just grass.
I would never equate my SPAM filtering capabilities to the army of
monkeys at Google that do it, regardless of my internal configurations
and the amount of filters or RBL's that I use with success. I simply
cannot compare to a large, dedicated team at a major corporation.
This has nothing to do with faith or my abilities. It simply has to do
with manpower and available resources.
Regardless of how robust, secure, and tasty my grass is, I simply can't
grow and maintain the same amount they can. It's just facts.
Hopefully you commune with your cows and you help them to realize that
having the ability to get one-on-one time with the farmer and having
response times for loading the trough are significantly faster than the
robots across the way throwing feed wildly in each direction.
Or you just turn the 3 into hamburger.
>
> You and your neighbor farmer do the same damn thing to your fields, and
> both of you agree the grass is exactly the same but you just can't get
> these 3 dumb cows to see logic.
>
> What do you do?
>
> Ted
>
> PS - contracting to the farmer down the street to manage your cows AIN'T
> an answer!!! What is HE going to do about the cows?
>
> On 7/29/2014 11:13 AM, Asai wrote:
>> My question regarding all of this interesting topic is, isn't there some
>> kind of RBL or something which can be subscribed to for a nominal fee
>> per year that can aid the small IT shop in maintaining spam filters?
>>
>> --Asai
>>
>> On 7/28/14 9:10 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes
>>> who some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
>>> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
>>>
>>> No it's not going to break us.
>>>
>>> But this is what I see happening.
>>>
>>> SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the
>>> box, doing nothing other than using defaults.
>>>
>>> If the users feed the learner, it's even better. But, the spam is
>>> coming in at such a tremendously high volume now that when a user
>>> account gets 5,000 pieces of mail a day, all of it except for maybe
>>> 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
>>> STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
>>> compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
>>>
>>> they don't see the 4,950 pieces of mail we deleted for them. They
>>> just see the 50 pieces that got past, compared to their 5 legitimate
>>> pieces.
>>>
>>> So naturally the users figure we are rat bastards who aren't doing a
>>> good job filtering. So they setup a test account at Google and "try it
>>> out for a month"
>>>
>>> Of course, the account gets very little spam. Why would it otherwise?
>>> It's brand new. It hasn't had a chance to be disseminated to all of
>>> the mailing lists, the websites, the other coorespondents's computers
>>> of theirs that get hit by harvesting viruses.
>>>
>>> Their ignorance then reinforces their invalid perception and then they
>>> figure we are liars. So they move their domain.
>>>
>>> A year later, when Gmail is doing the same thing to them, they finally
>>> figure out it's not the provider, its the spammers and oh boy maybe
>>> we weren't lying after all. But, it's a lot of work to shift back to
>>> us, so why bother if all the mail services are the same way?
>>>
>>> So they are gone, permanently, never to return.
>>>
>>> We have tried educating them. But spamfighting today is complex. If
>>> you explain it completely and they understand the explanation and
>>> believe you, they give up hope because they realize that just hitting
>>> the delete button on those 50 pieces of spam is easier than shifting
>>> their poor email behaviors that got them into the mess in the first
>>> place. But then a month later the complex explanation is forgotten
>>> and they are once more vulnerable to any snake oil sales consultant
>>> selling them gmail. But most of them don't understand anyway.
>>>
>>> And if you just try to dumb down the explanation it starts making no
>>> sense at all very quickly.
>>>
>>> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an
>>> Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either on
>>> Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to
>>> hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a warrant?
>>>
>>> And to add insult to injury - this small company is a dental office -
>>> subject to HIPAA - and Gmail is not (and has stated they will not) be
>>> HIPAA complaint. We are!
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
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>>>
>
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| Nate Metheny IT Group Leader |
| Santa Fe Institute office 505.946.2730 |
| cell 505.930.9390 fax 505.982.0565 |
| http://www.santafe.edu nate@santafe.edu |
`--- - -- - - -- - = == ==='
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Benny Pedersen <me...@junc.eu>.
On July 29, 2014 9:50:22 PM Asai <as...@globalchangemusic.org> wrote:
> Make your grass greener than the neighbor's.
provide cold beers to anyone :)
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Asai <as...@globalchangemusic.org>.
Make your grass greener than the neighbor's.
--Asai
On 7/29/14 12:37 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> What do you do?
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
The commercial RBL's let spam through also. As to whether they let as
much spam through as, say, spamcops RBL, I'll let others argue that
point. But that is NOT the issue I raised in the beginning. The issue
is this automatic assumption that companies like Gmail and
Hotmail/MSN/Live/Microsoft/365/whatever-the-name-o-the-week-they-call-themselves
all have SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER spam filtering than
Spamassassin+free/public RBLs+some judicious blacklists. This
assumption is apparently based on the notion bigger is better, not the
notion that it's not the size of the wand but the magic in it.
This is a perception I'm seeing some responders to this thread echo! I
have to ask you if you think those guys are better why are you even
using Spamassassin at all? Just throw in the towel and find something
else to do, you don't even have faith in your own mailserver.
Your a farmer. You have a bunch of cows. 3 of those cows are convinced
the grass in the neighbor farmer's field is greener so every time you
let them out to pasture they go running over there and bust down the
barbed wire fence and then the rest of the herd follows them
over.
You and your neighbor farmer do the same damn thing to your fields, and
both of you agree the grass is exactly the same but you just can't get
these 3 dumb cows to see logic.
What do you do?
Ted
PS - contracting to the farmer down the street to manage your cows AIN'T
an answer!!! What is HE going to do about the cows?
On 7/29/2014 11:13 AM, Asai wrote:
> My question regarding all of this interesting topic is, isn't there some
> kind of RBL or something which can be subscribed to for a nominal fee
> per year that can aid the small IT shop in maintaining spam filters?
>
> --Asai
>
> On 7/28/14 9:10 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes
>> who some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
>> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
>>
>> No it's not going to break us.
>>
>> But this is what I see happening.
>>
>> SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the
>> box, doing nothing other than using defaults.
>>
>> If the users feed the learner, it's even better. But, the spam is
>> coming in at such a tremendously high volume now that when a user
>> account gets 5,000 pieces of mail a day, all of it except for maybe
>> 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
>> STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
>> compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
>>
>> they don't see the 4,950 pieces of mail we deleted for them. They
>> just see the 50 pieces that got past, compared to their 5 legitimate
>> pieces.
>>
>> So naturally the users figure we are rat bastards who aren't doing a
>> good job filtering. So they setup a test account at Google and "try it
>> out for a month"
>>
>> Of course, the account gets very little spam. Why would it otherwise?
>> It's brand new. It hasn't had a chance to be disseminated to all of
>> the mailing lists, the websites, the other coorespondents's computers
>> of theirs that get hit by harvesting viruses.
>>
>> Their ignorance then reinforces their invalid perception and then they
>> figure we are liars. So they move their domain.
>>
>> A year later, when Gmail is doing the same thing to them, they finally
>> figure out it's not the provider, its the spammers and oh boy maybe
>> we weren't lying after all. But, it's a lot of work to shift back to
>> us, so why bother if all the mail services are the same way?
>>
>> So they are gone, permanently, never to return.
>>
>> We have tried educating them. But spamfighting today is complex. If
>> you explain it completely and they understand the explanation and
>> believe you, they give up hope because they realize that just hitting
>> the delete button on those 50 pieces of spam is easier than shifting
>> their poor email behaviors that got them into the mess in the first
>> place. But then a month later the complex explanation is forgotten
>> and they are once more vulnerable to any snake oil sales consultant
>> selling them gmail. But most of them don't understand anyway.
>>
>> And if you just try to dumb down the explanation it starts making no
>> sense at all very quickly.
>>
>> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an
>> Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either on
>> Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to
>> hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a warrant?
>>
>> And to add insult to injury - this small company is a dental office -
>> subject to HIPAA - and Gmail is not (and has stated they will not) be
>> HIPAA complaint. We are!
>>
>> Ted
>>
>> ---
>> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus
>> protection is active.
>> http://www.avast.com
>>
---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Asai <as...@globalchangemusic.org>.
>>> We use the invaluement lists managed by Rob McEwen and have been very
>>> happy with them-- been using them for 3-4 years. A lot of blocking that
>>> doesn't overlap with Spamhaus, very few false positives, and those
>>> that do
>>> occur are addressed quickly with a lot of transparency. Well worth the
>>> cash, IMO.
>>>
>>> (And no, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting a discount or anything for
>>> this.)
>>> :-)
>>
>> +1
>>
>> I've also been using them for a few years and they do a good job
>>
>
> +1
>
> The same. Happy user, no affiliation. Plus Rob is kinda awesome when
> you need something.
>
Seems like utilizing such a service could really help a small IT company
get some leverage on the bigger conglomerates.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Dave Warren <da...@hireahit.com>.
On 2014-07-29 12:20, Axb wrote:
> On 07/29/2014 08:21 PM, Dave Pooser wrote:
>> On 7/29/14, 2:13 PM, "Asai" <as...@globalchangemusic.org> wrote:
>>
>>> My question regarding all of this interesting topic is, isn't there
>>> some
>>> kind of RBL or something which can be subscribed to for a nominal fee
>>> per year that can aid the small IT shop in maintaining spam filters?
>>
>> We use the invaluement lists managed by Rob McEwen and have been very
>> happy with them-- been using them for 3-4 years. A lot of blocking that
>> doesn't overlap with Spamhaus, very few false positives, and those
>> that do
>> occur are addressed quickly with a lot of transparency. Well worth the
>> cash, IMO.
>>
>> (And no, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting a discount or anything for
>> this.)
>> :-)
>
> +1
>
> I've also been using them for a few years and they do a good job
>
+1
The same. Happy user, no affiliation. Plus Rob is kinda awesome when you
need something.
--
Dave Warren
http://www.hireahit.com/
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davejwarren
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Axb <ax...@gmail.com>.
On 07/29/2014 08:21 PM, Dave Pooser wrote:
> On 7/29/14, 2:13 PM, "Asai" <as...@globalchangemusic.org> wrote:
>
>> My question regarding all of this interesting topic is, isn't there some
>> kind of RBL or something which can be subscribed to for a nominal fee
>> per year that can aid the small IT shop in maintaining spam filters?
>
> We use the invaluement lists managed by Rob McEwen and have been very
> happy with them-- been using them for 3-4 years. A lot of blocking that
> doesn't overlap with Spamhaus, very few false positives, and those that do
> occur are addressed quickly with a lot of transparency. Well worth the
> cash, IMO.
>
> (And no, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting a discount or anything for this.)
> :-)
+1
I've also been using them for a few years and they do a good job
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by Dave Pooser <da...@pooserville.com>.
>RBLs are a good first line of defense, but unfortunately a lot of spam
>originates from servers that RBLs cannot block for political or
>practical resons. Think Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo servers, for
>example. You need something extra to have acceptable catch rates, and
>the "something extra" inveriably ends up being content-scanning.
Very true. That said, invaluement also offers a URI list that helps
considerably with content-scanning as well, so not only does it help to
stem the flood but it also helps sort baby from bathwater. (Can I mix this
metaphor any more? To take up arms against a sea of troubles....)
--
Dave Pooser
Cat-Herder-in-Chief, Pooserville.com
"...Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in one pretty and well-preserved piece, but to slide across the
finish line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, and
shouting GERONIMO!!!" -- Bill McKenna
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...)
Posted by Philip Prindeville <ph...@redfish-solutions.com>.
On Jul 29, 2014, at 12:29 PM, David F. Skoll <df...@roaringpenguin.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:21:56 -0400
> Dave Pooser <da...@pooserville.com> wrote:
>
> RBLs are a good first line of defense, but unfortunately a lot of spam
> originates from servers that RBLs cannot block for political or
> practical resons. Think Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo servers, for
> example. You need something extra to have acceptable catch rates, and
> the "something extra" inveriably ends up being content-scanning.
>
> If you are willing to pay some cash for anti-spam, you may be better
> off paying someone to manage your anti-spam solution entirely. Such
> providers enjoy economies of scale that make it hard for you to
> compete on your own.
>
> [Disclaimer: My company is a commercial anti-spam solution provider, so
> consider that when analyzing my statements for bias. :) ]
>
> Regards,
>
> David.
Actually, we’ve been blacklisting yahoo.com for years without regret.
When they stopped having a responsive abuse department we pulled the plug.
We have a different issue from what other people have mentioned on the list: we’re getting email from legitimate companies who have purchased mailing lists from less-than-lawful providers.
There are companies which promise to go out and get you “targeted potential client lists” but all they’re selling you is harvested email addresses, and a lot of these companies who do business with them don’t intend to break the law but do (or at least, indirectly).
I’ll write them and tell them that we’re going to file an IC3 complaint unless they can provide proof of an opt-in, and that’s when we get the whole “we need an opt-in? well… we actually get mailing lists from another company and the SWEAR they’ve gotten opt-in’s…”
Then I explain to them that it doesn’t work like that, and it’s their job to do due diligence…
The worst are the ones that either harvest from job boards, or else from political campaign donor disclosure records.
Something about those two sources convinces them that you’ve already opted in to every mailing list that is or will ever be…
-Philip
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by Dave Warren <da...@hireahit.com>.
On 2014-07-30 06:12, David F. Skoll wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jul 2014 09:34:30 +1000
> Noel Butler <no...@ausics.net> wrote:
>
>> This is the exact attitude as to why they wont get off their arses,
>> because people think they are too big to block. be damned if I care,
>> I have blocked yahoo and gmail before, and I dare say I'll have to
>> again sometime.
> You don't have paying customers for whom you relay email, do you?
I know as a fact that I wouldn't have many left if I intentionally
blocked mail they wanted, and the reality of it is that they want mail
from users of freemail services.
The sheer number of complaints we get when mail to Yahoo is deferred is
enough to give us a taste of what would happen if we did start
interfering with the flow of legitimate mail between us and Yahoo, and
Gmail is a much bigger player.
Luckily there are other tools available than blanket IP-level or
provider-level blocks.
--
Dave Warren
http://www.hireahit.com/
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davejwarren
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...)
Posted by Matthias Leisi <ma...@leisi.net>.
On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 1:06 AM, Noel Butler <no...@ausics.net> wrote:
> There is no such thing as 'too big' when it comes to handling the shit storm
> of spam that gets spewed out of some organisations, and I'll treat Gmail and
> the likes the same as a ma 'n pa run outback country dialup ISP, there is
At dnswl.org we use two measures that may be helpful in this context.
The first is the magnitude of a sender as we observe it. A magnitude
of 10.0 represents 100% traffic, 9.0 10%, 8.0 1% and so on.
The other is the magnitude of "spamminess". This is an artificial
measure which indicates the relative "spamminess" of a particular
DNSWL record (based on the number of days it's IPs have been on
certain blacklists with a certain weight for each blacklist, number of
abuse reports we receive etc).
Both numbers are not fully accurate, but at least the error is consistent.
For the examples of Yahoo and Google often cited, by "spamminess" they
are ranked at number 173 and 174 (yes, by chance just side-by-side).
By their sender magnitude, they are placed at number 1 and 2 (Google
with considerable distance to Yahoo, followed by Mailchimp, Hotmail
and Facebook). Note that the "spamminess magnitude" is _not_ a direct
measure of "number of spam sent".
Blocking Yahoo or Google based on their spamminess is actually not
justified. Taken together with their sheer size makes them a
noticeable problem - but if the SMTP traffic would come out from
other, less well-managed networks, the situation could actually be
worse.
-- Matthias
For stats freaks:
Top Senders by Monthly Magnitude with Spamminess:
google.com 8.55 7.26
yahoo.com 8.15 7.26
mailchimp.com 8.13 6.84
hotmail.com 8.07 7.04
facebook.com 8.02 6.48
exacttarget.com 7.95 5.82
amazonses.com 7.86 6.01
outlook.com 7.87 6.88 *
sendgrid.com 7.87 6.30
linkedin.com 7.83 5.68
cheetahmail.com 7.76 5.68
messagelabs.com 7.68 5.92
twitter.com 7.54 none **
emailvision.com 7.56 7.17
constantcontact.com 7.59 6.19
responsys.com 7.48 5.55
emarsys.net 7.36 6.60
silverpop.com 7.45 5.86
postini.com 7.43 5.95 ***
* Can be considered jointly with hotmail.com
** We discard spamminess < 5.0 due to the tiny numbers and low reliability
*** Can be considered jointly with google.com
The "Top Spamminess" report is not intended for publication, as we
don't want to "name&shame" (and there is still some cleanup to do on
our end). Rank 100 in the top spamminess report has a spamminess
magnitude of 7.48.
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by Martin Gregorie <ma...@gregorie.org>.
On Thu, 2014-07-31 at 09:06 +1000, Noel Butler wrote:
> Certainly have done it on employers network before (a public ISP), and
> would have no problem doing it again if the need arose.
> There is no such thing as 'too big' when it comes to handling the shit
> storm of spam that gets spewed out of some organisations, and I'll treat
> Gmail and the likes the same as a ma 'n pa run outback country dialup
> ISP, there is no difference in my eyes, the fact that many see there is,
> is exactly why the likes of Gmail don't give a rats about spam
> complaints, if more operators started taking a stand, and directed their
> users bitching about blocked mail to Gmail etc, maybe Google etc, will
> pull their finger out of their ears (amongst other places) and not only
> listen, but act.
>
> It's in their interest to play nice, they make money by data mining
> every single Gmail users account, targeting, and advertising, if they
> keep getting blocked, less people will use them, they will start to
> notice the impact on their bottom line sooner or later.
>
Too true, Blue. That answer deserves a Darwin Stubby.
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by Noel Butler <no...@ausics.net>.
On 31/07/2014 11:36, Dave Warren wrote:
> There is a difference: Gmail is a very major source of wanted,
> legitimate mail. Most "may 'n pa run outback country dialup ISPs" are
> not.
Most mail to most clients are a "very major source of wanted mail"
Again, playing favourites is plain wrong, and it is exactly why gmail
have the spam problems they do because again, they think they are like
the "untouchables" and nobody dare do anything about them, well, when we
blocked them, IIRC last time was for around 3 months, and a lot of angry
emails from our clients to THEM, finally got their attention and they
removed a handful of spammers, or so they eventually claimed. so yeah it
took 3 months, but in the end, it got them off their arse.
>
> If you don't care about interacting with prospective or current
> customers, you might be able to afford to block Gmail. At $DAYJOB, we
> can't.
Thats a stupid statement, it's because I do care that I take such
actions, every SP wants to keep clients, cares and interacts with them,
but clients these days actually have an IQ higher than most peoples shoe
size, they know the world will always have a spam problem, they known
full well SP's need to take whatever action they can to stop or reduce
it, hell, they even expect it.
99% of users are POP3, if they were mostly IMAP, I would have other
options, like just auto scoring all gmail messages high enough to always
end up in Junk folders.
Do you know the number of clients that argued blocking gmail for spam
was wrong?
None
Do you know the number of clients we lost because of blocking gmail for
spam?
None
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by Dave Warren <da...@hireahit.com>.
On 2014-07-30 16:06, Noel Butler wrote:
> Certainly have done it on employers network before (a public ISP), and
> would have no problem doing it again if the need arose.
> There is no such thing as 'too big' when it comes to handling the shit
> storm of spam that gets spewed out of some organisations, and I'll
> treat Gmail and the likes the same as a ma 'n pa run outback country
> dialup ISP, there is no difference in my eyes, the fact that many see
> there is, is exactly why the likes of Gmail don't give a rats about
> spam complaints, if more operators started taking a stand, and
> directed their users bitching about blocked mail to Gmail etc, maybe
> Google etc, will pull their finger out of their ears (amongst other
> places) and not only listen, but act.
There is a difference: Gmail is a very major source of wanted,
legitimate mail. Most "may 'n pa run outback country dialup ISPs" are not.
A substantial percentage of our pre-sales inquiries come from Gmail
addresses (even if the final purchase use a legitimate corporate mailbox
-- We're B2B, we don't sell to consumers), and a surprisingly large
percentage of actual corporate addresses are hosted on Google Apps.
We literally can't afford to discard all mail from Gmail any more than
we could afford to de-list ourselves from Google's search index, the hit
to our business would be substantial.
If you don't care about interacting with prospective or current
customers, you might be able to afford to block Gmail. At $DAYJOB, we can't.
--
Dave Warren
http://www.hireahit.com/
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davejwarren
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on
email providing...)
Posted by Noel Butler <no...@ausics.net>.
On Wed, 2014-07-30 at 09:12 -0400, David F. Skoll wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jul 2014 09:34:30 +1000
> Noel Butler <no...@ausics.net> wrote:
>
> > This is the exact attitude as to why they wont get off their arses,
> > because people think they are too big to block. be damned if I care,
> > I have blocked yahoo and gmail before, and I dare say I'll have to
> > again sometime.
>
> You don't have paying customers for whom you relay email, do you?
>
> Regards,
>
> David.
Certainly have done it on employers network before (a public ISP), and
would have no problem doing it again if the need arose.
There is no such thing as 'too big' when it comes to handling the shit
storm of spam that gets spewed out of some organisations, and I'll treat
Gmail and the likes the same as a ma 'n pa run outback country dialup
ISP, there is no difference in my eyes, the fact that many see there is,
is exactly why the likes of Gmail don't give a rats about spam
complaints, if more operators started taking a stand, and directed their
users bitching about blocked mail to Gmail etc, maybe Google etc, will
pull their finger out of their ears (amongst other places) and not only
listen, but act.
It's in their interest to play nice, they make money by data mining
every single Gmail users account, targeting, and advertising, if they
keep getting blocked, less people will use them, they will start to
notice the impact on their bottom line sooner or later.
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Wed, 30 Jul 2014 09:34:30 +1000
Noel Butler <no...@ausics.net> wrote:
> This is the exact attitude as to why they wont get off their arses,
> because people think they are too big to block. be damned if I care,
> I have blocked yahoo and gmail before, and I dare say I'll have to
> again sometime.
You don't have paying customers for whom you relay email, do you?
Regards,
David.
Re: RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by Noel Butler <no...@ausics.net>.
On 30/07/2014 04:29, David F. Skoll wrote:
> originates from servers that RBLs cannot block for political or
> practical resons. Think Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo servers, for
This is the exact attitude as to why they wont get off their arses,
because people think they are too big to block. be damned if I care, I
have blocked yahoo and gmail before, and I dare say I'll have to again
sometime.
RBL effectiveness (was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...)
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:21:56 -0400
Dave Pooser <da...@pooserville.com> wrote:
> We use the invaluement lists managed by Rob McEwen and have been very
> happy with them-- been using them for 3-4 years. A lot of blocking
> that doesn't overlap with Spamhaus, very few false positives, and
> those that do occur are addressed quickly with a lot of transparency.
> Well worth the cash, IMO.
RBLs are a good first line of defense, but unfortunately a lot of spam
originates from servers that RBLs cannot block for political or
practical resons. Think Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo servers, for
example. You need something extra to have acceptable catch rates, and
the "something extra" inveriably ends up being content-scanning.
If you are willing to pay some cash for anti-spam, you may be better
off paying someone to manage your anti-spam solution entirely. Such
providers enjoy economies of scale that make it hard for you to
compete on your own.
[Disclaimer: My company is a commercial anti-spam solution provider, so
consider that when analyzing my statements for bias. :) ]
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Dave Pooser <da...@pooserville.com>.
On 7/29/14, 2:13 PM, "Asai" <as...@globalchangemusic.org> wrote:
>My question regarding all of this interesting topic is, isn't there some
>kind of RBL or something which can be subscribed to for a nominal fee
>per year that can aid the small IT shop in maintaining spam filters?
We use the invaluement lists managed by Rob McEwen and have been very
happy with them-- been using them for 3-4 years. A lot of blocking that
doesn't overlap with Spamhaus, very few false positives, and those that do
occur are addressed quickly with a lot of transparency. Well worth the
cash, IMO.
(And no, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting a discount or anything for this.)
:-)
--
Dave Pooser
Cat-Herder-in-Chief, Pooserville.com
"...Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in one pretty and well-preserved piece, but to slide across the
finish line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, and
shouting GERONIMO!!!" -- Bill McKenna
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Benny Pedersen <me...@junc.eu>.
On July 29, 2014 8:13:49 PM Asai <as...@globalchangemusic.org> wrote:
> My question regarding all of this interesting topic is, isn't there some
> kind of RBL or something which can be subscribed to for a nominal fee
> per year that can aid the small IT shop in maintaining spam filters?
the best one is one that is not public known, never ever pay for spam or
even filtering
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Asai <as...@globalchangemusic.org>.
My question regarding all of this interesting topic is, isn't there some
kind of RBL or something which can be subscribed to for a nominal fee
per year that can aid the small IT shop in maintaining spam filters?
--Asai
On 7/28/14 9:10 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes
> who some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
>
> No it's not going to break us.
>
> But this is what I see happening.
>
> SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of
> the box, doing nothing other than using defaults.
>
> If the users feed the learner, it's even better. But, the spam is
> coming in at such a tremendously high volume now that when a user
> account gets 5,000 pieces of mail a day, all of it except for maybe
> 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
> STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
> compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
>
> they don't see the 4,950 pieces of mail we deleted for them. They
> just see the 50 pieces that got past, compared to their 5 legitimate
> pieces.
>
> So naturally the users figure we are rat bastards who aren't doing a
> good job filtering. So they setup a test account at Google and "try it
> out for a month"
>
> Of course, the account gets very little spam. Why would it otherwise?
> It's brand new. It hasn't had a chance to be disseminated to all of
> the mailing lists, the websites, the other coorespondents's computers
> of theirs that get hit by harvesting viruses.
>
> Their ignorance then reinforces their invalid perception and then they
> figure we are liars. So they move their domain.
>
> A year later, when Gmail is doing the same thing to them, they finally
> figure out it's not the provider, its the spammers and oh boy maybe
> we weren't lying after all. But, it's a lot of work to shift back to
> us, so why bother if all the mail services are the same way?
>
> So they are gone, permanently, never to return.
>
> We have tried educating them. But spamfighting today is complex. If
> you explain it completely and they understand the explanation and
> believe you, they give up hope because they realize that just hitting
> the delete button on those 50 pieces of spam is easier than shifting
> their poor email behaviors that got them into the mess in the first
> place. But then a month later the complex explanation is forgotten
> and they are once more vulnerable to any snake oil sales consultant
> selling them gmail. But most of them don't understand anyway.
>
> And if you just try to dumb down the explanation it starts making no
> sense at all very quickly.
>
> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an
> Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either on
> Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to
> hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a warrant?
>
> And to add insult to injury - this small company is a dental office -
> subject to HIPAA - and Gmail is not (and has stated they will not) be
> HIPAA complaint. We are!
>
> Ted
>
> ---
> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus
> protection is active.
> http://www.avast.com
>
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Bob Proulx <bo...@proulx.com>.
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> >Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> > > What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an
> > > Internet in about 10 years where every single email box is either
> > > on Microsoft 365 or Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to
> > > use to hunt through whatever they want without bothering with a
> > > warrant?
> >
> > One of my clients switched from a classic local imaps mail server over
> > to Gmail. The logic was the same as all of your reasoning. Even
> > though I have reservations and I won't be using Gmail I didn't oppose
> > them switching. It would be inefficient for me to work against the
> > massive corporations of Google and MS. It is all just as you said.
> >
> > Once some technology goes to the masses it becomes a cost margin game.
> > The cheapest product that can be offered will win regardless of
> > quality. Which means that by most measures of quality it will suffer.
> > But it will be impossible to avoid. Gmail and MS Outlook 365 have a
> > different cost model. Users agree to be the product sold to
> > advertisers. Margins like that mean that small IT companies cannot
> > compete. It would stress me out to try.
>
> Hey Bob I think you missed something in my OP. The customer leaving ISN'T
> paying LESS to gmail. They are paying slightly more, in fact.
Hmm... Maybe I did since I assumed Google and Microsoft and others
were going to be to be the lowest cost.
But you were also asking what other people do. What I do is that I
sidestep the issue by doing something else.
And as to your next question I think that yes in ten years almost all
general consumers will have their email box at one of the big box
companies. Which of course means that everyone will too because if
you and I personally do not everyone we correspond with will and so a
copy of our messages will be there regardless of what we do. That is
bad. I will continue to support the free(dom) software side of things
and hopefully that day will be further off.
> I don't have a problem flying under gmail and office 365's prices on
> mailboxes.
I tip my hat to you for being efficient. That is quite hard to do. I
can't do it. In this case I wasn't selling email services. I was
simply doing some admin work upon the customers servers. But I wasn't
in a position to dissuade them with a counter offering. And so off to
Gmail they went. And then half of them later to Outlook.
> Yes there are customers out there going to the "free" gmail. No, I don't
> attempt to compete with that. But this wasn't that situation.
I think it might also be a cultural thing developing. Some of these
service companies are so large that they are becoming embedded in the
culture. You wouldn't think of baby food without thinking of Gerber.
You wouldn't think of mayonnaise without thinking of Kraft. These
days when people think of email I think most of them think of
something that happens on a web page. These days when people think of
email they think of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, others on the Internet
as a Software As A Service over a web page and not of smtp port 25
arriving to their personal desktop.
I was in a planning meeting with someone a week ago. We were talking
about networking and firewalls and routing and infrastructure
improvements and that type of thing. The servers send system email
notifications (root mail) but do not receive any email. Several times
other people kept raising points that I couldn't block their email. I
pointed out that Gmail uses https over the web. Blank stares. Isn't
that email? No, that is the web, they use a web browser for it. Ten
minutes later basically the same conversation again. And then yet
again later. To them email is a Gmail web page. It is hard for me in
a few minutes to educate someone who has learned something repeated
over a decade.
> In other words, the gist of your argument is, if you can't beat them, go
> elsewhere.
Yes. But I didn't say they were unbeatable. You asked what other
people do. I told you what I do.
> That's fine if you want to do that. But my question wasn't that, my
> question was, essentially, how are other people beating them? Your
> not really even trying to answer my post.
On the contrary. I was trying to answer your post. I may have
misunderstood what you were asking. You had asked what do other
people do. I told you what I do. Perhaps you should have asked a
different question? :-)
> I don't subscribe to the theory that any one company is unbeatable. People
> used to think of IBM like that until Microsoft proved them wrong. Then
> people used to think of Microsoft like that until iPads
> and Android proved them wrong. But I can tell you this - Microsoft
> tried a lot of things before hitting on the combination that worked against
> IBM and Google tried a lot of things before hitting on the combination that
> beat Microsoft. There is a combination out there that will beat Gmail it is
> just a matter of figuring out what it is.
I don't think they are unbeatable. They will eventually get beaten.
It is the lifecycle of these things. All things in time. If you have
a process to beat them then that is very good for you. I wish you
luck! :-)
> You can believe that email providing is a lost cause then try going into
> system admin work. But there's a lot of people already operating
> in the system admin workspace, so your just exchanging one set of
> competition problems for another.
I didn't say it was a good plan. It is good for me. It might not be
good for you. But you didn't ask that. You asked what other people
do. You can't then turn around and poo-poo what other people tell you
they do. That isn't sporting.
> One other thing I will add to the narrative. I followed up with the
> customer who is leaving and found some other things to add to the pot. It
> turns out this customer had not upgraded any of their PC workstations,
> everything they had was still on Windows XP, and Office 2003. One of their
> biggest reasons for going to Google Apps is the idea that doing this would
> allow them to avoid the cost of buying 20 copies of Office 2013. When I
> pointed out that they were still on Windows XP that was not supported and
> they would have to address the cost of buying new PC gear and operating
> systems for it, they said that they were hoping to get another year out of
> their existing hardware. And yes, this was straight out of the mouth of the
> business owner.
It is hard times for a lot of businesses right now. I know one lawyer
client who says their revenue is down half of what it was last year
this time. They were holding off on their MS Windows XP upgrades just
trying to squeeze some time so that they could continue making their
house payments. This is just a small time country legal office with
two people in it. Do you upgrade your computer systems or do you make
your house payment? I would hold off making those upgrades too. The
point is that there isn't one size for everyone. Individuals need to
make the best decision they can given their unique environment.
Meanwhile my free(dom) software clients seem much better off. They
stay updated to the latest GNU/Linux. For my part I am a Debian type
of guy but I support Ubuntu and CentOS clients too. Most of my
expertise and work these days comes from the free software side of
things. Obviously from a financial view upgrading GNU/Linux to the
latest is without license cost. So free(dom) software clients don't
need to make the house payment versus software license fee tradeoff.
> So in the long run, there's 2 takeaways here. The first and most important
> one - one that I have to keep reminding myself - is simply that some
> businesses just don't value email, or computer technology. They regard all
> of that stuff as a cost-suck and drain that does not contribute to their
> bottom line. So any possible way they can skimp on that they believe is a
> good thing. Trying to sell technology to those kinds of customers is, in
> the long run, a waste of time. Even if you have the lowest prices in town
> and give them everything for it, they will never value it - thus any amount
> of money you charge them will be too much money. It is far better to find
> your customers who value what you do for them and spend your time helping
> them.
I have heard it described as clean water. Around here everyone has
grown up with clean water from the indoor water tap. We expect it.
We expect the cost to be so low that we don't think about it in the
financial budget. It is cheap. It is everywhere. We give it away.
But ever so often there is an event that occurs that causes that water
to be hazardous. Hopefully it is just a boil order but recently there
have been some notable cases where boiling isn't a suitable treatment
against the contamination. When the tap water isn't drinkable then
there is an outcry. But only then and not before.
People expect a lot of things such as email and so forth to be just
like water from the tap. Ubiquitous. Reliable. Safe. Cheap. And
then raise an outcry when there is an event and it is not but only
then.
> The second and less important takeaway is that one of Google's marketing
> strategies is the "all in one" In other words they produce a compelling
> story that they are a one-stop-shopper. Email is just a part of what they
> sell, they also sell a replacement for Microsoft Office, indeed a
> replacement for all your business digital information handling. As a
> technical person, I know how absolutely ridiculous this is, and my blinder
> is that I assume that any customer out there would also immediately
> understand how ridiculous the supposition that you can replace a
> locally-running word-processor and spreadsheet with a java app running in a
> web browser is. But the problem is, there are some customers out there who
> are just - du-uh um! Never underestimate how stupid some customers can be.
I have long said, "Never call someone a fool but instead sell them
something." My friends will back me up on this! :-)
But if it works for them then it works for them. It wouldn't work for
me. It wouldn't work for you. But the world is a more interesting
place than just you and me and other people are different.
If it works for them to have their data only on the remote end of an
Internet connection then it works for them. The entire Google Chrome
OS is based upon that business model. With seven billion people on
the planet there will be enough people out of that set who will make
that a workable business model. I don't call it ridiculous. It is
simply targeting a specific market segment. I don't like it. But I
am not fond of the color turquoise either. And yet other people like
turquoise. What fools they are! :-)
Bob
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 8/5/2014 4:01 PM, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an Internet in
>> about 10 years where every single email box is either on Microsoft 365 or
>> Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to hunt through whatever
>> they want without bothering with a warrant?
>
> One of my clients switched from a classic local imaps mail server over
> to Gmail. The logic was the same as all of your reasoning. Even
> though I have reservations and I won't be using Gmail I didn't oppose
> them switching. It would be inefficient for me to work against the
> massive corporations of Google and MS. It is all just as you said.
>
> Once some technology goes to the masses it becomes a cost margin game.
> The cheapest product that can be offered will win regardless of
> quality. Which means that by most measures of quality it will suffer.
> But it will be impossible to avoid. Gmail and MS Outlook 365 have a
> different cost model. Users agree to be the product sold to
> advertisers. Margins like that mean that small IT companies cannot
> compete. It would stress me out to try.
>
Hey Bob I think you missed something in my OP. The customer leaving
ISN'T paying LESS to gmail. They are paying slightly more, in fact.
I don't have a problem flying under gmail and office 365's prices on
mailboxes.
Yes there are customers out there going to the "free" gmail. No, I
don't attempt to compete with that. But this wasn't that situation.
> Instead I have turned my attention to other areas that I can provide
> benefit that is not addressed by the large corporations. People still
> have other needs that need system administration. Just not email.
>
> This had a side benefit later. As in many environments there were
> factions and arguments. At this place one faction liked Google and
> Gmail. But another faction liked Microsoft and Outlook. A power
> struggle broke about between the two factions. The splinter faction
> broke off and moved half of the email accounts over to Outlook.
> There were cries of foul and requests for features from all around.
> Infighting. I imagine the same thing happens in reverse in many places.
>
> If I had been the admin for their local email when the MS faction
> appeared I would have been in the middle of the battle. It would have
> been stressful. Since I wasn't I could honestly say that I wasn't
> involved and it was a battle between Google Gmail and MS Outlook 365.
> It was good not to be wearing a target around me. Instead by not
> being pinned between the gorillas I could concentrate on adding value
> in other places. The job mutates and is different but still
> continues.
>
In other words, the gist of your argument is, if you can't beat them, go
elsewhere. That's fine if you want to do that. But my question wasn't
that, my question was, essentially, how are other people beating them?
Your not really even trying to answer my post.
I don't subscribe to the theory that any one company is unbeatable.
People used to think of IBM like that until Microsoft proved them wrong.
Then people used to think of Microsoft like that until iPads
and Android proved them wrong. But I can tell you this - Microsoft
tried a lot of things before hitting on the combination that worked
against IBM and Google tried a lot of things before hitting on the
combination that beat Microsoft. There is a combination out there that
will beat Gmail it is just a matter of figuring out what it is.
You can believe that email providing is a lost cause then try going into
system admin work. But there's a lot of people already operating
in the system admin workspace, so your just exchanging one set of
competition problems for another.
One other thing I will add to the narrative. I followed up with the
customer who is leaving and found some other things to add to the pot.
It turns out this customer had not upgraded any of their PC
workstations, everything they had was still on Windows XP, and Office
2003. One of their biggest reasons for going to Google Apps is the idea
that doing this would allow them to avoid the cost of buying 20 copies
of Office 2013. When I pointed out that they were still on Windows XP
that was not supported and they would have to address the cost of buying
new PC gear and operating systems for it, they said that they were
hoping to get another year out of their existing hardware. And yes,
this was straight out of the mouth of the business owner.
So in the long run, there's 2 takeaways here. The first and most
important one - one that I have to keep reminding myself - is simply
that some businesses just don't value email, or computer technology.
They regard all of that stuff as a cost-suck and drain that does not
contribute to their bottom line. So any possible way they can skimp on
that they believe is a good thing. Trying to sell technology to those
kinds of customers is, in the long run, a waste of time. Even if you
have the lowest prices in town and give them everything for it, they
will never value it - thus any amount of money you charge them will be
too much money. It is far better to find your customers who value what
you do for them and spend your time helping them.
The second and less important takeaway is that one of Google's marketing
strategies is the "all in one" In other words they produce a compelling
story that they are a one-stop-shopper. Email is just a part of what
they sell, they also sell a replacement for Microsoft Office, indeed a
replacement for all your business digital information handling. As a
technical person, I know how absolutely ridiculous this is, and my
blinder is that I assume that any customer out there would also
immediately understand how ridiculous the supposition that you can
replace a locally-running word-processor and spreadsheet with a java app
running in a web browser is. But the problem is, there are some
customers out there who are just - du-uh um! Never underestimate how
stupid some customers can be.
Ted
One other thing I
> Bob
---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Bob Proulx <bo...@proulx.com>.
Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an Internet in
> about 10 years where every single email box is either on Microsoft 365 or
> Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to hunt through whatever
> they want without bothering with a warrant?
One of my clients switched from a classic local imaps mail server over
to Gmail. The logic was the same as all of your reasoning. Even
though I have reservations and I won't be using Gmail I didn't oppose
them switching. It would be inefficient for me to work against the
massive corporations of Google and MS. It is all just as you said.
Once some technology goes to the masses it becomes a cost margin game.
The cheapest product that can be offered will win regardless of
quality. Which means that by most measures of quality it will suffer.
But it will be impossible to avoid. Gmail and MS Outlook 365 have a
different cost model. Users agree to be the product sold to
advertisers. Margins like that mean that small IT companies cannot
compete. It would stress me out to try.
Instead I have turned my attention to other areas that I can provide
benefit that is not addressed by the large corporations. People still
have other needs that need system administration. Just not email.
This had a side benefit later. As in many environments there were
factions and arguments. At this place one faction liked Google and
Gmail. But another faction liked Microsoft and Outlook. A power
struggle broke about between the two factions. The splinter faction
broke off and moved half of the email accounts over to Outlook.
There were cries of foul and requests for features from all around.
Infighting. I imagine the same thing happens in reverse in many places.
If I had been the admin for their local email when the MS faction
appeared I would have been in the middle of the battle. It would have
been stressful. Since I wasn't I could honestly say that I wasn't
involved and it was a battle between Google Gmail and MS Outlook 365.
It was good not to be wearing a target around me. Instead by not
being pinned between the gorillas I could concentrate on adding value
in other places. The job mutates and is different but still
continues.
Bob
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Jay Plesset <ja...@dp-design.com>.
On 7/29/2014 9:33 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
>
> On 7/28/2014 4:17 PM, Jay Plesset wrote:
>> My church decided to go with O-365, without even evaluating any
>> alternatives. We have an unemployed IT person that talked the staff into
>> this, even though I've offered to implement a "real" e-mail solution
>> multiple times, and even provide hardware to run it on.
>>
>
> Apparently they didn't understand if the guy was an unemployed IT person
> there was a reason he was unemployed!
Agreed.....
>
>> "free" was the biggest draw, then "no administration". *sigh*.
>>
>
> But, the "no administration" isn't true at all. There's still
> administration.
>
> Does Microsoft provide Office 365 free to churches? I know that they
> had ridiculously cheap server license pricing (through their Charity
> Pricing program) but I didn't know they had got to Free with Office 365?
That's what they told me. I said, "Free for now at least. . . "
>
> I did a lot of work for my families church a decade ago in the volunteer
> area. Both on the building committee and IT work for them.
>
> I learned after a year that if your goal is to have people who don't
> understand or appreciate what you do for them, and shit all over what
> you do for them, volunteer for a church.
Oh, yeah. My wife and I built a new website for them. Last summer, the
staff didn't bother with updating the calendar, and come fall, they
said, "we forgot how".
The other thing about churches is that the staff runs more than they
should, and really, truly doesn't understand the reason for a website,
marketing, etc.
jay
>
> There's a reason most churches constantly solicit for volunteers. A
> church is the only place that a professional tradesperson can
> volunteer his services and during the job be told that he's doing it
> wrong, by people who have never held a wrench, paintbrush, pipe
> threader, network cable, you name it.
>
> I actually saw one time a couple come in and paint a large room in the
> church, used very good paint, excellent coverage, masked off everything,
> etc. and when they left the room looked like a pro had done it - no
> paint runs or drips where they weren't supposed to be etc. Then 2
> weeks later the church paid to have a professional come in and paint
> the room - again - same color - same paint. When I asked why, I was
> told "we had the painters scheduled for that room, they should have
> asked us before painting in there" This is the kind of politics you
> run into with church volunteering.
>
> Ted
>
>> jay plesset
>> IT, dp-design.com
>>
>> On 7/28/2014 3:49 PM, Ian Zimmerman wrote:
>>> On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:57:38 -0400
>>> "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> David> 1) Gmail is actually pretty good at filtering spam. I can't
>>> David> speak for MSFT since I don't use it.
>>>
>>> David> 2) Especially in North America, companies are short-sighted and
>>> David> go for quick fixes and things that look cheap up-front without
>>> David> considering the long-term costs.
>>>
>>> David> 3) Especially in North America, people don't see the value in
>>> David> learning technology. They want simple, spoon-fed solutions and
>>> David> they love the word "oursourcing". Sorry if (2) and (3) are not
>>> David> PC, but the slag against North Americans is based on my personal
>>> David> experience. :) And hey, I'm Canadian so I can dis my own
>>> crowd...
>>>
>>> David> 4) Most non-technical small businesses equate "Mail Server" with
>>> David> "Microsoft Exchange", and Microsoft has steadily been making
>>> David> Exchange more and more of a PITA to administer. Each new version
>>> David> of Exchange breaks things and requires learning new procedures.
>>> David> Combine that with (3) and we see that MSFT is using on-premise
>>> David> Exchange as a trojan horse to get people on O-365. The huge pool
>>> David> of "managed service providers" that recommend MSFT solutions is
>>> David> by-and-large staffed by incompetents who are only too happy to
>>> David> shove their customers onto O-365 and collect kickbacks every
>>> David> month.
>>>
>>> Good summary, but I think you forgot (5):
>>>
>>> They have prettier icons.
>>>
>>> I am not 100% kidding, either.
>>>
>
> ---
> This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus
> protection is active.
> http://www.avast.com
>
RE: Drifting OT [was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...]
Posted by Kevin Miller <Ke...@ci.juneau.ak.us>.
Preach it brother! ;-)
...Kevin
--
Kevin Miller
Network/email Administrator, CBJ MIS Dept.
155 South Seward Street
Juneau, Alaska 99801
Phone: (907) 586-0242, Fax: (907) 586-4500
Registered Linux User No: 307357
-----Original Message-----
From: David F. Skoll [mailto:dfs@roaringpenguin.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2014 9:50 AM
To: users@spamassassin.apache.org
Subject: Drifting OT [was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...]
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:11:00 -0400
Bowie Bailey <Bo...@BUC.com> wrote:
[Church stuff]
I think this is getting a bit off-topic...
Regards,
David.
Drifting OT [was Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email
providing...]
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:11:00 -0400
Bowie Bailey <Bo...@BUC.com> wrote:
[Church stuff]
I think this is getting a bit off-topic...
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Philip Prindeville <ph...@redfish-solutions.com>.
On Jul 29, 2014, at 11:29 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
>
> On 7/29/2014 10:11 AM, Bowie Bailey wrote:
>
> > 2) If the professional was willing to be paid to re-paint a room
>> that clearly didn't need it, they need to get rid of him and find
>> someone who won't rip them off.
>>
>
> I think you missed the point of the story. The issue was a control
> issue. This was paid church staff that ordered in a paid professional
> painter to deliberately repaint a room that had just been painted. The
> staff was attempting to send a message to the volunteer couple that
> you volunteers don't do anything unless we tell you to do it. For all I know their normal pro painter took one look and told them it didn't need it, and they said "fine" and just picked up the phone and called another.
I guess this answers the question, “Did Jesus own his own clothes?” No, he was renting them from a Church admin… ;-)
-Philip
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/29/2014 10:11 AM, Bowie Bailey wrote:
> On 7/29/2014 12:33 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> I learned after a year that if your goal is to have people who don't
>> understand or appreciate what you do for them, and shit all over what
>> you do for them, volunteer for a church.
>
> Depends on the church. I do volunteer work for my church on a regular
> basis. Technical stuff, but not usually directly computer related as
> they pay an IT company to take care of the computers and network. They
> are always very appreciative of their volunteers.
>
>> There's a reason most churches constantly solicit for volunteers. A
>> church is the only place that a professional tradesperson can volunteer
>> his services and during the job be told that he's doing it wrong, by
>> people who have never held a wrench, paintbrush, pipe threader, network
>> cable, you name it.
>
> You get that sort of thing everywhere -- whether you are a volunteer or
> a paid employee/contractor. In my experience, the main reason churches
> are constantly looking for volunteers is that most people don't see the
> value in donating their time or assume that in a large church other
> people will do it.
> http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/whose.job.html
>
>> I actually saw one time a couple come in and paint a large room in the
>> church, used very good paint, excellent coverage, masked off everything,
>> etc. and when they left the room looked like a pro had done it - no
>> paint runs or drips where they weren't supposed to be etc. Then 2 weeks
>> later the church paid to have a professional come in and paint the room
>> - again - same color - same paint. When I asked why, I was told "we had
>> the painters scheduled for that room, they should have asked us before
>> painting in there" This is the kind of politics you run into with
>> church volunteering.
>
> I see two problems here. 1) Disorganization -- if they were planning to
> hire professionals to paint, why were the volunteers there to begin
> with?
The volunteers were teaching a class in that room and wanted the room to
look nice. They had offered to paint the room and been told something
along the lines of "the room doesn't need it don't worry about it" The
class was an english as second language type of class and the teaching
was of course also donated by the couple.
I saw the room in the "before" stage and while it didn't require it, it
was dingy and hadn't been painted in years. One corner the ceiling had
fallen and been patched due to a roof leak (that had been fixed later)
2) If the professional was willing to be paid to re-paint a room
> that clearly didn't need it, they need to get rid of him and find
> someone who won't rip them off.
>
I think you missed the point of the story. The issue was a control
issue. This was paid church staff that ordered in a paid professional
painter to deliberately repaint a room that had just been painted. The
staff was attempting to send a message to the volunteer couple that
you volunteers don't do anything unless we tell you to do it. For all I
know their normal pro painter took one look and told them it didn't need
it, and they said "fine" and just picked up the phone and called
another.
I agree with the staff comment made by the other poster. The issue in
churches is that a church is supposed to be under the control of the
congregation (in some denominations) or the minister (in other
denominations) But it's not supposed to EVER be under the control of
the paid staff - many of whom aren't even members of the church nor even
share the same faith.
But, once you bring the paid staff in, if they get a chance they will
take over, like any bureaucracy, and act in a manner to preserve their
criticality to the organization.
This is why I really don't trust churches for doing most "good works"
type of things. Way too many of them violate the 503(c) requirements of
financial transparency and so forth. Many do not publish their exec
staff meeting notes at all, and others only make them available on
request - a clear violation of transparency laws.
I'm not a Mormon but I will say this - that is one thing they got right
when they setup the Mormon church - they don't allow paid staff -at all-
in their churches.
Ted
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Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Bowie Bailey <Bo...@BUC.com>.
On 7/29/2014 12:33 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> I learned after a year that if your goal is to have people who don't
> understand or appreciate what you do for them, and shit all over what
> you do for them, volunteer for a church.
Depends on the church. I do volunteer work for my church on a regular
basis. Technical stuff, but not usually directly computer related as
they pay an IT company to take care of the computers and network. They
are always very appreciative of their volunteers.
> There's a reason most churches constantly solicit for volunteers. A
> church is the only place that a professional tradesperson can volunteer
> his services and during the job be told that he's doing it wrong, by
> people who have never held a wrench, paintbrush, pipe threader, network
> cable, you name it.
You get that sort of thing everywhere -- whether you are a volunteer or
a paid employee/contractor. In my experience, the main reason churches
are constantly looking for volunteers is that most people don't see the
value in donating their time or assume that in a large church other
people will do it.
http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/whose.job.html
> I actually saw one time a couple come in and paint a large room in the
> church, used very good paint, excellent coverage, masked off everything,
> etc. and when they left the room looked like a pro had done it - no
> paint runs or drips where they weren't supposed to be etc. Then 2 weeks
> later the church paid to have a professional come in and paint the room
> - again - same color - same paint. When I asked why, I was told "we had
> the painters scheduled for that room, they should have asked us before
> painting in there" This is the kind of politics you run into with
> church volunteering.
I see two problems here. 1) Disorganization -- if they were planning to
hire professionals to paint, why were the volunteers there to begin
with? 2) If the professional was willing to be paid to re-paint a room
that clearly didn't need it, they need to get rid of him and find
someone who won't rip them off.
--
Bowie
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/28/2014 4:17 PM, Jay Plesset wrote:
> My church decided to go with O-365, without even evaluating any
> alternatives. We have an unemployed IT person that talked the staff into
> this, even though I've offered to implement a "real" e-mail solution
> multiple times, and even provide hardware to run it on.
>
Apparently they didn't understand if the guy was an unemployed IT person
there was a reason he was unemployed!
> "free" was the biggest draw, then "no administration". *sigh*.
>
But, the "no administration" isn't true at all. There's still
administration.
Does Microsoft provide Office 365 free to churches? I know that they
had ridiculously cheap server license pricing (through their Charity
Pricing program) but I didn't know they had got to Free with Office 365?
I did a lot of work for my families church a decade ago in the volunteer
area. Both on the building committee and IT work for them.
I learned after a year that if your goal is to have people who don't
understand or appreciate what you do for them, and shit all over what
you do for them, volunteer for a church.
There's a reason most churches constantly solicit for volunteers. A
church is the only place that a professional tradesperson can volunteer
his services and during the job be told that he's doing it wrong, by
people who have never held a wrench, paintbrush, pipe threader, network
cable, you name it.
I actually saw one time a couple come in and paint a large room in the
church, used very good paint, excellent coverage, masked off everything,
etc. and when they left the room looked like a pro had done it - no
paint runs or drips where they weren't supposed to be etc. Then 2 weeks
later the church paid to have a professional come in and paint the room
- again - same color - same paint. When I asked why, I was told "we had
the painters scheduled for that room, they should have asked us before
painting in there" This is the kind of politics you run into with
church volunteering.
Ted
> jay plesset
> IT, dp-design.com
>
> On 7/28/2014 3:49 PM, Ian Zimmerman wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:57:38 -0400
>> "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com> wrote:
>>
>> David> 1) Gmail is actually pretty good at filtering spam. I can't
>> David> speak for MSFT since I don't use it.
>>
>> David> 2) Especially in North America, companies are short-sighted and
>> David> go for quick fixes and things that look cheap up-front without
>> David> considering the long-term costs.
>>
>> David> 3) Especially in North America, people don't see the value in
>> David> learning technology. They want simple, spoon-fed solutions and
>> David> they love the word "oursourcing". Sorry if (2) and (3) are not
>> David> PC, but the slag against North Americans is based on my personal
>> David> experience. :) And hey, I'm Canadian so I can dis my own crowd...
>>
>> David> 4) Most non-technical small businesses equate "Mail Server" with
>> David> "Microsoft Exchange", and Microsoft has steadily been making
>> David> Exchange more and more of a PITA to administer. Each new version
>> David> of Exchange breaks things and requires learning new procedures.
>> David> Combine that with (3) and we see that MSFT is using on-premise
>> David> Exchange as a trojan horse to get people on O-365. The huge pool
>> David> of "managed service providers" that recommend MSFT solutions is
>> David> by-and-large staffed by incompetents who are only too happy to
>> David> shove their customers onto O-365 and collect kickbacks every
>> David> month.
>>
>> Good summary, but I think you forgot (5):
>>
>> They have prettier icons.
>>
>> I am not 100% kidding, either.
>>
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Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Jay Plesset <ja...@dp-design.com>.
My church decided to go with O-365, without even evaluating any
alternatives. We have an unemployed IT person that talked the staff into
this, even though I've offered to implement a "real" e-mail solution
multiple times, and even provide hardware to run it on.
"free" was the biggest draw, then "no administration". *sigh*.
jay plesset
IT, dp-design.com
On 7/28/2014 3:49 PM, Ian Zimmerman wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:57:38 -0400
> "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com> wrote:
>
> David> 1) Gmail is actually pretty good at filtering spam. I can't
> David> speak for MSFT since I don't use it.
>
> David> 2) Especially in North America, companies are short-sighted and
> David> go for quick fixes and things that look cheap up-front without
> David> considering the long-term costs.
>
> David> 3) Especially in North America, people don't see the value in
> David> learning technology. They want simple, spoon-fed solutions and
> David> they love the word "oursourcing". Sorry if (2) and (3) are not
> David> PC, but the slag against North Americans is based on my personal
> David> experience. :) And hey, I'm Canadian so I can dis my own crowd...
>
> David> 4) Most non-technical small businesses equate "Mail Server" with
> David> "Microsoft Exchange", and Microsoft has steadily been making
> David> Exchange more and more of a PITA to administer. Each new version
> David> of Exchange breaks things and requires learning new procedures.
> David> Combine that with (3) and we see that MSFT is using on-premise
> David> Exchange as a trojan horse to get people on O-365. The huge pool
> David> of "managed service providers" that recommend MSFT solutions is
> David> by-and-large staffed by incompetents who are only too happy to
> David> shove their customers onto O-365 and collect kickbacks every
> David> month.
>
> Good summary, but I think you forgot (5):
>
> They have prettier icons.
>
> I am not 100% kidding, either.
>
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by John Hardin <jh...@impsec.org>.
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014, Ian Zimmerman wrote:
> Good summary, but I think you forgot (5):
>
> They have prettier icons.
>
> I am not 100% kidding, either.
Oh, god yes.
Sadly my sigmonster isn't on the ball, so I had to give it a poke...
(h/t to Steve, if he's still around)
--
John Hardin KA7OHZ http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
jhardin@impsec.org FALaholic #11174 pgpk -a jhardin@impsec.org
key: 0xB8732E79 -- 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
End users want eye candy and the "ooo's and aaaahhh's" experience
when reading mail. To them email isn't a tool, but an entertainment
form. -- Steve Lake
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 days until the 279th anniversary of John Peter Zenger's acquittal
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ian Zimmerman <it...@buug.org>.
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:57:38 -0400
"David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com> wrote:
David> 1) Gmail is actually pretty good at filtering spam. I can't
David> speak for MSFT since I don't use it.
David> 2) Especially in North America, companies are short-sighted and
David> go for quick fixes and things that look cheap up-front without
David> considering the long-term costs.
David> 3) Especially in North America, people don't see the value in
David> learning technology. They want simple, spoon-fed solutions and
David> they love the word "oursourcing". Sorry if (2) and (3) are not
David> PC, but the slag against North Americans is based on my personal
David> experience. :) And hey, I'm Canadian so I can dis my own crowd...
David> 4) Most non-technical small businesses equate "Mail Server" with
David> "Microsoft Exchange", and Microsoft has steadily been making
David> Exchange more and more of a PITA to administer. Each new version
David> of Exchange breaks things and requires learning new procedures.
David> Combine that with (3) and we see that MSFT is using on-premise
David> Exchange as a trojan horse to get people on O-365. The huge pool
David> of "managed service providers" that recommend MSFT solutions is
David> by-and-large staffed by incompetents who are only too happy to
David> shove their customers onto O-365 and collect kickbacks every
David> month.
Good summary, but I think you forgot (5):
They have prettier icons.
I am not 100% kidding, either.
--
Please *no* private copies of mailing list or newsgroup messages.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by "David F. Skoll" <df...@roaringpenguin.com>.
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 09:10:40 -0700
Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
> Or are we just going to end up with an Internet in about 10 years
> where every single email box is either on Microsoft 365 or Gmail and
> the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to hunt through whatever
> they want without bothering with a warrant?
I don't think every single mailbox will be like that, but sadly a lot
will. A number of things are conspiring to cause this:
1) Gmail is actually pretty good at filtering spam. I can't speak for
MSFT since I don't use it.
2) Especially in North America, companies are short-sighted and go for
quick fixes and things that look cheap up-front without considering
the long-term costs.
3) Especially in North America, people don't see the value in learning
technology. They want simple, spoon-fed solutions and they love the
word "oursourcing". Sorry if (2) and (3) are not PC, but the slag against
North Americans is based on my personal experience. :) And hey, I'm Canadian
so I can dis my own crowd...
4) Most non-technical small businesses equate "Mail Server" with
"Microsoft Exchange", and Microsoft has steadily been making Exchange
more and more of a PITA to administer. Each new version of Exchange
breaks things and requires learning new procedures. Combine that with
(3) and we see that MSFT is using on-premise Exchange as a trojan
horse to get people on O-365. The huge pool of "managed service
providers" that recommend MSFT solutions is by-and-large staffed
by incompetents who are only too happy to shove their customers
onto O-365 and collect kickbacks every month.
We will be left in a niche market with people who really understand
the value of controlling their own email. It'll be a much smaller
market, but (I hope) a more discerning and intelligent one.
Regards,
David.
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Alex <my...@gmail.com>.
Hi,
>>> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes
who
>>> some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
>>> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
>>
>> The trend towards email service providers for companies to host their
>> mailboxes has been accelerating for about the past 6 to 12 months. I
>> don't know whether there was any specific trigger (Exchange version
>> upgrade-related, possibly?).
>>
>
> The specific trigger is in 2012 Microsoft announced SBS would be
terminated. (SBS 2011) is the last.
>
> For a company to field exchange 2012 server for 5 people is about $20K.
That is licensing, server hardware and expertise to put it together. Our
"other" consultancy is a windows shop and we can roll these if anyone wants
them.
>
> When SBS 2011 shipped you could do Exchange for 5 users for around $5K
> for the licensing and hardware and expertise.
>
> I'm not going to go into the technical changes Microsoft made in the
> new version of Exchange that tripled the costs, just trust me they are
there.
>
> A couple years ago we sold around 6 exchange servers a year. Once
> MS "graduated" everyone to the new version of exchange, we haven't
> sold any. Sold SB Essentials but that's not Exchange.
We recently lost a small-business customer to Comcast. They have about 150
employees and needed better collaboration tools, calendaring, contacts, and
shared resources which we really can't provide with just open source tools.
Comcast was offering all of this with spam/virus for like $400/mo or less.
We just can't compete in that market.
Much of our business now is front-ending Exchange. However, another problem
we're experiencing is that, with the latest Exchange, is no more IMAP/POP
to public folders, so there's no real way for us to receive spam/ham
samples for analysis from them over the Internet. Ideas for solving this
problem would be appreciated.
For the issue regarding users going to Gmail, I like to dig up problems
with their service that people from notable companies have had, or articles
from PC Week, and the like, about service outages, lost email, data-mining
and privacy issues, etc.
Our users want regular reports, but the actual end-users never really see
that. It's only some levels of management that ever see it, and I don't
think they really have a concept of just how much spam they would be
receiving.
We're in a commodity business. It's no longer the efficacy that
differentiates us - it's service, price, privacy, features (user tools,
webmail, mobile capabilities), etc.
Regards,
Alex
Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net>.
On 7/28/2014 10:42 AM, Matthias Leisi wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt<te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
>
>> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes who
>> some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
>> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
>
> The trend towards email service providers for companies to host their
> mailboxes has been accelerating for about the past 6 to 12 months. I
> don't know whether there was any specific trigger (Exchange version
> upgrade-related, possibly?).
>
The specific trigger is in 2012 Microsoft announced SBS would be
terminated. (SBS 2011) is the last.
For a company to field exchange 2012 server for 5 people is about $20K.
That is licensing, server hardware and expertise to put it together.
Our "other" consultancy is a windows shop and we can roll these if
anyone wants them.
When SBS 2011 shipped you could do Exchange for 5 users for around $5K
for the licensing and hardware and expertise.
I'm not going to go into the technical changes Microsoft made in the
new version of Exchange that tripled the costs, just trust me they are
there.
A couple years ago we sold around 6 exchange servers a year. Once
MS "graduated" everyone to the new version of exchange, we haven't
sold any. Sold SB Essentials but that's not Exchange.
We also have some large companies and all of them are holding to
exchange 2008 R2 for the same reasons.
Microsoft is on service pack 3 rollup 7 on exchange 2008 R2. It is
very much a trainwreck in the making for the large site licensees of
Exchange and Microsoft. In fact we already rolled a complete drop-in
Exchange replacement using Horde/IMP for one customer with about 100
employees who didn't want to upgrade from exchange 2003. We expect
to do more of these.
Microsoft will win in the end with upgrades to exchange server but it
simply isn't going to make economic sense for anyone with 200 employees
or lower. So they will win but it will be Pyrrhic since a chunk will
bail completely and go to Linux.
> At dnswl.org, we see a number of netranges going "stale" (ie, not
> being seen with live traffic any more for extended periods of time),
> and when we re-check we see that MX/SPF point to (largely) outlook.com
> or Google Mail (plus a long tail of other providers).
>
>> SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the box,
>> doing nothing other than using defaults.
>
> Yes, SpamAssassin requires site- or customer-specific tuning. So does
> every other spamfilter. I run the domain for my family over Gmail, and
> while it's decent at filtering, it has a hard time coping with some of
> the more bizarre technical and list email I get :)
>
>> 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
>> STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
>> compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
>
> It's not only the spam. It's also the viruses, the email archive, the
> eDiscovery, the mobile device integration, the version upgrades, the
> web access, the system administration, the email reputation
> management, the IPv6 migration, the squeeze on the IT budget and
> staffing, the service level requirements, ... you name it.
>
Ah, no. Everything other than the spam can be handled by OSS.
But, spam is bad because the users bring it down on themselves by their
own behavior.
These are employees who go online and fill their work email address out
on the online "win an ipod" fake contest websites. Because they know if
they use their private address it will get spammed and they will have to
do something about it. But hey they can use work email and it's someone
elses problem to fix. Then bitch to their bosses that they are getting
so much spam. Their bosses bitch to us because it doesn't even enter
their mind that their employees would be wasting time on their break
doing this crap online.
> Messaging has become complex and is more interconnected between
> various channels (instant messaging, presence awareness, voice, voice
> conferencing, video conferencing with screen sharing...).
>
> The market for specialised, dedicated and/or access-provider-bound
> mail services is definitely shrinking. It's not disappearing
> completely anytime soon, but some providers will have a hard time to
> retain meaningful economies of scale and are thus likely to leave that
> market.
>
> SpamAssassin is still an important and useful component in an overall
> setup. But it needs to be embedded in a full suite (and by that I do
> not mean just plumbing into the MTA of choice).
>
The specifics is spam. Users believe administrators can just flick a
switch and turn it off. Billions is wasted every year on scanning
software that the vendors claim will "just turn it off" because the
buyers actually believe that switch exists. Nothing you have said
addresses this.
You are droning on and on all of the sound bites people use to sell
Cloud. Fine. Great. I know that. I'm Cloud. Gmail is Cloud. 365 is
Cloud. We are all Cloud. Now, please get back to the real issue which
is how to fight against perception based on false assumptions.
>> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an Internet in
>> about 10 years where every single email box is either on Microsoft 365 or
>> Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to hunt through whatever
>> they want without bothering with a warrant?
>
> The "NSA" argument does not really influence any purchase decision -
> or not any more than it did in pre-Snowden times. Large european
> customers who have an exposure to privacy-related risks did not and do
> not outsource to US providers given the poor legal and regulatory
> protection. The wave of revelations merely served to proof an already
> existing sentiment.
>
Oh brother. Why can't you simply accept my cheap shot for the joke that
it is and drop it instead of trying to turn it into "Euros are better
than you are, naynner naynner naynner"
Ted
> -- Matthias
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Re: Ready to throw in the towel on email providing...
Posted by Matthias Leisi <ma...@leisi.net>.
On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt <te...@ipinc.net> wrote:
> Just lost another one, dammit. Small company with about 6 mailboxes who
> some consultant gave them a song and dance about how Gmail's such a
> better mail service since "they don't get any spam"
The trend towards email service providers for companies to host their
mailboxes has been accelerating for about the past 6 to 12 months. I
don't know whether there was any specific trigger (Exchange version
upgrade-related, possibly?).
At dnswl.org, we see a number of netranges going "stale" (ie, not
being seen with live traffic any more for extended periods of time),
and when we re-check we see that MX/SPF point to (largely) outlook.com
or Google Mail (plus a long tail of other providers).
> SpamAssassin for us filters probably about 80% of the spam out of the box,
> doing nothing other than using defaults.
Yes, SpamAssassin requires site- or customer-specific tuning. So does
every other spamfilter. I run the domain for my family over Gmail, and
while it's decent at filtering, it has a hard time coping with some of
the more bizarre technical and list email I get :)
> 5 pieces of mail are NOT spam, even at 99% effectiveness, the user is
> STILL getting 50 pieces of spam in a day that SpamAssassin misses,
> compared to their 5 pieces of ham mail.
It's not only the spam. It's also the viruses, the email archive, the
eDiscovery, the mobile device integration, the version upgrades, the
web access, the system administration, the email reputation
management, the IPv6 migration, the squeeze on the IT budget and
staffing, the service level requirements, ... you name it.
Messaging has become complex and is more interconnected between
various channels (instant messaging, presence awareness, voice, voice
conferencing, video conferencing with screen sharing...).
The market for specialised, dedicated and/or access-provider-bound
mail services is definitely shrinking. It's not disappearing
completely anytime soon, but some providers will have a hard time to
retain meaningful economies of scale and are thus likely to leave that
market.
SpamAssassin is still an important and useful component in an overall
setup. But it needs to be embedded in a full suite (and by that I do
not mean just plumbing into the MTA of choice).
> What do other people do? Or are we just going to end up with an Internet in
> about 10 years where every single email box is either on Microsoft 365 or
> Gmail and the NSA has a wonderful interface to use to hunt through whatever
> they want without bothering with a warrant?
The "NSA" argument does not really influence any purchase decision -
or not any more than it did in pre-Snowden times. Large european
customers who have an exposure to privacy-related risks did not and do
not outsource to US providers given the poor legal and regulatory
protection. The wave of revelations merely served to proof an already
existing sentiment.
-- Matthias