[geeks] Crackpot project, need some guidance

[mail at catsnest.co.uk]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 5:09 PM, Mouse <mouse at rodents-montreal.org> wrote:
>>> [I was going to send this offlist, but then I read the headers and
>>> noticed you send through google and thus can't write me directly.]
>> Might I ask why you don't accept mail from google?
>
> You might indeed. B I'll even tell you.
>
> Most briefly, they are egregiously antisocial.
>
> This started back when they first introduced Gmail. B Gmail's webmail
> interface conceals the actual client IP, putting an RFC1918-private IP
> in the headers instead. B This was pointed out to them by multiple
> people on a relatively private list I was on, back before they went
> public with it, and they chose to bull ahead anyway. B So I blocked all
> mail exhibiting that particular spoor. B (There are some netblocks I
> don't want any webamil from, ever. B Gmail was designed such that the
> only way I could do that is to, among other things, refuse all Gmail
> webmail. B So I did.)
>
> What really tore it with me was when they started outright spamming me.
>
> I was forcibly subscribed - ie, without even telling me, much less
> asking me - to four Google Groups. B One (I think two, but I'm sure at
> least one) of them was even in an alphabet, never mind language, I
> can't read.
>
> I complained (to their abuse.net-registered abuse-handling address).
> Three times. B At one-business-day intervals. B It made no difference I
> could detect.
>
> I looked at the mail and noticed it all had a header in common. B So I
> blocked anything with that header.
>
> Months passed.
>
> Then two spams from one of the lists made it through into my mailbox.
> They had changed the header I was blocking on. B I investigated and
> found that they had not bounce-processed me off the lists, despite
> months of 100% rejections of multiple messages a day.
>
> So. B I asked myself, are google spammers?
>
> - They force-subscribed me to lists.
> - They ignored my complaints.
> - They have no working bounce processing.
> - They morphed so as to evade my blocks.
>
> _I_ sure have trouble seeing any difference. B I ARranged for anything
> from google.com to get a 5xx "greeting" banner from me.
>
> Months after the blanket block against Google went up, I checked. B They
> were still pounding on my door, dozens of attempts a day. B They *still*
> had no working bounce processing. B That alone would be enough for me to
> say they should get off the net until they fix their software.
>
>> A large number of people are hosting their domains with Google Apps,
>> including many businesses and non-profit orgs. B [...]
>
> So what? B This amounts to "they're big, so you should wave off their
> offenses".
>
> No.
>
> Being big means they should be held to _stricter_ standards than small
> players. B They have no excuse. B They should be setting an example
> for everyone else; instead, they're a better example of how to do email
> wrong. B To return to the first offense above, I know it's hard to get
> the client IP right when you've got a farm of load-balancers larger
> than most people's entire network. B But Google has solved much harder
> problems; if they cared to bother, they could solve that one. B But they
> apparently can't be bothered, preferring instead to inflict the costs
> of their laziness on the rest of the net.
>
> They have non-spammer users? B When someone like Richter does that, we
> call it "human shields" and (rightly, IMO) consider it a compounding
> offense. B That's exactly what I consider it in Google's case.
>
>> [...various Google customers...] B They're all beyond the scope of
>> people you care to receive email from? B You don't even know who they
>> are.
>
> I have nothing against receiving mail from them. B Just not through
> Google. B Let them use a civilized provider and I'm fine with them.
>
> Yes, I'm sure it's cheaper, in the immediate term, to use Google. B Most
> resources return the greatest immediate-term return when ruthlessly
> exploited into the ground, and the Internet is no different. B Google is
> using you as a human shield. B You are helping them "too big to block"
> their way out of the conesequences of their antisocial behaviour (well,
> most of; there's me and probably a few other people who won't put up
> with it, but I don't flatter myself Google has even noticed us).
> Naturally they're going to charge you less - the _want_ you there.
>


Here here. I agree, Sent from my gmail account that I started to use
for all my mail accounts as they have good spam filtering and I am
lazy ;)

Ritchie,
--
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<--Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.  -->


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