Authorlaura

Evolution of policy

Last week, I talked about policy, using some different blocklist policies as examples. In that post I talked about how important it is that policy evolve. One example of that is how we’ve been evolving policy related to companies that get listed on Purchased Lists and ESPs. Who is listed has evolved over time, and we’re actually looking at some policy changes right now. Listing policy...

Security Truths

Being in infosec for so long takes its toll. I've come to the conclusion that if you give a data point to a company, they will eventually sell it, leak it, lose it or get hacked and relieved of it. There really don't seem to be any exceptions, and it gets depressing.
— briankrebs (@briankrebs) September 26, 2018

Thoughts on policy

A particular blocklist, once again, listed a major ESP this week. Their justification is “this is our policy.” Which is true, it is their policy to list under these circumstances. That doesn’t make it a good policy, or even an effective policy. It’s simply a policy. Crafting policies Crafting good policy starts with the question “what is the desired outcome in this...

Complaints, contacts and consequences

Yesterday the CRM system Zoho suffered an unexpected outage when their registrar, TierraNet suspended their domain. According to TechCrunch, Zoho’s CEO says there was no notification to the company and that the company had only 3 complaints about phishing. Based on the article, even as a Zoho customer, I am fully on the registrar’s side here. Every company, absolutely every company...

Hitting the ground running

We’ve landed in Dublin and are back at work. Blogging will pick up as I get back into the swing of things. I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Selligent user conference in Amsterdam tomorrow and in London on Thursday. If you’re a Selligent customer, introduce yourself and say hi! Speaking of being on panels, I heard recently that some folks were adding conference speakers to...

Changes are coming…

We’ve been blogging here about email for 11 years now. My first post was published August 29, 2007. In that time, we’ve published more than 2300 posts, and written probably millions of words. For years we have blogged multiple times a week. This summer we’ve not kept up our normal posting schedule. We’ve been a little busy with non-email stuff. We’ve spent this...

Can I get access to Google Postmaster tools if I’m using an ESP?

The answer is almost certainly yes, but there are definitely cases where it the answer is no. If you’re using your own domains for the return path and/or the d= value then you can set up postmaster tools for those domains. If you’re using a domain managed by the ESP, or a subdomain where the ESP manages the DNS, you may need your ESP to publish the correct key in DNS to authenticate...

Wildfires and deliverability

A few weeks ago we took a drive down I5 to attend a service at Bakersfield National Cemetery. Amid the acres and acres of almond farms there were patches of black from recent grassfires. Typical but boring California landscape. Wildfires are a hugely destructive but continual threat in California. Growing up on the east coast, I never really understood wildfires. How can acres and acres and...

Microsoft using Spamhaus Lists

An on the ball reader sent me a note today showing a bounce message indicating microsoft was rejecting mail due to a Spamhaus Blocklist Listing. 5.7.1 Client host [10.10.10.10] blocked using Spamhaus. To request removal from this list see (S3130). [VE1EUR03FT043.eop-EUR03.prod.protection.outlook.com] The IP in question is listed on the CSS, which means at a minimum Microsoft is using the SBL. I...

Unsubscribe means unsubscribe

But, unfortunately, some senders don’t actually think unsubscribe means stop sending mail. Today, for instance, the nice folks at The Container Store sent me an email with an “important update to my POP! account” Yes, that’s an address I gave them. But I don’t have any record of setting up an account. I was on their mailing list for all of 4 emails back in November...

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