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What does Postini know that we don't?

Mad_Moggies
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What does Postini know that we don't?

Just found an email from the Royal Mint sitting in my Spam folder. While I doubt I'll buy anything from the offer - 2012 Olympics handover £2 coins - I'm subscribed to them from ordering stuff in the past, so don't mind getting their emails.
When I'd freed it and downloaded it, it went straight into my Mail's Trash, so I had to fish it out from there too. On inspection, I saw Positini had added 'X-Pstn-Neptune-Cave-Rslt: qtine' to the headers (which explains how it ended up in Mail's Trash folder, which I have set up to catch anything with that after the CNN etc deluge) and it was also marked as Spam 1.
So, what's wrong with the message to have it marked so harshly? Is it the Olympic Games or the Royal Mint that's at fault?  Huh
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artmo
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

I find genuine messages from groups I subscribe to are being directed to my spam folder.  Even after I have checked them as 'not spam' they continue to get marked as spam.  Why does this keep happening.
Mad_Moggies
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

Looking back at previous Royal Mint emails, I see they've either been identified as Spam 3 or Spam 4, or not marked as Spam at all. I'm wondering what's caused this particular one to be marked with 'qtine' and Spam 1!  Shocked
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pierre_pierre
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

you have to white list them, clicking spam does next to nothing, other people think it is spam, or cant be bothered to unsubscribe, it a bad balencing on a floppy tightrope, who is going to win? Sad
my white listing list, all had previously been marked as spam
i
artmo
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

But the same messages to my Gmail account are identified correctly without any involvement from me. Spam is one area where PN do not seem to have control.
Mad_Moggies
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

It's even more of a mystery as I find earlier messages from the Royal Mint, as recently as 1st July, to be marked
X-Pstn-Addresses: from <xxxx@regalpolo-glacier-aftereight.com> forward (user good) [295/14]
.
Why is Postini now vilifying them?  Undecided
I can see they will need adding to my own ever increasing whitelist, which includes one or two of the same 'innocents' as pierre-pierre's and several more.

NB Address modified following Mike's advice below   Embarrassed
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pierre_pierre
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

was the current  poster the same as 1st Jul  <email@royalmint.com> I find that some companies do use different ways of sending their e-mails, thats why some of mine have just got the domain i.e. the bit after the @
spraxyt
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

Quote from: Mad
It's even more of a mystery as I find earlier messages from the Royal Mint, as recently as 1st July, to be marked
X-Pstn-Addresses: from <xxxx@regalpolo-glacier-aftereight.com> forward (user good) [295/14]

Why is Postini now vilifying them?

The tag "user good" on the previous email implies you had that address whitelisted. So the reason Postini didn't treat the latest one the same is either because you have now removed that entry from your whitelist, or that the message came from a different address. As P_P said if Royal Mint uses different local names (the bit before the "@") you could just whitelist the domain regalpolo-glacier-aftereight.com to cover any local name.
Edit: for consistency with amendment to previous post. Smiley
David
Mad_Moggies
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

Today's vilified email:
X-Pstn-Addresses: from <xxxx@the.regalpolo-glacier-aftereight.com> [295/14]
X-Pstn-Neptune-Cave-Rslt: qtine
July 1st squeaky clean email:
X-Pstn-Addresses: from <xxxx@regalpolo-glacier-aftereight.com> forward (user good) [295/14]
It was already on my whitelist with the first address, which would explain 'user good', but other emails from dates between these two, with 'the.royalmint' have still got past Postini totally unscathed or marked between Spam 4 and Spam 2. (Have now amended the address on my whitelist). Still doesn't explain how it got the 'qutine' bit.

spraxyt, was just going to post this when I saw your reply which confirmed what I had deduced. But see my comment re other emails sent from the same new address.

NB Addresses amended following mike's advice below  Embarrassed
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spraxyt
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

I think whitelisting only regalpolo-glacier-aftereight.com might cover both sending domains.
Postini scores each email based on how their spam engines rate the content, so some might get higher scores (and avoid getting spam tagged), others lower scores (and get tagged).
The "qtine" header results from behaviour that is perceived to be typical of spammers. Unfortunately this includes sending the same email to lots of different people, which is what Royal Mint are doing here. The way round this is to add genuine senders to your whitelist.
Despite the presence of the "qtine" header Plusnet would not tag the message as Spam if the score is more than 20 above the threshold. Unfortunately your experience suggests that will not be achieved.
Edit: for consistency with amendment to previous post.  Smiley
David
Mad_Moggies
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

Quote from: spraxyt
Postini scores each email based on how their spam engines rate the content, so some might get higher scores (and avoid getting spam tagged), others lower scores (and get tagged).

Hence my original question! What does Postini know that we don't? Content seems pretty inoccuous to me - just a couple of offers on a Commemorative £2 coin.
Have been through all the ins and outs of scorings and stuff for spam during the CNN etc deluge and ensuing discussion, so pretty well have the hang of what happens now, though most stuff marked as spam doesn't seem to get the qtine bit from what I've seen (hence my surprise at it landing in my Mail's Trash folder which is set to catch 'qtine' as well as a few other things that accidentally get through). It's the 'why?' that's intriguing me in this case!  Wink
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mikeb
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

Erhm guys, I would strongly suggest that it's a *REALLY* bad idea to post whitelisted addresses on what is essentially a very public forum. It's several orders of magnitude worse than posting your own addy TBH !!  It's dead easy to guess loads of them anyway but handing them out like free sweeties is so not a good idea  Shocked
Absolutely anyone sending absolutely anything claiming to be from one of your whitelisted addresses will have their junk delivered straight to your inbox and there will be nowt you can ever do then to stop it. If I was a spammer, I could very easily grab all the above addresses and be 100% confident that you (and no doubt shedloads of others) have them whitelisted and therefore I can just about guarantee that every single spam I send from now on will be delivered swiftly to your inbox and the vast majority (at least initially) will also get read.
... wanders off trying to resist the urge to send (way more than) a few dodgy emails just to prove the point to anyone who doesn't already believe and/or understand that whitelisting (particularly when necessary almost by default) is a very bad news bodge rather than something even remotely close to a satisfactory alternative to fixing poor detection algorithms  Wink
PS: I'm fairly sure that everyone knows my views on postini and false positives so I wont waste anyone's time by repeating them again ... apart from what I've already said above Tongue


B T Plusnet, a bit kinda like P T Barnum ...

... but quite often appears to feature more clowns Tongue
Mad_Moggies
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

Good point Mike. I've now amended the address in my postings. When I listed just a few of my whitelisted addresses in another discussion, I was careful just to give the name of the companies/organisations rather than the email addresses or domains but I slipped up this time in my eagerness to answer a reply or two.  Embarrassed
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pierre_pierre
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Re: What does Postini know that we don't?

I think all my whitelisted items are public companies, I hope i removed the private one