Jun 22, 2009

Email Filtering

For the second time, an email I've sent to a particular organization has been "filtered"...i.e., REJECTED as undesirable. Here's the verbiage used when it bounced back to me:
The message carried your return address, so it was either a genuine mail from you, or a sender address was faked and your e-mail address abused by third party, in which case we apologize for undesired notification.We do try to minimize backscatter for more prominent cases of UBE and for infected mail, but for less obvious cases of UBE some balance between losing genuine mail and sending undesired backscatter is sought,and there can be some collateral damage on both sides.
Uh, collateral damage? Let me see if I can take that analogy and lay it flat on the U.S. Postal Service that everyone loves to hate. It's as if they had a camera focused on the mail as it went past on a conveyor belt, and if it LOOKED like it might have a bomb in it, or if they didn't like the way the "G" in your name was printed, it would be diverted back to you. Can't be too careful, can we? By the way, there were no attachments with my e-mail, just a plain, brief message. Then again, the email was free, whereas the stamp cost 44 cents [what DID they do with the "cent" symbol on the keyboard?]

2 comments:

  1. Sounds to me like I wouldn't want to do business with those folks.

    Once upon a time, some internal corporate servers blocked e-mail from certain domains because they were being used as unwitting spam promulgators.

    Those domains included "hotmail" (owned by Microsoft) and Yahoo, among others.

    Rarely have I ever heard of such a bounce in this more recent era where e-mail is often scanned for malware BEFORE it goes through the servers to the end user.

    However, in the case where it MAY still occur, email from an ISP could be one way to overcome such an obstacle, since it's considered impractical to make adjustments on a case-by-case basis.

    Also, sometimes carbon copying others into the message may activate a "trigger" to block such incoming messages. In those cases, simply add the address into the primary address.

    By the way, "UBE" is the acronym for "Unsolicited Bulk Email," also known as "spam." But considering that "Spam" is a registered trade mark, it may be that the use of UBE may be preferable to a potential infringement.

    If you can call, it might be preferable... if you want to be persistent. It DOES pay off on occasion, you know!

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  2. BTW... the ¢ sign is just "under" the 4 - which also contains the $.

    On my Mac, I just press the alt/option key and press 4.

    Voila!

    Of course, on a Windoze box... maybe it'd be better to copy & paste it in a document somewhere to refer to it again! *RIFLOL*

    See? Here's the COMPLEX instructions for the Windoze crowd: http://www.timeatlas.com/mos/5_Minute_Tips/General/Making_Cents_of_Special_Characters/

    As well, switching between Dvorak and QWERTY keyboard layout is a snap! (At least it is on my Mac!) Here's Mircosoft's complex directions: http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/windowsxp/keyboardlayout.aspx


    For future reference, here are the alt/option keys, L-R (in Lucida Grande), top to bottom.

    ¡™£¢∞§¶•ªº–≠
    œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπ“‘«
    åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬…æ
    Ω≈ç√∫ñµ≤≥÷

    Now, if ya' want some really kewl stuff like Ø, Œ, Ǖ, ǣ, å, Ʊ, Ǯ/℥ (drachm/ounce, of the Amazing Apothecary Avoirdupois!),⌘, ≈, ⠫ (Braille), ℞, ㏒, ㎤, ♭(flat), ♫(beamed eighth notes), ♠, ♦, ♣, or ♥ - ☤(caduceus), ♖(white chess rook), ☧(Chi Rho), and more... well, gotta' look into getting that Mac!

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