# Okay.. stop with the darn ***SPAM*** editing on my EMAILS!!!



## Jasoco (Sep 11, 2003)

I know it's MacOSX.com. All of a sudden in the last few days, Mail flakes out and can't get my MacOSX.com email. It NEVER did that before. Now all of a sudden I'm getting all my new incomming Topic Reply Notification emails with some stupid "THIS EMAIL IS SPAM!!!!" message tacked onto it. I AM REALLY ANGRY ABOUT THIS.

I do NOT need this "option". I want it off. 3 days ago MacOSX.com email was 10 times better than the Comcast.net email I was trying to get away from. Not it's 10 times WORSE.

What did you guys DO to it?

I'm paying $8 a year for this, don't make me ask for a refund. I don't need this kind of stress.

Here's a sample of what I get. The Notification is NOT SPAM and SHOULD NOT HAVE THIS TEXT IN IT!


> From: notification@macaddict.com
> Date: Thu Sep 11, 2003  6:29:01  PM US/Eastern
> To:
> Subject: *****SPAM***** Topic Reply Notification - heres IRONY for you
> ...



What is with that header part? Why is it there? What the hell is SpamAssassin? Why didn't I get an Opt-Out for it? Why no email about it? Is it yours? It has to be! It can't be anyone else! I am super pissed right now.

Apologies in advance.


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## Giaguara (Sep 11, 2003)

There is no receiver in to: field? 

Are you using spam assassin? If so, how did you install it, and with what? Mail of 10.2 itself can't have it - if you managed to set it up somewhere let me know. 

Are these mails coming always from that same address? Are they coming to the account you have in macosx.com? If the first is yes, could you just block the domain macaddict.com?


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## edX (Sep 12, 2003)

i certainly haven't been getting any spam alerts on any of my macosx.com emails. and believe me, the general contact addy gets real spam daily. 

and just for the record - i don't read chinese, arabic or any non-english language for that matter. trying to ask for site help in anything but english goes straight in the trash as spam.


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## Jasoco (Sep 12, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Giaguara _
> *There is no receiver in to: field?
> 
> Are you using spam assassin? If so, how did you install it, and with what? Mail of 10.2 itself can't have it - if you managed to set it up somewhere let me know.
> ...


I have no idea what Spam Assassin IS! It just started doing this at 6PM today! All of a sudden!

Certain emails have no "To:" field and they show up like this. I can't track it down and I really want to get it to stop. If it's not MacOSX.com (Which is the account I use.) who could it be?

Why would I BLOCK MacAddict.com? I WANT THE EMAILS! I WANT THE REPLY NOTIFICATIONS! But it screws my whole damn routine up because it adds extra text to the Subject and the body making me REALLY PISSED.

Certain Notification emails have them. Specifically from MacAddict and Vintage Gamer. But not from MacOSX.com.

But I still can't track down WHO exactly has Spam software installed. It has to be somewhere in the middle. Because I have no Spam softrware installed. I even checked Top and Process Viewer for any weird looking process names. Anyone know what it would be named if I did have it? And how it would install itself? I doubt it is on here. It has to be somewhere in the middle.

The ones from Vintage Gamer come in as even MORE Spam:


> From: mark@vintagegamer.net
> Date: Fri Sep 12, 2003  4:09:05  AM US/Eastern
> To:
> Subject: *****SPAM***** Topic Reply Notification - A Fresh Haul of Nes Goodness!
> ...



Once again, no "To:" Field. If there's NO TO, how does it FIND me? What is going on here?

Edit: A GOogle search turned up the following:


> Why Are You Spamming Me?
> 
> If you are seeing SpamAssassin data in the mail message, then this                           indicates that somebody at your ISP, your web hosting company, your                           employers, etc. has set up a mail filter which detects spam and adds                           these markings so that you can filter it more easily, should you wish to.


It would seem that Comcast has installed this thing. I checked their site and the preferences to turn it off AREN'T EVEN SET UP YET!!! I gotta write a nasty email to them. Tell them to MIND THEIR OWN DAMN BUSINESS!

Sorry I blamed MacOSX.com. It seemed most logical at the time. But now I got bigger fish to fry.


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## Giaguara (Sep 12, 2003)

Check spam assassin site. www.spamassassin.org

It is a spam filter for unix email clients. (see more on their site). Mail of OS X up to 10.1 can use Unix mailboxes. I assume you have 10.2, thus you can't have it set up .. someone could have signed your email to the service? I would contact spamassassin about the emails, forwarding some to them as example. 

Spam assassin is a really good filter, I know people using it, e.g. with Mutt (mail client), and I do know also friends who would like to be able to use it with 10.2 mail, or Entourage. 

Do you get emails from more than 1 address? Are all those having spam assassin, or just one? 

Have you asked your ISP if they know something?


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## Jasoco (Sep 12, 2003)

I already checked their site. They said that the ISP should have contacted the people when they set it up. I didn't get ANY emails about it. They also said I could ask my ISP to add me to the Whitelist. Which is what I did. So hopefully I'll be out of this mess soon.



> *This Is The First I've Heard About It!*
> 
> *You should have been informed that this was going to happen.* We plaster                           this message all over our installation manuals, website, etc. However, we                           still receive reports from people whose first contact with SpamAssassin is                           when it suddenly appears in their mail -- which indicates that whoever                           installed it on their mail systems never bothered to tell them about it.                           Unsurprisingly, we think this is a little unprofessional.
> 
> Typically the person to contact is your ISP's tech support department,                           your web hosting company's tech support department, or your systems                           administrator.


Seems Comcast was NAUGHTY and didn't let its users KNOW they were doing this. That's a No No.

They also mention that the ISP may not know about it. In which case I have to contact Comcast's web host. I really hope I'm not chasing this damn thing all over the internet. It's more trouble than good.

I get almost NO Spam as it is. And the emails I DO want are being marked as SPAM. What a sucky filter!


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## Giaguara (Sep 12, 2003)

Call Comcast, and tell us their response. Spamassassin, when set up and trained properly works pretty well (when user chooses to want to use it etc), but it's different being forced to use it.


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## Jasoco (Sep 12, 2003)

If I don't get an Email response by tomorrow night, I'll call them.


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## edX (Sep 12, 2003)

well, now that we've once more figured out that macosx.com is not the cause of yet another of the world's biggest, most pressing problems, i wish you luck on getting it worked out.


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## Jasoco (Sep 12, 2003)

LOL!

Don't worry, I'll find something wrong with MacOSX.com yet!


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## Arden (Sep 12, 2003)

Me!  Just kidding... 

FYI, Comcast is reputable around dese parts for providing flaky (cable) service and poor tech support, so it doesn't surprise me that they're pulling Microsoft-like tactics regarding Spam Assassin.


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## bobw (Sep 12, 2003)

I have Comcast and get the following from MacOSX.com starting today;

*Delivered-To: 24-bobw@macosx.com
Date: 12 Sep 2003 12:00:02 -0000
To: bobw@macosx.com
Subject: MACOSX.COM Email Edition
From: MACOSX.COM <webmaster@macosx.com>
Reply-To: <webmaster@macosx.com>
X-Priority: 3
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-98.0 required=5.0
	tests=CLICK_BELOW,HTML_30_40,HTML_LINK_CLICK_HERE,HTML_MESSAGE,
	      MIME_HTML_NO_CHARSET,USER_IN_WHITELIST
	version=2.55
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.55 (1.174.2.19-2003-05-19-exp)

bobw,

Your MACOSX.COM Email Edition covers new and active topics in the last 16 hours.*

I have 4 other email accounts I use regularly and don't get this, not even on Comcast's email account, so it must be coming from MacOSX.com.

As for Comcast being flaky, I haven't seen that in the 1½ I've had it, and the two times I had to call their support, it was very good and they knew Macs.

*Ed*  Sounds like Scott instituted something new and we haven't been told about it yet.


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## lurk (Sep 12, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Jasoco _
> *
> Once again, no "To:" Field. If there's NO TO, how does it FIND me? What is going on here?*



Just a technical note here on the way email is delivered.  The To: field is only used on the sending side and not for delivery.  Basically the sending mailer uses the To: field to figure out what to write on the outside of the envelope that gets sent.  Then when it gets to your mailbox the mail server on your machine takes it out of the envelope and sticks it in your mailbox for you to read.  It works this way so that stuff like CC: and BCC: and multiple reciepients can work.  

To hide their identity spammers are just like low grade junk mailers.  It is easier to write a generic letter make copies and then write different names on the envelopes. 

Looking at the messages you have had marked as spam I would have to say that they look like spam to me!  Now if you look at the last message that *bobw* posted you will see that there is a valid To: and From:  field, it is that personal touch that makes all the difference.  

So if you really want to vent your bile  you can go after the people at  vintagegamer and macadict for improperly generating the email they are sending you.  If they sent conformant email it would get through 

_Well vintagegamer may not still make it through since it looks like you have put them on your blacklist.  If you read your email through a web interface sometimes there is a button which says something like "I don't ever want mail from these guys!" might you or someone using your account have clicked that on accident?
_

-Eric


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## Giaguara (Sep 12, 2003)

For me everything seems to work fine with the macosx.com mail, at least [another provider] has not forced the Spam Assassin yet.


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## Arden (Sep 12, 2003)

There can be no address in the To: field if all messages are BCC'd, or blind carbon copied (of course, this has nothing to do with Mac OS X's Carbon API's... ).


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## edX (Sep 12, 2003)

ok, i just got one with the spam assassin deal. not a macosx.com notification (which i enabled just to check this out), but one of those "i'm the son of a dead thief and we've got $50,000,000 that we just need your help getting out of a bank" pos emails. 


scott?


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## Jasoco (Sep 12, 2003)

Here is the reply I got today:


> Dear Jason,
> 
> Thank you for your message concerning the Comcast High-Speed Internet
> service.
> ...



Funny they thought I was an idiot Windows user who installed something by accident and wanted Comcast to fix it. I came THIS close to going Mac Zealot on them. 

So, do we know if it is MacOSX.com? Comcast denies all responsibility. This is like Iraq or something. "We do not have any weapons of Spam destruction installed in our country."


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## Jasoco (Sep 12, 2003)

Strange. See what you get when you are persistant?

I just got this new reply after replying to the last:


> Dear Mr. Anderson,
> 
> Thank you for your message concerning the Comcast high speed internet
> service.
> ...



I haven't tested it yet as I am waiting for a new email from one of the formerly SPAM FILTERED addresses.

[Twiddles fingers]


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## Jasoco (Sep 12, 2003)

Damn. Nope. Still getting the emails. What have we heard from Scott?


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## ScottW (Sep 13, 2003)

If you really want to get ahold of me, contact webmaster@macosx.com.

Well, one customer complaint against Spam Assassin. Actually, we have been running SpamAssassin for quite awhile now, just changed how it is handled.

By Monday I will have a script online that will allow you to...

a) have no filtering
b) Keep your **SPAM** coming
c) Let us auto-delete any SPAM

Obviously, if you like the feature overall and have a few sites like MacAddict you want to be white_listed, then we would consider adding them, and then they won't get caught in the filter.

You are unable to modify your own whitelist, blacklist and grading policy.

Most people had spamassassin running before, they just didn't know it.

I had hoped to have the "change your filters" script online faster, but ran into some technical glitches.

Scott


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## Jasoco (Sep 13, 2003)

I don't want to have to White_list sites. I want to white_list all email coming to ME. I want ALL my email. Can you do that?

I'm glad I finally got an answer as too who did it. Even after practically blaming Comcast for it. Not practically. I DID blame them. I blamed them BAD.


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## ScottW (Sep 13, 2003)

Well, that is why it is always good to make sure you have proper information before blaming anyone.

You are still getting all your emails, they just have the spam tag if it finds them to be that. I will see about getting the filter removed for your account.


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## Jasoco (Sep 13, 2003)

I wish you would. It may seem trivial, but that extra text at the beginning of the emails is screwing my whole routine up. And I can't take it!

Go ahead. Call me weird. My friend does. But he doesn't need things the way I do. I don't like scrolling in my Notification Replies! That is what this Spam filter is doing! It is making me scroll. And THAT I can't stand. If Comcast weren't so sucky and Mail didn't keep jumping all the time when trying to access my account, I'd use that. I got MacOSX.com Email because I wanted something permanent that I wouldn't need to change when I change ISP's. And at the price I paid, it was a great deal for what I got it for.

I blamed Comcast first because you guys said it wasn't MacOSX.com. I blamed you first because that's where the email was going through. Now I've alienated myself with the Comcast support people and I hope they forget who I am in case I need their help. I don't want to be put on the list as "Difficult". (Like that Seinfeld episode.)


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## ScottW (Sep 13, 2003)

"I don't want to be put on the list as "Difficult"."

Jasoco, that's okay, you already are.


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## Jasoco (Sep 13, 2003)

Thanks.


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## Giaguara (Sep 14, 2003)

Wow, I got that spam filtering too. Wohoo. I just don't get any spam there anyway .. wait, I think I go and try to send me an email that I'd give the maximum points in the spam filter ... to see how well I can score! I sent once something to a friend and scored 11 points ..


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## Jasoco (Sep 14, 2003)

Yay! It stopped editing them! Me so happy!

Seriously, I am happy. I'm happy to see it stop.


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## Arden (Sep 14, 2003)

Didn't one of your messages score something like 100 points, Jasoco?  Beat that, G!


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## Jasoco (Sep 14, 2003)

Yes. Most of mine only had 5 points. But a couple had 106. This was only because for SOME reason, the address was on "My" Black List.



> ---- Start SpamAssassin results
> 106.40 points, 5 required;
> *  0.8 -- From: does not include a real name
> *  2.6 -- To: is empty
> ...


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## ScottW (Sep 16, 2003)

The bug has been fixed which put "* 100.0 -- From: address is in the user's black-list " inside SPAM point system for items not in the blacklist. This applied mainly to *@*.net addresses.


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