A case study in troubleshooting the email pipeline
How I plumbed the depths of my email server and falsely concluded that the problem was Not My Fault.
Category Archives: email
Adding malicious IPs in DNSBLs to hosts.deny automatically
[See Adding malicious IPs in DNSBLs to iptables automatically for a new and improved version of this that uses iptables instead of hosts.deny, which is necessary since tcpwrappers is mostly deprecated at this point.] I run my own mail server, which means that there are hackers trying 24×7 to break into the server by connecting to… Read More: Adding malicious IPs in DNSBLs to hosts.deny automatically »
My own small encounter with the evil that is Zynga
Much has been written about the fact that Zynga is evil. From my own experience, I’d like to add massively incompetent and law-breaking to the list of adjectives that accurately describe them. A number of days ago, I decided to give Words With Friends, a Scrabble™-like game, on my smart-phone. I was bored, and I wasn’t… Read More: My own small encounter with the evil that is Zynga »
Cision is evil
I’ve recently started receiving a lot of spam from people claiming that they got my email address from Cision. Needless to say, I never gave my email address to Cision, nor have I ever in any way given them permission to spam me themselves or give my email address out to other people. Cision is… Read More: Cision is evil »
My email identity thief is at it again
See my previous articles on this topic. The email identity thief who has been using my email address on-line for years, who apparently goes by the name Diallo Mamadou Oury in real life, has just posted this inexplicable comment on my blog. I posted a response, but I somehow doubt he’ll read or respond to… Read More: My email identity thief is at it again »
Mamadou Diallo still, inexplicably, using my email address all over the internet
For some inexplicable reason, some guy who identifies himself as Mamadou Diallo, a.k.a. Bouba Diallo, has been creating accounts all over the internet using my email address for over two years now. I’ve written about this several times before. It’s still going on… I just got email indicating that he created a Yahoo! account (“m.diallo76”)… Read More: Mamadou Diallo still, inexplicably, using my email address all over… »
Amend the ECPA to protect email privacy!
The privacy of our email is protected by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, passed in 1986, which requires law-enforcement officials to obtain a warrant to intercept and read private email. However, the law has a critical flaw: it does not require a warrant for emails “left on servers” for more than 180 days. This made… Read More: Amend the ECPA to protect email privacy! »
Craigslist email-reply scam and what Craigslist could do to fix it
UPDATE [2013-02-13]: According to this article on Craigslist, as of February 10, 2013, they have implemented and are testing the idea I described below for fixing the problem described in this posting. I recently placed a for-sale ad on Craigslist. I anonymized my email address in the ad, which means that the published email address… Read More: Craigslist email-reply scam and what Craigslist could do to fix… »
Who’s using my email address, and why?
Somebody seems to be using my email address in a weird, ongoing way that doesn’t seem to be benefiting them in any way. The fact that I can’t figure out why they’re doing it concerns me, because I have to suspect that there is some benefit to them, which I just haven’t been able to… Read More: Who’s using my email address, and why? »
A study in contrasts: handling stolen email lists
I try to make a habit of giving out “tagged” email addresses to web sites when I sign up for accounts / mailing lists / whatever. For example, when creating an account at widgets.com, instead of just signing up as “jik@kamens.us”, I might sign up as “jik+widgets@kamens.us”. It ends up in the same mailbox regardless,… Read More: A study in contrasts: handling stolen email lists »