Greetpause seems very ineffective (Was: RE: Increased Volumes Of Spam)

[DAve]

Res wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Alex Neuman wrote:
> 
>> In my particular case I've had to turn off greylisting for a few 
>> servers because the owners would rather throw more resources at the 
>> problem (cpu, ram, etc.) to check mail after it's received. Most 
>> people I know get used to the additional delay after a while, but 
>> there are some users who are more... let's call it "recalcitrant".
>>
> 
> 
> The problem with your annoyance at your paying customers who dont want 
> greylisting comment here is, business emails are time critical, it is 
> unacceptable to delay email destined for lawyers, real estates, 
> accountants and every other company where time is crucial, like those 
> vying for multi-million dollar contracts.
> 
> 
> Picture this:
> 
> its 9.10am a QC is due in high court at 10am
> 
> most hosting mail servers are very busy so its retry queue is set hourly 
> to avoid problems wih normal mail
> 
> QC tells the barrister he needs that info NOW "email it to me"
> barrister sends email 15 seconds later.
> 
> At 9.10 your grey laming said "i dunno if your a lamer or not try again 
> later"
> 
> 9.40 QC must leave for court, its still not there.
> 
> 10.00 its retried and accepted, ..tuff luck the QC is right now before 
> the full bench of the high court about to see his client slammed away fo 
> 30 years because of a lame mail server that delayed the crucial evidence.
> 

We have a considerable number of law offices on our mail servers, they 
have all had greylisting enabled. We do provide a way to opt of 
greylisting per client(domain) and only one has chosen to do so. Their 
spam did not decrease.

Email is not a guaranteed delivery, couriers are. If you go to prison 
because your attorney hinged your defense on the arrival time of an 
email, you chose the wrong attorney.

> 
> OR what about the building sub contractor who just lost out on a 500 
> million dollar project to Donald Trump, he's going to think, if you cant 
> manage to get and read such a simple effortless thing like an email in 
> half an hour do I really want to deal with you.
> 

Real contracts are handled via Fed-Ex overnight, certified mail, web 
based download of RFPs and web based upload of proposals. We have 
contractors as clients as well, and they are do multi million dollar 
contracts at the State level. They do not consider email a critical 
business tool.

> I dunno  maybe you people dont have time crucial customers :)
> 

Several, we  offer to whitelist senders for those communications that 
must use email, and must be delivered without delay. So far we have less 
than ten servers listed. Note also we never preach "email is not 
guaranteed" or "email is not a dependable delivery method". The clients 
are savy enough to know that already.

I handle all email complaints, so far over 4 years we are batting 1000. 
I have found or explained every instance of a slow or missing email 
message. The top problems in order, mis spelled email address in the 
address book, poor RBL choice(people are still using SPAMBAG), "shrink 
wrap" Exchange administrator (Frank in accounting installed Exchange for 
us, but he quit. Bob has been trying to figure it out but sometimes mail 
doesn't work now).

Greylisting may not be a great solution, just a step away from C&R IMO, 
but it will not bring down civilization either ;^)

DAve


-- 
Three years now I've asked Google why they don't have a
logo change for Memorial Day. Why do they choose to do logos
for other non-international holidays, but nothing for
Veterans?

Maybe they forgot who made that choice possible.