Re: Hotmail's Junk filter gets even worse

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On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:17:01 -0700, Anonymous wrote:

Some time in the last few weeks, Hotmail's Junk filter got even worse. It
now always sends messages from certain senders to my Junk folder, even though
they're on my Safe Senders list, *and* I have the filtering level set to Low.

The extra-ironic part is that some of my contacts who are sending from
Hotmail addresses end up in the Junk. Why doesn't Hotmail trust its own
legitimate messages?

(Of course the junk filter doesn't catch all kinds of actual junk, like wire
tranfer scams and stuff.)

I thought the Low setting for the junk filter was supposed to basically turn
off spam filtering. What happened? I'd rather have no filtering at all than
this terrible algorithm which is full of false negatives *and* false
positives.

I've already submitted a bug report and help request to Hotmail, but I don't
expect any positive results from those channels.

Has anyone else seen this problem? Is there anything I can do about it,
besides dropping Hotmail altogether?

What do you see in the headers? I've seen problems when this header line is
present:

| X-SID-Result: SoftFail

Usually accompanied by this line:

| X-SID-PRA: Proper Name <%User_ID%@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Where 'example.com' has an SPF record, and this line:

| Received: from bay0-omc3-s5.bay0.hotmail.com ([65.54.246.205]) by bay0-imc3-s29.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2444);
| Tue, 8 Apr 2008 14:08:09 -0700

Does not have an IP address in the "from {server hostname}..." section which
is in the domain SPF record (i.e., [65.54.246.205] is *not* listed in the
'example.com' SPF record.)

It is entirely feasible to send from 'hotmail.com', without going through
the Windows Live Hotmail servers. Consider the following:

| X-Message-Delivery: Vj0zLjQuMDt1cz0wO2w9MDthPTA=
| X-Message-Status: n:0
| X-SID-PRA: Proper Name <%User_ID%@xxxxxxxxxxx>
| X-SID-Result: SoftFail
| X-Message-Info: R00BdL5giqol9wyllATtX3cDKBufl0Qkxa/vpe4g/058mOUUZQLj29eYMtryhK/l9Wp0Q0ARYj0tUo+AnNzYlEtX7r8UN/oY
| Received: from smtp119.sbc.mail.sp1.yahoo.com ([69.147.64.92]) by bay0-mc9-f8.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.2668);
| Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:58:19 -0700
| Received: (qmail 96225 invoked from network); 16 Aug 2008 05:58:19 -0000
| Received: from unknown (HELO KOZUE) (ssglogin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with login)
| by smtp119.sbc.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with SMTP; 16 Aug 2008 05:58:18 -0000
| X-YMail-OSG: D1meDSkVM1lfm_KSSyCwMqelAzx3quHsy12gKxHeKzIHXzIsb1Y3cv40pMYKADCrgBJBJN3jsmSNs3RvTfNqUkfjDjV56bHcMH.K1CeV8Q--
| X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
| Message-ID: <13A7DD0F9E27467AA5BFD66357C8F510@KOZUE>
| From: "Proper Name" <%User_ID%@xxxxxxxxxxx>
| To: <%User_ID%@xxxxxxx>
| Subject: [TEST] Just to prove a point about Hotmail
| Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:58:10 -0700
| MIME-Version: 1.0
| Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
| boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0005_01C8FF2A.63DD3590"
| X-Priority: 3
| X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
| X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512
| X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5579
| Return-Path: %User_ID%@xxxxxxxxxxx
| X-OriginalArrivalTime: 16 Aug 2008 05:58:19.0135 (UTC) FILETIME=[152168F0:01C8FF65]

Despite that Hotmail received it, and it was sent by a Hotmail user
(myself!), Hotmail flags it with the "SoftFail" because Hotmail has
***NOT*** designated Yahoo! mail servers as authorized to send for
'hotmail.com'. This one, received in Windows Live Mail, was not flagged as
"Jun", but it will not change the "Unknown Sender" flag, even when I click
on the "Allow sender" in the status bar. The "SoftFail" is the reason why.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum
.

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