Hello, I hope someone here can help me. My web host (Atfreeweb.com) recently implemented IMail for their mail accounts of which I have 10 accounts associated with a web site. Since they rolled out the product, mail that I used to receive on a daily basis is no longer delivered to my inbox. When I inquired about the missing emails, they told me that they were only intercepting email with .zip and .exe attachments. This would not apply to the emails I am not receiving. I went to work with tech support from the sending end of the emails to see if they could trace the problem on their end.

After about a week I got an email directed to all users of Atfreeweb.com's email system that they had upgraded their mail server and web mail was now available and that users could configure filters on their accounts via web mail. I logged into the system which led to me finding Ipswitch as the product provider. An hour or two of reading all the help files thoroughly familiarized me with the product, but still did not resolve the problem of the missing emails.

I contacted Atfreeweb.com's technical support again as from what I read in the help files, I was concerned that the anti-spam filtering was what was keeping the email from reaching my inbox. They swear up and down that they have none of the spam filtering for IMail turned on. The email I received from them said:

Anti-spam option is not available on our mail server due to only DNS black lists provided. We suggest our customers to use client-end anti-spam tools.

Hmmm. I thought I read in your IMail User's Guide that the first five processing rules deal with verification and spam type filtering, only ONE of which involves DNS black lists. If any of these other verification rules are enabled, then the mail I am looking for could still be identified as spam or am I not understanding this correctly?

I'm not sure what the right questions are for me to be asking now. I guess one is, does the spam filtering for IMail come turned on by default when the product is installed? If yes, maybe it is on and they just don't know it? If IMail is deciding that the missing emails are spam, what does it do with them? There is no 'junk mail' folder on the web mail so it doesn't get shuttled there. I know for a fact that Postini catches email from the domains (myucomics.com and fotopages.com) I am no longer receiving emails from as my home ISP rolled that out last year, but I was able to add the domains to an "approved senders list" via their webmail and now email from those domains goes straight to my inbox. I find no option to add or block domains, IP addresses, etc. on the web mail for my Atfreeweb.com accounts.

I don't know enough about the technical details of how email travels to know what I, the end user, need to do next to find out where my email is being stopped. Can someone educate me please?

Thanking you in advance for taking the time to read all this and hopefully bring some resolution to my problem.

Julie

The simple fact is that the end user cannot determine why a message is not delivered without either (a) being able to inspect bounce messages received by remote senders who attempted to send you mail, if extant, or (b) having real access to the anti-spam policies of their provider.If your provider denies having an anti-spam policy, it is still possible (though not too respectable) that they accidentally left an anti-spam component enabled in IMail.  You are correct that DNSBLs are not the only anti-spam features in IMail, so if that quote is complete it's somewhat suspicious.

You can post headers of a few e-mails that _were_ delivered, and we _may_ be able to tell you whether they ARE using IMail's anti-spam tools.  This will only be possible if they are tagging mail with a spam header, including some mail that is forwarded all the way through to the end user's mailbox regardless of having been caught by spam content or connection filters.  The only other result would be ambiguous: we will not be able to tell you conclusively that they are NOT using IMail's anti-spam tools.

--Sandy

------------------------------------
Sanford Whiteman, Chief Technologist
Broadleaf Systems, a division of
Cypress Integrated Systems, Inc.

Defuse Dictionary Attacks: Turn Remote Mailboxes into Aliases on your IMail MX!
  http://www.imprimia.com/products/software/freeutils/ldap2aliases/download/release/

Sandy,

Thank you for your prompt reply. Here are the email headers you wanted to peruse. For the first, I went and found the oldest email to this account that was delivered well before I started having phantom filtering problems and the second is one of the most recent emails. I can't tell much difference between them but then I don't really know what I'm looking at beyond the most obvious (to & from).

Header old:

Unfortunately, there's nothing to distinguish the latter e-mail save the fact that they are now running a version of IMail that has anti-spam capabilities.  There  any headers indicating that a test was failed with "report and deliver" criteria, so there's no way to know whether tests were indeed performed.

You're going to have to get more info from them about the apparent silent deletion of incoming mail.

--Sandy

------------------------------------
Sanford Whiteman, Chief Technologist
Broadleaf Systems, a division of
Cypress Integrated Systems, Inc.

Defuse Dictionary Attacks: Turn Remote Mailboxes into Aliases on your IMail MX!
  http://www.imprimia.com/products/software/freeutils/ldap2aliases/download/release/

Pardon me if this posts twice. I noticed I wasn't logged in and I'm not sure if guest postings are allowed.