Useless ponder

I sent myself an email today (yesterday, actually) and it simply
disappeared.

That caused me to wonder -1- how often that happens -2- why? -3- how
would we really ever know how often, because the vast majority could
easily disappear unnoticed.


The item was sent from one EL earthlink account to another, both of
which accounts are used regularly for receiving mail and EL handles its
spam for the receiving account in question by putting items into a spam
folder, a suspect folder or the inbox.  To the best of my knowledge, EL
does not handle spam by dropping it on the floor, but instead either
rejects it (much less common, I once tho't never) or accepts it and puts
it into the EL known spam folder.

The content of the mail was an empty plaintext with an attached
bookmarks html, which bookmarks html was created by Opera 9.5 beta.
Rather than research the question further, I sent it to a gmail account
for the handling I was seeking.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin

"Mike Easter" <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote in message 
news:fp6ec4$ihh$1@news.spamcop.net...
>I sent myself an email today (yesterday, actually) and it simply
> disappeared.
>...

Far more large providers than you might guess drop mail on the floor, lots 
of it. Few admit it. Fewer actually reject (5xx)significant amounts of mail 
at the boundary. 

"Frog Prince" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message 
news:fp76mf$viv$1@news.spamcop.net...
...
> I've had an ongoing problem with Charter Communications on this subject 
> for
> near 20 months (that I know of).
>
> Email from me to my wife on the same account (different addys) go missing
> this includes cc: emails from my own account to my own account.
>
> Charter claims they are not filtering much less using spam blocking 
> software
> yet I'm told to send an email to unblock@charter.net (which bounces more
> often than not but does not seem to make any difference)
>
> Interesting aside: I'm receiving two copies of spam (but only one copy of
> legit email).  Charter support says this is the result of the spam 
> filtering
> software (which they previously claimed they were not using)
>
> This will only get worse if Net Neutrality is not mandated.
>
> FWIW ATT has already blocked some of my wife's emails to clients when
> sending her work product.  Presumable because there is a copyright notice.

I don't know the facts, only the provider admins would, but Vern Schryver of 
NANAE fame would say that if you use email for a business, you owe it to 
yourself to make your own, or contract for a, reliable email service. His 
argument is that if email is important, you simply cannot rely on consumer 
grade (what he calls nanny grade) service. You can't or won't know if or how 
your mail is filtered, wether in or out bound. Or put up with mystery 
missing mail.

I tend to agree given my admittedly narrow view from 5 major ISP's, work 
(bigger net than most ISP's) and free mail services. 

"Mike Easter" <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote in message 
news:fp6ec4$ihh$1@news.spamcop.net...
|I sent myself an email today (yesterday, actually) and it simply
| disappeared.
|
| That caused me to wonder -1- how often that happens -2- why? -3- how
| would we really ever know how often, because the vast majority could
| easily disappear unnoticed.
|
|
| The item was sent from one EL earthlink account to another, both of
| which accounts are used regularly for receiving mail and EL handles its
| spam for the receiving account in question by putting items into a spam
| folder, a suspect folder or the inbox.  To the best of my knowledge, EL
| does not handle spam by dropping it on the floor, but instead either
| rejects it (much less common, I once tho't never) or accepts it and puts
| it into the EL known spam folder.
|
| The content of the mail was an empty plaintext with an attached
| bookmarks html, which bookmarks html was created by Opera 9.5 beta.
| Rather than research the question further, I sent it to a gmail account
| for the handling I was seeking.

I've had an ongoing problem with Charter Communications on this subject for 
near 20 months (that I know of).

Email from me to my wife on the same account (different addys) go missing 
this includes cc: emails from my own account to my own account.

Charter claims they are not filtering much less using spam blocking software 
yet I'm told to send an email to unblock@charter.net (which bounces more 
often than not but does not seem to make any difference)

Interesting aside: I'm receiving two copies of spam (but only one copy of 
legit email).  Charter support says this is the result of the spam filtering 
software (which they previously claimed they were not using)

This will only get worse if Net Neutrality is not mandated.

FWIW ATT has already blocked some of my wife's emails to clients when 
sending her work product.  Presumable because there is a copyright notice. 

"Mike Easter" <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote in message 
news:fp6ec4$ihh$1@news.spamcop.net...
>I sent myself an email today (yesterday, actually) and it simply
> disappeared.
>
> That caused me to wonder -1- how often that happens -2- why? -3- how
> would we really ever know how often, because the vast majority could
> easily disappear unnoticed.

Nuts, where is my memory.....I ran into the same problem with the new 
machine not downloading email to one of my two comcast accounts, it simply 
disappeared into the either, no bounce, no nothing (sounds impossible, 
doesn't it?).

<memory flashback> Oh! Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me!  <did you pick
me?>

Remembered what the problem was, not saying it's going to help you, but it 
was what was failing in my case. During my transition from my old computer 
to my new one, Comcast changed the security settings on their email 
accounts -- passwords had to be 8 characters or more and include numbers. 
After resetting the password online at Comcast, I made the account setting 
change in my mail program and everything worked. It would have been nice of 
them to tell me about the change, dotcha think? But get this -- my original 
email account, which is my official Comcast username, was allowed to keep 
it's old 6 character PW!