Can emails thru geocaching be blocked?

[+GOnTO]

I tried to contact a user "Kartenzwerg" about my TB "My Little Woody" (TBHZFY) that they placed in the cache "Sacrower See" (GCW8RG) on 10/08/06. The emails that I send come back with a message "Undeliverd Mail Return to Sender" with the following text:

 

<silke.eggert@gmx.net>: host mx0.gmx.net[213.165.64.100] said: 550-5.7.1 {mx043} The recipient does not accept mails from 'yahoo.com' over foreign mailservers 550 5.7.1 ( http://www.gmx.net/serverrules ) (in reply to RCPT TO command)

 

Now I have contacted this person in the past without a problem, but suddenly this has changed. The problem is that this cache is in Germany and of course the logs are in German. The logs may mention that my TB is not there, but I don't know. I've posted a note in that cache logs asking English speakers to give me an update, but have not received any replies to date.

 

So can communications be blocked? Why do I get this message now when I have been able to contact this user in the past? Can anyone else try and see if it is just my address that is blocked?

 

Thank you,

 

Gene of GOnTO

[+El Diablo]

Most emails can be blocked. I can choose to block email with certain words, or from certaim IPs.

 

El Diablo

[+teald024]

 

... The problem is that this cache is in Germany and of course the logs are in German. The logs may mention that my TB is not there, but I don't know. I've posted a note in that cache logs asking English speakers to give me an update, but have not received any replies to date. ....

Thank you,

 

Gene of GOnTO

 

I have a solution to your problem that has nothing to do with email blocking. Try copying the text from the logs into an on-line text translation program. One I use frequently is Altavista Babel Fish Translation. Just paste the text into the webpage, select the To and FROM languages and hit TRANSLATE. it will translate most words in the block of text unless they are slang or local dialect.

[+Bad_CRC]

looks like your TB is gone.

 

November 1

Considering the upcoming bad weather, I repacked the Cache. It is now in an ammunition box (hopefully now winterproof, waterproof, and shockproof). I did not find the TB unfortunately.

 

November 1

Hello, the logs do not sound good, so I will get a new container. At least is the Cache still there. About the whereabouts of the TB I can say still nothing, we will however look for it.

Greetings from Bijo

 

October 29

Hello bijo, the Cache is ruined. Probably animals. The bag lay about five meters away from the hiding place. The box had broken or corroded. We protected the contents temporarily with a ZipLoc bag from moisture. That will keep for a while. In the logbook we listed the contents that were found by us. The TB “My Little Woody” (an old acquaintance of us) was not in the box and is gone. Perhaps it was already taken and was not logged. It is possibly taken from the box and lies in the surrounding field - or it was eaten!!!

 

Greetings from Haschawann

Edited November 16, 2006 by Bad_CRC

[Not So Lost Puppies]

I tried to contact a user "Kartenzwerg" about my TB "My Little Woody" (TBHZFY) that they placed in the cache "Sacrower See" (GCW8RG) on 10/08/06. The emails that I send come back with a message "Undeliverd Mail Return to Sender" with the following text:

 

<silke.eggert@gmx.net>: host mx0.gmx.net[213.165.64.100] said: 550-5.7.1 {mx043} The recipient does not accept mails from 'yahoo.com' over foreign mailservers 550 5.7.1 ( http://www.gmx.net/serverrules ) (in reply to RCPT TO command)

 

Now I have contacted this person in the past without a problem, but suddenly this has changed. The problem is that this cache is in Germany and of course the logs are in German. The logs may mention that my TB is not there, but I don't know. I've posted a note in that cache logs asking English speakers to give me an update, but have not received any replies to date.

 

So can communications be blocked? Why do I get this message now when I have been able to contact this user in the past? Can anyone else try and see if it is just my address that is blocked?

 

Thank you,

 

Gene of GOnTO

 

When you try and send your message through GC and have the box checked to show your e-mail address, GC send the e-mail as if was coming from your e-mail host. In your case it makes it look like it is coming from yahoo.com but it is really coming from geocaching.com, some e-mail servers will not accept such e-mail. [sort of like if you recieve a letter that has a return address of Chicago IL, but the postmark shows Atlanta GA. most people wouldn't care, but some would question it and toss it]

 

If you uncheck the box to show your e-mail address, then it will show as coming from geocaching.com and probably be delivered just fine. It will make it harder for them to reply, so include your e-mail address in the actual message.

 

It is abit more technical than that, and I can provide you more info if you would like, as I routinely deal with such problems as a network administrator, and the one in charge of our mail server.

[+BlueDeuce]

'yahoo.com' - there's your problem.

 

I currently cannot email any yahoo account from my ISP, I have to contact these people via their gc.com profile page.

 

If they don't accept emails from yahoo, I suggest getting an account with a different free email provider.

[Not So Lost Puppies]

'yahoo.com' - there's your problem.

 

I currently cannot email any yahoo account from my ISP, I have to contact these people via their gc.com profile page.

 

If they don't accept emails from yahoo, I suggest getting an account with a different free email provider.

 

Warning Technical information:

 

I went to the link provided in the OP, The specific reason they cannot send e-mail through GC.com to others is that yahoo uses the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records, and the recievers e-mail system checks SPF records. SPF information

Yahoo has SPF records which show the mail servers permitted to send e-mail that has yahoo.com in the return address. When you send e-mail through GC (with the show e-mail address checked) it puts your e-mail address as the return address... the receivers e-mail servers says... this says it came from a yahoo.com user, but it didn't come from a yahoo.com server, so I'm rejecting it.

 

BlueDeuce, If you can't send to AOL users either, then your ISP probably doesn't have the proper DNS entries. You would probably not be able to send directly to me either in that case, because while we don't check SPF records, we do require proper DNS entries. That is most frequent issue we run into when someone can't send e-mail to our users.

[+BlueDeuce]

BlueDeuce, If you can't send to AOL users either, then your ISP probably doesn't have the proper DNS entries. You would probably not be able to send directly to me either in that case, because while we don't check SPF records, we do require proper DNS entries. That is most frequent issue we run into when someone can't send e-mail to our users.

 

Oh, I know. Something gets changed there and then something else needs to be upgraded here.

 

I like to blame everybody but me.

[Not So Lost Puppies]

BlueDeuce, If you can't send to AOL users either, then your ISP probably doesn't have the proper DNS entries. You would probably not be able to send directly to me either in that case, because while we don't check SPF records, we do require proper DNS entries. That is most frequent issue we run into when someone can't send e-mail to our users.

 

Oh, I know. Something gets changed there and then something else needs to be upgraded here.

 

I like to blame everybody but me.

 

And in the case of your ISP, you can blame them entirely

[+pppingme]

Actually, if gc.com made the email come "FROM" something at gc.com and set the "reply-to" to be the senders email address, this wouldn't happen.

 

MOST ISP's are starting to implement various things (SPF, DomainKeys, etc) that validate that the email is coming from who it says it is.

 

If gc.com marks the email as being from yahoo.com (or any other domain besides theirs for that matter), an ISP or any email provider SHOULD mark it as spam. If gc.com marked it as being from gc.com and set the reply to header, this problem would not happen.

 

Every time I get an email from another gc.com user sent through the web site, it gets flagged as spam (and I think it should) because it does "appear" to be a forged email, and we all have to admit, if the headers are forged, theres a greater than 99% chance it is not legit...

 

This is a simple fix.

[+Deliveryguy428]

I pulled this off the Geocaching Announcements section, so this might help explain the "blocked email" problem

 

Starting sometime in the last week, Yahoo has implemented some sort of greylisting for its Yahoo Mail service. Unlike normal greylisting implementations which usually only greylists an IP address once, Yahoo appears to be greylisting every single email that is sent to them.

 

Unfortunately, with the volume of email we send to Yahoo everyday (and especially on Thursdays with the new cache notification emailer), when our mail server retries to send all the deferred email, we're being hit with Yahoo's rate controls which are delaying all those messages further. So while normal greylisting should only cause email delays of ~15 minutes or so, we currently have an enormous queue of email that's been delayed for over 8 hours.

 

I'll attempt to contact Yahoo to see if they have some sort of whitelist we can be added to. But based on reports from other mail administrators around the net, I'm not anticipating much help from Yahoo and I don't expect this problem to be solved soon.

 

I'll post an update here when more information becomes available.

 

Elias

[Not So Lost Puppies]

Actually, if gc.com made the email come "FROM" something at gc.com and set the "reply-to" to be the senders email address, this wouldn't happen.

 

MOST ISP's are starting to implement various things (SPF, DomainKeys, etc) that validate that the email is coming from who it says it is.

 

If gc.com marks the email as being from yahoo.com (or any other domain besides theirs for that matter), an ISP or any email provider SHOULD mark it as spam. If gc.com marked it as being from gc.com and set the reply to header, this problem would not happen.

 

Every time I get an email from another gc.com user sent through the web site, it gets flagged as spam (and I think it should) because it does "appear" to be a forged email, and we all have to admit, if the headers are forged, theres a greater than 99% chance it is not legit...

 

This is a simple fix.

I agree, it should be a very simple fix. And it should have been that way from the start. There isn't any reason to "fake" the address as GC has been doing. Reply-to would work just as well, or just including the e-mail address in the body of the message after the Profile link if someone checks the 'include address' box.

 

It is also simple to test out, if you get a rejected e-mail you sent through GC.com, go back and uncheck the "include my e-mail address" box and see if that works.

[+K0BKL]

You should know that Iowa Telecom is blocking mail from Groundspeak

for reported spam violations. I tried to contact a cacher and it bounced.

The bounce message from Groundspeak contained the e-mail address,

so I was able to go direct.

Edited November 25, 2006 by K0BKL