HOPE needs help!!
The enshittification of email has led to their announcement emails getting filed to spam by Google etc al. (We run our own mailserver and have been wrestling with this for *years*, but at least our livelihoods don't depend on it!)
@pluralistic has a great writeup here:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/19/hope-less/#hack-the-planet
Signal boosting because fuck Big Email...
@deflarerOfClouds I hear you!!
Cory did kinda bury the lede - the bit about email is pretty far in:
"Once again, HOPE has been scheduled for its new digs in Queens, July 12-14. Last week, HOPE sent out an email blast to their subscribers telling them the news. They expected to sell 500 tickets in the first 24 hours. They didn't even come close:
https://www.2600.com/content/hope-ticket-sales-update
It turns out that Google and the other major mail providers don't like emails with the word "hacker" in them. The cartel that decides which email gets delivered, and which messages go to spam, or get blocked altogether, mass-blocked the HOPE 2024 announcement. Email may be the last federated, open platform we have, but mass concentration has created a system where it's nearly impossible to get your email delivered unless you're willing to play by Gmail's rules:
@sr3 It's sooooo complicated now! Great thread on it here: https://infosec.exchange/@WPalant/111779066561127096
We switched to a dedicated mail relay, so it's no longer coming from our residential-cable-modem netblock, and that helped a bit. But it's still insanely frustrating.
SPF: ✅ DKIM: ✅ DMARC: ✅ TLS: ✅ GMail: 554 5.7.1 Spam message rejected 🙄
@llorenzin people should just stop using Google and Microsoft email. Just move away to something decent, almost anything else is better. People who keep using those big ones are helping thm keep their position which is really bad.
Also, more organizations should run their own mailservers. Be free!
@llorenzin thanks for answering, I so see what you mean, but:
> I absolutely understand why all
> my non-technical friends use
> Gmail [...] has good spam filtering, [...]
This I think is wrong. Is not the whole point of this discussion re. HOPE is that Google et al has very deeply messed-up spam filtering?
The so-called "spam" filtering behavior is not a reason to use gmail, it is rather a very strong reason to leave gmail.
1/2
I think we need to move the problem from the sender HOPE who did nothing wrong, to gmail and its users. Those users have a problem. They cannot receive important communication because they uise a shitty email provider. Those users should act.
Email is for communication. If your email service does not deliver something important to you, then that is a critical error. The communication system is failing at its core function. Being "feature-rich" is irrelevant compared to that.
2/2
While I understand the urge to run one's own email server (have done it myself), better to use a commercial mail service these days.
Plus one's gotta set up crap like DKIM/SPF/etc even though it all sucks.
I've been very happy with fastmail.com - been with them for around 10 years now.
Lisa Lorenzin (she/her)
Luddite under protest
SiberCecurity
Elias
Deirdre Saoirse Moen