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Stop spreading FUD. I've been running my own email server for a year without delivery issues to Gmail or Outlook/Office 365. Just make sure your VPS IP is not

Stop spreading FUD. I've been running my own email server for a year without delivery issues to Gmail or Outlook/Office 365. Just make sure your VPS IP is not blacklisted, and play the DKIM/etc game. You'll be fine.

kuschku 10y ago
It’s not that easy. I’ve had proper DKIM, proper SPF, my IP wasn’t blacklisted anywhere. But I still ended up in Spam. So I had to send for about a year emails to friends every few days, replicating our discussions on WhatsApp etc (so they’d have organic content), and I’d ask them to mark them as "not spam". Now I end up in their normal Inbox. EDIT: Why the downvotes? Please comment instead what you think is wrong – or how else do you think I should get my personal domain trusted?
- 4ad 10y ago
  That is correct, the age of the domain and the "not spam" click matter a lot. If you want a new domain and have little traffic (e.g. personal domain), you're fucked.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- rhapsodic 10y ago
  > EDIT: Why the downvotes? Please comment instead what you think is wrong – or how else you think I should get my personal domain trusted enough? I don't understand the downvotes either. So I upvoted your comment to counteract them. I've found myself doing that more and more lately. I'll upvote a comment I disagree with if it was made politely and in good faith, and it appears to be getting downvoted unfairly.
- kuschku 10y ago
  UPDATE: In case someone ever wants to know more details about why my server failed verification, here are checks for that domain I took when changing DKIM keys last (today): http://i.imgur.com/9zqILRk.png http://i.imgur.com/9zqILRk.png https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3akuschku.de&run=toolpage https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3akusc... http://i.imgur.com/VIH4jlt.png http://i.imgur.com/VIH4jlt.png
  - bigbugbag 10y ago
    thanks for making me learn about mail-tester.com though you should probably obfuscate the email addresses in those images.
    - kuschku 10y ago
      Don't worry — those email addresses in the images are public ones controlled by me. I even have one of them in my HN profile if I recall correctly.
LyndsySimon 10y ago
Thank you for this. I plan to roll my own email server in the near future, due to legal and privacy concerns. As I understand it, in the US email archives aren't protected under the Fourth Amendment because they're asking for data from a third party, and the Fourth Amendment only applies to self-incrimination.
- aidenn0 10y ago
  IANAL, but... 5th amendment is self-incrimination, 4th is unwarranted search and seizure. I don't know the current law, but it used to be that e-mails left on a server for more than 6 months were treated like abandoned property, which has a lower-bar to clear for the 4th amendment. I seem to recall hearing that this was changed a while back though. How the 4th amendment applies to any case is complicated though because it's very much a sliding scale of intrusiveness, with higher levels of intrusiveness requiring more cause for searching.
- quanticle 10y ago
  As I understand it, in the US email archives aren't protected under the Fourth Amendment Currently, as I understand they are not. But, there is legislation [1] which proposes extending Fourth Amendment protection to e-mails and communication stored on your behalf on third party servers. I've already written to my Congressperson in support of that bill. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/387/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/387/
greenyouse 10y ago
Yeah, people can still run their own mail servers without too much work. I've had one for a couple years but I ran into issues with Google tagging my mail as spam at first. It was a while back but I think they want domain owners to verify their ownership with Google's webmaster tools.[1] My server worked better after adding a TXT record with google-site-verification + all the normal DKIM stuff. EDIT: here's a better link https://support.google.com/a/answer/183895?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/183895?hl=en [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35179?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35179?hl=en
nol13 10y ago
The thing is, and this is the current state of email in general, aka not just google, using an email server other than from [big cloud], like say from my local ISP or a large shared hosting provider, you will run into issues. Usually fine, but every few months your (my) server's ip will randomly get blacklisted for a few days, and for a small biz you'll have customers occasionally not receive your email. Random blacklisting maybe is less of an issue if you run your own server with a unique ip only you use, but for most people it's getting harder and harder not to use gmail/outlook/lycos. So ya fuck spammers.

kuschku 10y ago

It’s not that easy. I’ve had proper DKIM, proper SPF, my IP wasn’t blacklisted anywhere. But I still ended up in Spam. So I had to send for about a year emails to friends every few days, replicating our discussions on WhatsApp etc (so they’d have organic content), and I’d ask them to mark them as "not spam". Now I end up in their normal Inbox. EDIT: Why the downvotes? Please comment instead what you think is wrong – or how else do you think I should get my personal domain trusted?

4ad 10y ago
That is correct, the age of the domain and the "not spam" click matter a lot. If you want a new domain and have little traffic (e.g. personal domain), you're fucked.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
rhapsodic 10y ago
> EDIT: Why the downvotes? Please comment instead what you think is wrong – or how else you think I should get my personal domain trusted enough? I don't understand the downvotes either. So I upvoted your comment to counteract them. I've found myself doing that more and more lately. I'll upvote a comment I disagree with if it was made politely and in good faith, and it appears to be getting downvoted unfairly.
kuschku 10y ago
UPDATE: In case someone ever wants to know more details about why my server failed verification, here are checks for that domain I took when changing DKIM keys last (today): http://i.imgur.com/9zqILRk.png http://i.imgur.com/9zqILRk.png https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3akuschku.de&run=toolpage https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3akusc... http://i.imgur.com/VIH4jlt.png http://i.imgur.com/VIH4jlt.png
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  thanks for making me learn about mail-tester.com though you should probably obfuscate the email addresses in those images.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Don't worry — those email addresses in the images are public ones controlled by me. I even have one of them in my HN profile if I recall correctly.

LyndsySimon 10y ago

Thank you for this. I plan to roll my own email server in the near future, due to legal and privacy concerns. As I understand it, in the US email archives aren't protected under the Fourth Amendment because they're asking for data from a third party, and the Fourth Amendment only applies to self-incrimination.

aidenn0 10y ago
IANAL, but... 5th amendment is self-incrimination, 4th is unwarranted search and seizure. I don't know the current law, but it used to be that e-mails left on a server for more than 6 months were treated like abandoned property, which has a lower-bar to clear for the 4th amendment. I seem to recall hearing that this was changed a while back though. How the 4th amendment applies to any case is complicated though because it's very much a sliding scale of intrusiveness, with higher levels of intrusiveness requiring more cause for searching.
quanticle 10y ago
As I understand it, in the US email archives aren't protected under the Fourth Amendment Currently, as I understand they are not. But, there is legislation [1] which proposes extending Fourth Amendment protection to e-mails and communication stored on your behalf on third party servers. I've already written to my Congressperson in support of that bill. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/387/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/387/

greenyouse 10y ago

Yeah, people can still run their own mail servers without too much work. I've had one for a couple years but I ran into issues with Google tagging my mail as spam at first. It was a while back but I think they want domain owners to verify their ownership with Google's webmaster tools.[1] My server worked better after adding a TXT record with google-site-verification + all the normal DKIM stuff. EDIT: here's a better link https://support.google.com/a/answer/183895?hl=en https://support.google.com/a/answer/183895?hl=en [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35179?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35179?hl=en

nol13 10y ago

The thing is, and this is the current state of email in general, aka not just google, using an email server other than from [big cloud], like say from my local ISP or a large shared hosting provider, you will run into issues. Usually fine, but every few months your (my) server's ip will randomly get blacklisted for a few days, and for a small biz you'll have customers occasionally not receive your email. Random blacklisting maybe is less of an issue if you run your own server with a unique ip only you use, but for most people it's getting harder and harder not to use gmail/outlook/lycos. So ya fuck spammers.