3 ms·

Can you elaborate on „email sending isn’t free“? What are you using to host the webapp? Can’t you just set up your own mail server and send whatever you want?

imron 2y ago
Generally, no, unless you don’t care whether it’s delivered or not Too many people and companies abused this to the point that running your own mail server means much of the generic mail you send will end up in junk/spam folders.
- fooker 2y ago
  It won’t even be delivered in most cases.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    What would prevent delivery? I do some work for a small organization and we send out registration confirmations with a self-hosted webserver. I am not aware of any delivery problems there. Thats why I was surprised. Are we just lucky?
    - m3047 2y ago
      You are just lucky. You can contact me if you want to discuss further, I would strongly recommend you don't do it here.
- echoangle 2y ago
  For a login link, I wouldnt really care if its in the spam folder. The person is actively looking for the mail, surely they will find it? It's different for marketing or similar content, but for expected mail, I wouldn't care.
  - stavros 2y ago
    You'd be surprised at how many messages I've gotten about expected emails not arriving, only for them to say "oh yeah, it was in spam, thanks!".
skywhopper 2y ago
[flagged]
arnaudsm 2y ago
I worked on email delivery systems. Your comment makes me realize that something that was free and trivial in the 90s is now painfully complex and expensive, because of monopolistic practices and spammers. We ruined something great.
- m3047 2y ago
  A lot of email reputation at this point, in fact I'd say most of it, is FUD. Here is a current example I am a hostage of: Sys4 (an ESP) uses Abusix as a reputation service. Because this is poorly thought out (I've been a member of the mailing list for many years) I can't unsubscribe from the postfix-users@ mailing list (can't post either). Ok that's weird and funny in a way. We could talk about Sys4's procedural failures which go into it but we would be here all day. I did Abusix's PYLM and they unblocked me, only to eventually block me again; that's when I found out I couldn't unsubscribe. I could PYLM again but I don't care. But that gave them an email address in the domain that they block. Do you see where this is going yet? I promise you there will be a twist at the end! Funny thing is, I can send email to support@. Well, ok, so I think it's probably good that they don't subject their support channel to their dog food, because third parties reporting vulnerabilities is a trope in cybersecurity. Aaand, here we go. So last week they sent UCE to that email address. That's right: they sent a marketing email to a domain that they block. I did not check any boxes "please, I'm a hostage, send me your marketing info and saaaave meeeee!" when I was talking to their support about what I could provide to my ISP. No boxes are checked now either, I verified this. So, I responded to that email and said I'd be delighted to learn more about their product, please have Sales contact me. The marketing SPAM came from support@, the reply from Sales came from a person's email. Now we're no longer talking about that hypothetically exempt support@ channel, we're talking about corporate infrastructure. If their dog food is so good: * Why is corp accepting email from a domain they block? * Why is Sales sending email to a domain they block? Here's the twist I promised you: Do a DNS lookup for their MX: it's Google! They don't eat their own dog food, at all! Google has no problem with my domain; that's a general observation. If Google doesn't use their reputation service, why should you? For the skeptical: http://athena.m3047.net/pub/soe/abusix-spam-backstory.html http://athena.m3047.net/pub/soe/abusix-spam-backstory.html My call with their Sales department is tomorrow morning; should be good times.

imron 2y ago

Generally, no, unless you don’t care whether it’s delivered or not Too many people and companies abused this to the point that running your own mail server means much of the generic mail you send will end up in junk/spam folders.

fooker 2y ago
It won’t even be delivered in most cases.
- echoangle 2y ago
  What would prevent delivery? I do some work for a small organization and we send out registration confirmations with a self-hosted webserver. I am not aware of any delivery problems there. Thats why I was surprised. Are we just lucky?
  - m3047 2y ago
    You are just lucky. You can contact me if you want to discuss further, I would strongly recommend you don't do it here.
echoangle 2y ago
For a login link, I wouldnt really care if its in the spam folder. The person is actively looking for the mail, surely they will find it? It's different for marketing or similar content, but for expected mail, I wouldn't care.
- stavros 2y ago
  You'd be surprised at how many messages I've gotten about expected emails not arriving, only for them to say "oh yeah, it was in spam, thanks!".

skywhopper 2y ago

[flagged]

arnaudsm 2y ago

I worked on email delivery systems. Your comment makes me realize that something that was free and trivial in the 90s is now painfully complex and expensive, because of monopolistic practices and spammers. We ruined something great.

m3047 2y ago
A lot of email reputation at this point, in fact I'd say most of it, is FUD. Here is a current example I am a hostage of: Sys4 (an ESP) uses Abusix as a reputation service. Because this is poorly thought out (I've been a member of the mailing list for many years) I can't unsubscribe from the postfix-users@ mailing list (can't post either). Ok that's weird and funny in a way. We could talk about Sys4's procedural failures which go into it but we would be here all day. I did Abusix's PYLM and they unblocked me, only to eventually block me again; that's when I found out I couldn't unsubscribe. I could PYLM again but I don't care. But that gave them an email address in the domain that they block. Do you see where this is going yet? I promise you there will be a twist at the end! Funny thing is, I can send email to support@. Well, ok, so I think it's probably good that they don't subject their support channel to their dog food, because third parties reporting vulnerabilities is a trope in cybersecurity. Aaand, here we go. So last week they sent UCE to that email address. That's right: they sent a marketing email to a domain that they block. I did not check any boxes "please, I'm a hostage, send me your marketing info and saaaave meeeee!" when I was talking to their support about what I could provide to my ISP. No boxes are checked now either, I verified this. So, I responded to that email and said I'd be delighted to learn more about their product, please have Sales contact me. The marketing SPAM came from support@, the reply from Sales came from a person's email. Now we're no longer talking about that hypothetically exempt support@ channel, we're talking about corporate infrastructure. If their dog food is so good: * Why is corp accepting email from a domain they block? * Why is Sales sending email to a domain they block? Here's the twist I promised you: Do a DNS lookup for their MX: it's Google! They don't eat their own dog food, at all! Google has no problem with my domain; that's a general observation. If Google doesn't use their reputation service, why should you? For the skeptical: http://athena.m3047.net/pub/soe/abusix-spam-backstory.html http://athena.m3047.net/pub/soe/abusix-spam-backstory.html My call with their Sales department is tomorrow morning; should be good times.