1101: I have to ask, why cant SMX filter out spoofed email claiming to be from @xtra.co.nz Surely to god that would be the easiest thing to filter/block ?
You would think so, but actually it's not so simple (nothing ever is).
I assume you're referring to the case where the Envelope sender is for a valid external domain that passes SPF, but the From header has been set to an @xtra address? The problem with this is that, if all incoming mails of this sort were dropped, you'd break many mailing lists. There are valid scenari where the From header holds a different address to the sending domain - the RFC states that in this case, the Sender header should be set appropriately, but many mailing lists do not do this. In any case, DMARC gets broken whichever way you do it. Dropping legitimate messages for false-positive is seen as worse than accidentally letting some spam through, and so the rule err on the side of caution.
If you want, you could set up your own filter rule (do this via webmail) to delete or quarantine messages with '@xtra.co.nz' in the From header and 'mx.xtra.co.nz' in the Received header (this excludes direct messages form other Xtra users). This should catch all the messages with spoofed From headers, but be warned that it will also potentially catch mailing list messages and other bulk or automated messages that you may want. Consider adding a test that the Header 'Sender' does not exist as well, and excluding any other special cases. Initially you'd want to just flag the messages rather than delete until you're sure you have a working rule.
Making value judgements (e.g. "is this spam?") is notoriously difficult for AI to do accurately, the Xtra filters are actually catching a huge amount that you don't see and only a small fraction are getting through.
Xtra mail also bounces most of my emails from gmail/hotmail so that I now don't bother responding to email from xtra addresses - mainly elderly relatives.
One answer I got from Spark a few months back was to have the Xtra customer log in to webmail, and add your email address to their Xtra address book. This also sometimes seems to work if you're running into problems forwarding mail to the DIA or spamcop from your Xtra account.
cheshirecat: If you want, you could set up your own filter rule (do this via webmail)
Im not worried about a few spams getting through :-)
You could argue (I would), since this @xtra is really for personal , NOT business email, it shouldnt be used for bulk emails sent via a 3rd party system. And so email spoofing should be blocked .
One answer I got from Spark a few months back was to have the Xtra customer log in to webmail, and add your email address to their Xtra address book. This also sometimes seems to work if you're running into problems forwarding mail to the DIA or spamcop from your Xtra account.
This is correct; addresses in your address book are given a positive score when calculating the chance of the message being spam.
1101:
You could argue (I would), since this @xtra is really for personal , NOT business email, it shouldnt be used for bulk emails sent via a 3rd party system. And so email spoofing should be blocked .
Unfortunately there is a huge range of subscribers to Xtramail, spanning home users, hobbyists, and businesses. Some use mailing lists and subscribe to bulk notifications from various businesses. It is impossible to make any useful generalisation about Xtramail users as they span all of the different groups in our population; you can't even say they live in New Zealand as some live overseas for parts of the year, and many go on holiday all over the world.
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