Hotmail not receiving challenge email?

[EarlCat]

I've tried twice, and twice my hotmail addres has not received a confirmation challenge email.

Account Information...
My username is earlcat@vqme.com. The email was sent from hotmail on Feb 1 at 11:24pm CST

I also sent one from xo.com Feb 2 at 9:41AM CST for which I never got a challenge.

[--VQ--]

There are three possible explanations here:

1. The sender confirmation letter was blocked by an antispam program at the original sender. If it was inappropriatelyidentified, it may be in the sender's bulk mail folder.

2. The sender's ISP has temporarily blocked the IP address of our challenge server, because it has classified our server as spammer (see this bulletin).

3. In our efforts to avoid #2 above, our challenge server may have decided to suppress the challenge, based on a high confidence that the original message was spam - or that the sender had misused the "From Address" of an unrelated and innocent person. (details)

We can help determine if #3 applies. Based on your information above, we will contact you with the specific challenge information.

[EarlCat]

I've been on vanquish less than 24 hours, and I've already had three addresses at three different domains not receive their challenge emails.

When users get a challenge email, it usually comes from "confirm-username=domain.com@spamguard.vanquish.com" and contains some auto-generated link like "http://confirm.vanquish.com/?U=asdf/hjklYKasdft234blahblahblah" I'm sorry, but this looks like spam, and that's a BIG problem--a deal breaker for many, I'm sure.

Searching through pages of held mail looking for a good address isn't much different than searching through pages of spam looking for a good email except the former costs $25/year.

Now the solution. The more the challenge email appears to be a personal response, the more likely the original sender is going to see it...and the better the Vanquish system will be for everyone. How do we do that?

Think if the challenge email instead appeared as a direct reply from us (sent from our own email address and through our own ISP's SMTP server), completely indiscernable from if we had hit the "reply" button at home. The message would appear in our own words followed by a fixed link to our own custom verification page (http://earlcat.vqme.com or maybe even http://verify.earlcat.com for users with their own domain) where the sender could simply enter his email address(es) and the challenge words.

[--VQ--]

This is an excellent suggestion, and one that comes up from time to time. Now may be a good time to reexplore our decision to issue challenges from a centralized server, and also the issue of customized challenges...

Currently, Vanquish consolidates challenges and sends them from a central server. That's because we wish to avoid the black-listing of our customers' individual providers or even their own IP addresses. It is a distinct possibility, becuase spammers often use fake addresses - including honeypots or addresses of innocent victims.

But now, we are fighting back effectively. We are phasing in a new decision process that cuts back on more than 90% of challenges, based on the likelihood that the original message was clearly spam or was posing as an innocent 3rd party (someone unrelated to the mailing altogether).

When these changes are complete, we will consider making three significant changes:

1. Issuing challenges from an account at your own ISP. We should be able to do this for any ISP that uses our technologu - even if they simply use our free tool kit.

2. Issuing challenges under your own name and address (with your explicit configuration asking us to do so, of course).

3. Issuing a fully customized confirmation letter. That is, written in your own words. Even more exciting, we anticipate the the web page (the challenge itself) may be presented in the language of the visitor, based on his browsers language setting.

These changes will take time. But we are already shifting in this direction. This bulletin provides additional information about our new process which significantly reduces the issuing of confirmation letters.

[--VQ--]

Hi Earlcat,

1. The challenge to opinionnation@hotmail.com was issued to Hotmail last night at 11:24 PM EST as was accepted. That means it is in the users IN box or bulk mail folder.

However, you should be aware that Vanquish only challenges a given user once in three days. When the sendcer clicks the link within the challenge, they are brought to a web page that lists all messages that have arrived subsequent to the original message - and all will be released when the challenge is answered.

2. Likewise, the challenge to xo.com was also issued within 1 minute of the original inbound email.

3. In our article on the CS column, you stated that you do not see the column. The beta test of our Bayesian filter is being periodically stopped and started. It is offline this week. Therefore, you may not see the column. That program is intended to do two things:

1. Allow messages out of held mail if they are very similar in context and tone to the messages that you receive from trusted parties
2. Supporess the confirmation letter to the ones that are most clearly spam. That is, they are were sent from known spam engines or they are substantially similar to undesirable content that is widely disbursed among our many customers.

[EarlCat]

Thank you for your prompt replies on everything.

The hotmail and xo challenges never reached those inboxes. The one for the hotmail address has not hit the junk mail folder either.