My emails to a recipient in a local government Dept are blocked

[Guest]

My legitimate emails to people in a particular local government organisation
are blocked; the intended recipients receive a message generated by
MIMEsweeper: "An email intended for you from [myname@ mydomain.com] has been
blocked at the email gateway."
Their IT dept is unhelpful and will not investigate why my emails are
blocked. They say it is probably because of attachments; however, even test
emails with no attachments are blocked.
Any suggestions how I can overcome this? I use MS Outlook via my ISP. I do
not use Exchange

 

[Noel All]

Your IP address "may" be on a Relay Blacklist (RBL) but the error usually
says this, in any event you may be able to get the IP address from the
header and check against a RBL site, there is a list here
http://www.email-policy.com/Spam-black-lists.htm, if your IP is on the list
then you may have to talk to your ISP. Failing that you may have to talk to
IT and see if they will whitelist your email address.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

If their minesweeper is blocking your mail, you have no control over it - it
could be because of the email domain or ISP you use, not the content. Their
IT department could easily "whitelist" your address - the employee you are
contacting would need to make the request. If IT still refuses and it is a
government agency that operates with public funds, make a stink about it to
your local media.

 

[Vanguard \(NPI\)]

My legitimate emails to people in a particular local government
organisation
are blocked; the intended recipients receive a message generated by
MIMEsweeper: "An email intended for you from [myname@ mydomain.com] has
been
blocked at the email gateway."
Their IT dept is unhelpful and will not investigate why my emails are
blocked. They say it is probably because of attachments; however, even
test
emails with no attachments are blocked.
Any suggestions how I can overcome this? I use MS Outlook via my ISP. I
do
not use Exchange

Are you using your own mail server to send your messages? If so, do you
have a dynamic or static IP address for your NAT router or for your mail
server host? Many recipients will block e-mails from sending mail servers
with a dynamically assigned IP addresses because the vast majority of those
are infected hosts running trojan mailer daemons. If you want to send
e-mails from your own domain using your own mail server, get a static IP
address.

Also, if you are using a dynamic IP address for your mail server, it is
likely that you are not running a DNS server on your domain against which a
receiving mail server can yank your DNS records to see if you recorded a MX
record denoting which externally-facing hosts may be used as mail servers on
your domain. Some recipients, like AOL, will refuse e-mails from a host
where that domain's DNS server is unreachable or it doesn't provide an MX
record that shows the sending mail server host is authorized to send mails
from that sending domain.

If the receiving mail server rejects your e-mail, it should do so during the
mail session it has with your sending mail server (whether you are running
one or you are using your ISP's e-mail server). That means the NDR
(non-delivery) report should come from your own sending mail server. Check
the headers to see who is listed in the Received headers. If, however, the
receiving mail server is improperly configured, or you used a forwarding
service to deliver your message, a *new* mail gets sent by the target mail
server and sent back to you. Again, you can check the headers to see if the
NDR came from your mail server or theirs.

If your e-mails are getting blocked, you should be getting a NDR. You never
mentioned getting *any* error message (during the mail session) or as an
e-mail. If the receiving mail server blocks or rejects your mail, it should
send something back telling you so. Accepting it but blocking delivery to
the recipients sounds like perhaps they operate a challenge-response e-mail
system and the recipient is expected to authorize delivery of mails from
unknowns.

Since you didn't mention how you are sending your mails, to what type of
mail server you connect, who operates that mail server, never mention
getting an NDR or divulging its contents to us, and with the terse
description of effect at the receiving end, it's going to be near impossible
to figure out why your mails are getting blocked (for delivery with
notification to the recipient) but never rejected (with an NDR returned to
you).

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Diane. I've forwarded your advice to the government dept employee so
he can try once more with IT
Nigel

If their minesweeper is blocking your mail, you have no control over it - it
could be because of the email domain or ISP you use, not the content. Their
IT department could easily "whitelist" your address - the employee you are
contacting would need to make the request. If IT still refuses and it is a
government agency that operates with public funds, make a stink about it to
your local media.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)

My legitimate emails to people in a particular local government
organisation
are blocked; the intended recipients receive a message generated by
MIMEsweeper: "An email intended for you from [myname@ mydomain.com] has
been
blocked at the email gateway."
Their IT dept is unhelpful and will not investigate why my emails are
blocked. They say it is probably because of attachments; however, even
test
emails with no attachments are blocked.
Any suggestions how I can overcome this? I use MS Outlook via my ISP. I
do
not use Exchange