intertwingly

Mark Pilgrim: My attempts at compartmentalization have failed. There is only one inbox.

Nearly three decades ago, I had an opportunity to witness the effect of an email sent to a select group being widely forwarded.  I no longer remember the details, but I do remember the decision that I made at that time.  Ironically, it is not a decision that I widely publicize as I do not condone breaking of netiquette.  But it was that decision that leads me to open source, open standards, and blogging.

But this post isn’t about that.  It is about a failure that has begun to affect me:

From xxxx@gmail.com  Sun Mar 28 15:25:52 2010
Return-Path: <xxxx@gmail.com>
X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.5 (2008-06-10) on vanadium.sabren.com
X-Spam-Level: *****
X-Spam-Status: Yes, score=5.8 required=5.0 tests=DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS,
    FH_DATE_PAST_20XX autolearn=disabled version=3.2.5
X-Spam-Report:
    *  2.4 DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS RBL: Envelope sender listed in bl.open-whois.org.
    *  3.4 FH_DATE_PAST_20XX The date is grossly in the future.

I don’t understand DNS_FROM_OPENWHOIS RBL or why that would affect everything sent from gmail, but I do recognize FH_DATE_PAST_20XX as bug 6269.  Apparently, when combined this means that I didn’t see anything in the past week or so from a number of sources, including not only gmail but yahoo and my publisher.

Update: I need to clarify that this does not affect the apache secretary email address.