Emails designated as SPAM may NOT add to blocked list

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

In NIS 2010, I have checked the box "Always automatically add emails designated as Spam to my Blocked List."

 

Most times that works fine. However, for email from certain domains, the sending address is NOT added to my Blocked List. Two examples are:

 

anything@whatsnewnnow.com

anything@golf.chtah.com

 

 (Note that these addresses/domains do not appear in my Allowed List.)

 

I did a chat with Norton Customer Service and wasted 45 minutes when the rep never understood the problem I was reporting, and was more interested in taking control of my PC. A follow-up phone call from Norton support allowed better communication. That rep understood the problem, and assured me there was no hidden "white list", but offerred no solution.

 

Why won't these emails auto-add to the Blocked list?

 

<<Edit: removed hyperlinks from the suspicious email addresses>>

Message Edited by TomV on 01-05-2010 02:01 AM
2

Hi Twoboxer

 

What are you using for your email? Email programs and web based email programs usually have blocked senders lists also.

3

Hi Twoboxer,

 

Two quick things:

 

 

  • There were some AntiSpam fixes in the 17.1 release. Can you confirm your Norton version?
  • It would be helpful to get some header info, as Jamesk mentions here

 

 

Thanks,

 

Matt 

4

1. Email program is Outlook 2003 with Junk Mail "feature" set to lowest setting, block only what's on blocked list. Blocked and allowed lists are both empty, so its as non-functional as I can make it.

 

2. NIS 2010 version is 17.1.0.19

 

3. I have 4 sample emails, below are headers from two of them with my email address modded. If you want the other two, just ask:

 


X-Matched: ziffdavismedia-114.ziffdavismedia.tracker.postdirect.com [206.165.242.114]

X-Vitals: 1.112903.1929189.1193702.11.8360
X-Header-Versions:


X-Header-CompanyDBUserName: ziffdavismedia
X-Header-MasterId: 1193702

X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAhJGMMkSRwqc
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA==

 

=============================================

 


X-Matched: mta125.timeinc.chtah.com [66.165.100.173]

X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAARJHEIY=
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA==

 

[edit: Fixed width of post.]

Message Edited by shannons on 01-05-2010 02:47 PM
5

The problem progresses in two ways. There are a couple more email addresses that refuse to auto-add to the Blocked List when I designate them as Spam. But worse . . .

 

I gave up being stubborn and manually added several of these resistant email addresses to my blocked lists, doing so by their *domain*. Despite having its domain on my blocked list, emails from @eletters.whatsnewnow.com are not marked as spam by NIS 2010. They simply sit in my Inbox as legitimate emails.

 

The header is shown again below with @ replaced by % and my email address changed to Twoboxer:

 

Return-Path: <wnn%eletters.whatsnewnow.com>
Delivered-To: Twoboxer
Received: (qmail 17405 invoked by uid 101); 8 Jan 2010 22:04:42 -0000
Received: from ziffdavismedia-113.ziffdavismedia.tracker.postdirect.com by mail32 (envelope-from <wnn%eletters.whatsnewnow.com>, uid 98) with qmail-scanner-2.04st
 (clamdscan: 0.93.1/7495. perlscan: 2.04st. 
 Clear:RC:0(206.165.242.113):.
 Processed in 0.31035 secs); 08 Jan 2010 22:04:42 -0000
Received: from ziffdavismedia-113.ziffdavismedia.tracker.postdirect.com (206.165.242.113)
  by mail32.voicenet.com with SMTP; 8 Jan 2010 22:04:42 -0000
X-Matched: ziffdavismedia-113.ziffdavismedia.tracker.postdirect.com [206.165.242.113]
DomainKey-Signature: q=dns; a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
 s=yesmail1; d=eletters.whatsnewnow.com;
 h=Date:From:Subject: [Norton AntiSpam]To:Message-ID:X-Vitals:List-Unsubscribe:X-Header-Versions:Reply-To:X-Header-CompanyDBUserName:X-Header-MasterId:MIME-Version:Content-Type;
 b=crOLW4cRaGMY2L34QHh+xUR8WxkX9M2eUHNghWDxIAU1vRwKrtc7qS7bUEYxVQzG
 ZPBFyZbAZKRKuuRQkvQV977Xc3JlnCmJHEZ9f6q5f4yItHdQDDT230UapTkphZOK
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:04:39 PST
From: "What's New Now" <wnn%eletters.whatsnewnow.com>
Subject: The Hottest News from the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
To: Twoboxer
Message-ID: <What'sNewNow.62s3y0l5b5.fslk%eletters.whatsnewnow.com>
X-Vitals: 1.112903.1929189.1194884.11.0977
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:ziffdavismedia62s3y0l5b5.6fslk%eletters.whatsnewnow.com?subject=unsubscribe>
X-Header-Versions: What'sNewNow.62s3y0l5b5.fslk%eletters.whatsnewnow.com
Reply-To: What'sNewNow.62s3y0l5b5.fslk%eletters.whatsnewnow.com
X-Header-CompanyDBUserName: ziffdavismedia
X-Header-MasterId: 1194884
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAQAAlg=

6

Hi Twoboxer,

 

The problem has been identified and is part of a larger fix that is winding its way through the release process now. I will update this thread when it becomes available, but I have no release date (hoping before Groundhog day...)

 

Thanks for supplying this detail - it was very helpful.

 

Matt 

7

Thank you for your update. Knowing that you see a problem and have identified the cause is pacifying. Knowing a fix is in the works is satisfying. Makes it easy to be patient for it to arrive . . . its not like anti-spam was perfect anyhow lol.

 

Now if we could get recognition that various versions of NIS and Outlook have conspired over the years (including NIS 2010 and at least Outlook 2003 until today) to prevent some specific emails from ever leaving the Outbox . . . and get a fix for that . . . nah, that's asking too much lol :)

 

Thanks again.