privatisation-narrow
Some reasons to not use Gmail
In no particular order; it started as forward-chronological, then
became reverse-chronological…
In general, when it comes to security they are complete imbeciles
pretending to be serious.
Now the twats have blocked an email from my bank!
Where do they recruit these dickheads?
An email from a respected Australian newspaper (no, not "The Australian"
tripe) containing a password reset link was deemed to be spam; WTF?
I wonder whether these clowns can even manage to wipe their own arses
without assistance…
They incorrectly claim that headers in forwarded email are duplicated
(they are not).
They quietly discard email deemed to be too offensive for your delicate
sensibilities or something, and they don't even tell you (the recipient,
not the sender).
My mail-server is told that it was accepted, and my smart-phone (which
syncs with Google) is told that it arrived, so where the bloody hell
is it (and no, it's not in the spam folder)?
This is EVIL.
How hard would it be to quarantine it instead, and let me decide for myself?
It seems to have nothing to do with DKIM (or lack of it).
They seem to have something against activist organisations (such as GetUp)
whereby their mail is constantly treated as spam; there seems to be no way
to "teach" the algorithm.
Were they outed by them at one time?
When posting to a mailing list, you generally don't see your own post
come back i.e. you don't know whether it hit the list unless other users
refer to it.
Many of their servers are listed on various DNSBLs, and they don't care;
I'm getting tired of whitelisting lazy users who use
“Reply All” instead of “Reply to List”
(another whinge of mine). I'll probably end up removing
all those exceptions and let nature have her way…
They are a notable source of spam, and they don't care (and I'm not
talking about forgeries).
Mail that fails DKIM tests is quietly discarded; I have no idea how Gmail
lusers handle mailing lists (e.g. Mailman) that insert the list name into
the Subject: header.
They quietly discard email with the same Message-ID, so woe betide you if you
forward a message again, because you deleted the original.
They have no “postmaster@” and
“abuse@” addresses in violation of the RFCs,
nor indeed any discernible spam-reporting addresses at all.
They gratuitously subscribe you to Gmail+, which appears to be some
wanky social forum or other.
Similarly, they send you unwanted YouTube crap (which I would never
use in a fit); given that Google own YouTube, I guess they won't take
any action…
The "Spam" button is stupidly next to the "Delete" button, and in
the same style; there seems to be no way to undo this.
Imbeciles\…
They ignore all feedback.
Lines with adjacent URLs seem to be concatenated together, thus rendering
them useless.
The "Show original mail" option completely screws up the print
formatting if you want to inspect the headers.
They appear to share your personal information, if you were idiotic
enough to click upon their “Yes, I agree to sacrifice my first-born
upon your altar” i.e. “We Are Too Big To Be Blocked”.
Further to the above, I created a new domain and sent mail to it from
my Gmail account (the only place that I've ever used it, ever, and it's not
the WHOIS contact); that email address started getting spammed shortly
afterwards. Coincidence? Draw your own conclusions…
It seems that they're into RST-scanning the net; this from a TCPDUMP that
I happened to be running at the time:
10:49:34.744707 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 42, id 7956, offset 0, flags [none], proto TCP (6), length 40)
mail-la0-f45.google.com.41135 > aneurin.kfu.smtp: Flags [R], cksum 0xe90a (correct), seq 321740890, win 0, length 0
And now they're into FIN scanning:
20:53:35.876000 IP crawl-66-249-67-152.googlebot.com.62908 > aneurin.kfu.http: Flags [F.], seq 1015465865, ack 1575976386, win 336, options [nop,nop,TS val 494481131 ecr 4240944154], length 0
20:53:36.535754 IP crawl-66-249-67-152.googlebot.com.62908 > aneurin.kfu.http:
Flags [F.], seq 0, ack 1, win 336, options [nop,nop,TS val 494481791 ecr 4240944154], length 0
20:53:37.855915 IP crawl-66-249-67-152.googlebot.com.62908 > aneurin.kfu.http: Flags [F.], seq 0, ack 1, win 336, options [nop,nop,TS val 494483111 ecr
4240944154], length 0
20:53:40.496144 IP crawl-66-249-67-152.googlebot.com.62908 > aneurin.kfu.http: Flags [F.], seq 0, ack 1, win 336, options [nop,nop,TS val 494485751 ecr
More slimy stuff; this from my firewall summary, now that I'm paying
attention:
18:02:56.371028 IP crawl-66-249-75-55.googlebot.com.33089 > aneurin.kfu.http:
Flags [R], seq 4021147379, win 0, length 0
If they want to know whether I'm running a web server, then why not be
honest and just connect to it?
There appears to be no way to reply inline to messages, thus engendering
contempt for existing email etiquette.
They don't verify their senders:
Date: Sep 23 08:49:19 (08MMn630008083)
from=
relay=mail-vk1-f193.google.com [209.85.221.193]
reject=450 4.7.1 ... I greylist Gmail
They allow backscatter:
Date: Sep 23 14:04:10 (08N43vSc009231)
from=<>
relay=mail-pf1-f196.google.com [209.85.210.196]
reject=450 4.7.1 ... I greylist Gmail
“Don't be evil”, huh?
You be the judge.
(Update: they have quietly dropped the "no evil" mantra; hmmm…)
What is it with these morons anyway? They must hire from the local
chimpanzee enclosure or something…
Consider using Hotmail instead; they have
really cleaned up their act, and actually have a reporting
address.
Actually, anyone using a "free" email provider will get exactly the
service for which they paid i.e. zero.
And let's not forget Google Drive which is completely fscked in the head
(as is anything to do with that mob)…
Comments from Gmail-droids may be ignored (but possibly shared
and/or posted here), and additions are sought if they can be proven.
And if you think that I have an attitude towards Gmail lusers and I regard
them as second-class citizens, you're probably
right; are they too cheap to get a real email address?
And if you have a “cute” address then don't expect me to
recognise it and whitelist you…
If you're silly enough to want to email me (and fancy your chances
of getting past my
spam filters) then try
here;
if you are a filthy spammer who wants to be added to my
oubliette
then you can't go past
this
link.
If you're morbid enough to want to see my excuse for a home page
then it's over
here
somewhere.
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)
dave@horsfall.org
