Eumx Horde down, 15 May
 

Seems the Horde interface is down as of now, 17:50 GMT, 15 May
IMAP and Roundcube are ok.

Still down
 

14 hours later (7:50 GMT, 16 May): no change, still down.

I am also having trouble with Horde but ALWM, GO, RC are working fine.

Janusz! why are you so keen on Horde, you may use any one of the other ones.

I know perfectly well there are other interfaces, which work.

But, apart from common mailboxes, each interface has its own contact, identities &c. So the Horde ones are invisible say in roundcube. Besides, horde offers webdisk which I use.

My main gripe is the fact that one of the officially supported interfaces has been down for some 20 hours now, and there is zero information from the support. And yes, I did email them.
That's hardly professional, to put it politely.

Horde is still down. Has anyone been in touch with Fabule? In the past when there has been an outage or problem he often posts here. I wonder why support has been silent?

Emailed support, sent PM to Fabule. No response.

Is it still down?:confused:

No, it's up.

Eumx Horde is now back up.

For the record: it's been up since 18 or 19 May.

Horde down again Thu 27 June
 

And it's down again, Thu 27 June, 19:00 GMT.

Back in working condition, around noon 28 June (European time)

Recent cc's sent to VFEmail as part of messages sent elsewhere from eumx.net have been received in the VFE account's spam folder. I wonder why.

disturbing development
 

Further to the above, I looked carefully at the headers of the message marked "spam" at VFE, and then found some troubling material via search engine.

x-assp-ip-score
• -10 (SSL-TLS-connection-OK)
• -10 (SPF pass)
• 25 (Blocked IP-Country HU (INVITECH MEGOLDASOK ZRT.))
• 17 (DNSBL: neutral, xxxxxxxxxxxx listed in l2.apews.org)
• 20 (Regex: bombRe 'PB 20: for penis' bombRe: 'penis')
x-assp-message-score
• -10 (SSL-TLS-connection-OK)
• -10 (SPF pass)
• 25 (Blocked IP-Country HU (INVITECH MEGOLDASOK ZRT.))
• 17 (DNSBL: neutral, xxxxxxxxxxxx listed in l2.apews.org)
• 20 (Regex: bombRe 'PB 20: for penis' bombRe: 'penis')


--> NOTE TO EMD MODERATORS -- the word 'penis' was used in an academic medical context !!

Some further searching revealed that:

"ZRT is a CLIA certified lab that provides the service of collecting and analyzing specimen samples. You will be submitting health information and ordering tests for informational purposes only. ZRT has a contracted licensed physician who will review your request and authorize the testing service you are purchasing.

"Invitech Megoldasok Zrt., Szigetszentmiklós, IPTV playlist ...
iptv.live/playlist/622287
IPTV M3U playlist provider Invitech Megoldasok Zrt., Hungary the country, the region Pest County, the city of Szigetszentmiklós, posted snyper86.Hungary

Invitech Megoldások Zrt short credit report, official company ...
www.ceginformacio.hu/cr9311294587_EN
Invitech Megoldások Zrt. Company name. Invitech Megoldások Zártkörűen Működő Részvénytársaság. According to Crefoport s.r.o.'s credit report database the Invitech Megoldások Zártkörűen Működő Részvénytársaság registered in Hungary."

This is clear evidence that the text of the message was scanned at some point and a word flagged for content, which apparently indicated at the VFE end that the message was spam, but which also somehow invoked a Hungarian medical lab and a credit reporting database. (Nothing in the message concerned medical testing or the need for it, and nothing about credit or financial matters, let alone anything involving a "playlist"! This is beyond bizarre.)

Does either eumx.net or VFEmail.net now scan the content of messages?

What on earth does this mean? And what does reference to a "blocked IP" mean in this context?

This is very disturbing. Eumx and VFE are not shady providers. I have trusted both for years.

This has knocked me for a loop. Any ideas, analysis, speculation? I am at a loss as to how to regard this development. I suppose I'll send a copy to Rick Romero and to Fabule, but I ask the help of the forum in trying to figure this out, if at all possible.

Many thanks.

Why are you surprised? How can virus and/or spam filtering work without scanning the message content?

And what this has to do with EuMx having been partially down on 15 May (or at any other time)? :eek:

1) If you are using "content" obsessively and hyperliterally to mean anything about the message other than metadata, then there is no point in attempting to answer your oddly dyspeptic query. Common sense, however, would indicate that virus scanning, while of course it must "look" at the body of the message, does so on a purely technical level and is not performed on a linguistically "aware" level that is programmed to "understand" the meaning of the words and can be set to flag words with supposedly sexual connotations (or political ones, or anything else that those controlling the scan are interested in, to ferret out and suppress whatever is proscribed according to their Weltanschauung).

2) Since there was a current EuMx thread going, it seemed tidier simply to add to it (since the message in question originated there), rather than start a brand new thread. Why was this choice bothersome or annoying to you (as it is reasonable to assume it must have been, as your question clearly implies that my doing it this way was somehow irrelevant to the thread)?

I'm in awe of the richness of your vocabulary, in multiple languages It's a pity though that you did not spend some time learning basing concepts of scanning for viruses and spam.

In the circumstances, I'll avail myself of this rather obscure feature of EMD.

a plea for sanity and reason instead of sarcasm and mockery
 

It troubles me to post a personal note about a fellow member of the forum, and I hope that my doing so does not overly vex the moderators -- please try to regard it in parliamentary terms as a "point of personal privilege."

Janusz has announced that he is putting me on his "ignore" list (something which he could perfectly well have done in decorous silence if he wished to spare himself the pain which the mere existence of my posts in a thread apparently causes him, though of course noöne is forcing him at gunpoint to read them if he finds them so intolerably odious; but no, he had to announce to the forum at large that he was placing me on the "ignore" list so he would not even know that I had posted at all, like a bully on a playground proudly trumpeting his decision to send some object of scorn to Coventry), so he will not, of course, be seeing this message. I note, however, that his public announcement of his banishing me from his ken could have no practical purpose other than to indulge an unlovely impulse to share his mysterious scorn with others and to inflict insult and distress. I have encountered nothing like it since grade school -- all that was lacking was his dancing around me with thumbs in his ears, wiggling his other fingers and chanting "nyah-nyah-na-nyah-nyah" like a hostile ten-year-old.

What have I done to offend him? That is not a rhetorical question. I post this because I am asking the forum for an honest evaluation of the messages preceding his announcement of his forthcoming action -- is there anyone here who thinks that anything I wrote could reasonably be considered offensive to him, even at a stretch? He complains sarcastically about my vocabulary (a complaint which is further reminiscent of a cruel schoolboy who reflexively heaps abuse on any contemporary who exhibits the slightest literacy), and darkly refers to knowledge of "multiple languages," in an apparent effort to catalogue yet another sin.

Is there anything in my post in that thread that invited such a response? I literally cannot imagine what the man is talking about, except that he seems irrationally to resent my having posted at all in a EuMX thread he had started, apparently in some way that he finds insufficiently relevant to his original post.

Please, if any member of the forum finds his words and action justified, tell me. I want to know. It would be wonderful if one or more forum members expressed an opinion that he was out of line (and those posts he would indeed see -- or at least be aware of their existence -- as he would not yet have got around to blocking any members who wrote them), but if you would rather not step into the public arena in such a cause, please PM me, even if it is only to say that you have something to say to me, whereupon I'll PM you an email address where you can write to me even more privately.

For some unknown reason I seem to rub Janusz the wrong way and always have done, for ten years, ever since I joined this forum. It is his responsibility, however, as a presumably adult member of this forum, to contain his personal animadversions, especially when they are unjustified, and not inflict them on the forum at large (or indeed, for that matter, on their individual target in the first place). Indeed, I believe his behavior in this case merits a rebuke from the moderators, or even being banned or at least warned, but that is for others to determine. Life being as it is, however, it is probably I who will be banned or warned instead, for this post may perhaps be deemed an "insult" as forbidden in Edwin's rules, because I did not do as Janusz did and cloak a manifestation of childish and persistent hatred in a subtle and indirect mode of delivery.

As for the original merits of the topic, if Janusz believes that I misunderstand virus or spam scanning, then why not simply say so, and in the spirit of the forum educate me, instead of mounting a slyly indirect attack as part of a gratuitous announcement that he was blocking me?

My question boiled down to this: why should the appearance of an anatomical term (used clinically and not lasciviously) in the text of an email sent from EuMX, with a CC to an address at VFEmail, have caused that CC to be marked as spam when it arrived, and left traces in the headers that a Hungarian medical laboratory with a blocked IP, a credit reporting service, and another odd and shady entity had somehow been invoked along the way? And was it EuMX's or VFEmail's software that caused this to occur?

Those seem to me like eminently proper and acceptable questions to ask in a forum devoted to a discussion of matters pertaining to email. Instead of taking them up, however, Janusz chose to mock me for implied vanity about vocabulary, to make clear his general dislike and annoyance, and then announced to the world his decision to instruct the forum's machinery to make my future posts invisible to him, all without ever having replied to or taken up my original post in any way at all.

He has behaved appallingly, and I hope either the moderators or some member or members of the forum will tell him so. If not (or if I end up being tarred as the guilty party instead), then I shall know beyond doubt that the world has well and truly gone utterly and irretrievably mad.

The fellow member of the forum you are talking about does come across rude, and its the reason I've stop posting here, as he seems to take delight at being downright unhelpful. But then he comes back and states you are on his ignore list. And he tells us every time. I tried to make a joke on the Runbox forum, only for that member to come back with a sarcastic reply. No need for it at all. Totally uncalled for.

Take his advice, put him on ignore. He seems to have put everyone else on ignore, as he keeps telling us.:rolleyes:

No, not you (so far)

So now he's spewing out direct threats. Moderators, PLEASE DO SOMETHING about this member. He is doing real harm to the forum.

This all makes me :(. Janusz often has a sarcastic tone. I don't know why. I do appreciate his messages about Eumx and Runbox and respect him as an old and valued member of this forum. I hope he comes to understanding.

I know this is going off-topic a bit and apologies for doing so, but the mods on this forum take the hands-off approach, of which I applaud, but there are simmering tensions underneath that need to be dealt with, otherwise we arrive at what we see today. Janusz has been allowed to get away with all sorts, and the lack of proactive moderation means he can say what he likes without any comeback, and so he continues to annoy people unchecked. There's no doubt that he provides valuable input to this forum, and long may he continue to do so, but he needs to chill and stop antagonising other members.



I live by the adage if you have nothing useful to say, shut it.;)

If we can't understand sarcasm or appreciate it, world will be a land of autobots. There is many more things in the world to get offended. The post of Hungarian Lab was really off topic in this thread.

Chill a little bit.

1) There is witty sarcasm and there is sarcasm that is bitter, rude, uncalled for, irrelevant to the matter at hand, and clearly the result of personal animosity and nothing else. I leave it to the previous posters (and anyone with manners and a modicum of good sense) to decide whether the kind involved here was something one could or should "appreciate."

2) The supposedly "off topic" post was not about a "Hungarian Lab" (which was mentioned in passing), but was about a message sent from EumX being marked as spam because of the presence in the text of a single innocently used word. The thread did concern EuMx. The post may have been tangential, but not completely "off topic." Would you prefer a brand new thread for every post, with no effort to keep things even slightly tidy?

3) I do not need or appreciate being told to "chill." I am not that easily offended, but I certainly know gratuitous rudeness and terrible manners and the fruit of pointless grudges and ill temper when I see it. I don't tolerate that sort of behavior from ten-year-olds and I won't tolerate it from adults who act like ten-year-olds either. I see the tradition of always blaming the injured party is alive and well.

I send thanks to those earlier posters who understood and who said helpful things which I appreciated. It was sad to read that several do not post here any more because of this sort of thing. I feel the same way. Perhaps the mods should take note, or this forum is in even more trouble than is obvious already from the declining participation and other factors.

It doesn't appear to be due to the single word alone. The email also gets points for eumx being listed in a blocklist (apews.org) and there's a local score configured for the IP address. Presumably eumx has been sending a lot of spam to VFEmail.

There is no lab. ZRT simply means limited liability company and INVITECH MEGOLDASOK translates to Invitech Solutions - it's eumx's ISP.

General comment. I have found it is generally best to just ignore or block people you find disagreeable on the Internet. Simply not worth your time or blood pressure to get worked up about. Responding or arguing will do nothing except stoke the feelings on both sides. Best to just move on.

General comment on "General Comment":
 

To ignore the posts of someone you find disagreeable is fine -- for one thing it takes considerable will power; for another, it is passive (in a good way), whereas electronically blocking someone or marking them to be ignored so you never even know their posts existed is passive-aggressive (and also a bit cowardly, since instead of testing your will power to ignore and not respond to something distasteful, you are using technology to spare you from even seeing it, so no test of will power is involved).

As for the "mens rea" (state of mind, a legal term -- I used the Latin legal term because foreign phrases are anathema to the member whose behavior sparked this conversation, even though he won't ever see this example), for him to crow before pressing the button about his decision to ignore someone and to revel in it in advance while making sure to inform its target (and all the rest of the forum as well) is not only passive-aggressive but downright nasty, and more than a little neurotic, or worse).

As for the "best just to move on" advice, I respectfully but strongly disagree. Applied broadly, such a philosophy would give a free pass to all misbehavers and misfeasors, in all areas of life, and in physical as well as verbal arenas. For example, if you are the victim of a "road rage" incident or a mugging on the street and the police caught the person responsible, what would be your reaction if they advised you to forget about it and "just to move on"? And so on. Turning the other cheek on principle may be fine for practicing Christians and their founder, but for most mortals it is not a practical way of responding to hostility or worse.

There is a time to speak up, and also a time when NOT speaking up is itself the wrong thing to do. One is under no obligation, legal, moral or otherwise, simply to overlook and absorb nasty behavior from someone who is behaving unpleasantly or irrationally or even dangerously. Do you also espouse pacifism as a philosophy? It is by no means self-evident that such a position is either superior to reasonable self-defense or even feasible most of the time. Alas, even for those with the saintly forebearance to turn the other cheek no matter what, the world does not make it easy or advisable (or always possible) to do so.

You are welcome to do whatever you wish, but the Internet is awash in millions of trolls, bots, fake accounts, and other sorts of nonsense with the express goal of evoking emotional responses from us few real people trying to entertain ourselves or learn something. I have ignored my own advice before and always regretted it. There is simply no "self defense" that will work against the malevolent hordes on the Internet. Blocking someone is a perfectly reasonable response once you realize there is no converting this person, if it is a real person, or gaining anything from engaging it. "Ignore the trolls" is sound advice, IMHO.

Just so we're clear, you are aware -- are you not? -- that you are recommending the actions taken by the person who blocked me, while seemingly advising me to do the blocking? Your message seems to imply (or could reasonably be taken to mean, though that is not my belief about what you meant) that *I* am the troll, and that therefore blocking me was perfectly reasonable. Your advice may be sound in the abstract, but applied in this particular instance, don't you see that you have reversed roles and gotten things backwards?

No, I am perfectly happy if someone doesn't want to read my posts and blocks me. I may or may not do the same to him/her/it. It only happens rarely, but always improves a forum for me. YMMV. On the other hand, I have completely abandoned certain forums because of the vile commentary. Nobody is being forced to be here or read anyone's posts they don't want to.

[quote=TenFour;610971 Nobody is being forced to be here or read anyone's posts they don't want to.[/QUOTE]


Precisely. That is why blocking somebody is unnecessary and is merely a petulant gesture. And then going out of someone's way to ANNOUNCE that he is blocking someone can only be seen as pure childish malice, the forum equivalent of a middle finger. It accomplishes nothing except to express and make public one's contempt and dislike for some other forum member. And posts subsequent to mine make clear that this seems to be a habit on the part of the member who did this to me and has happened to a number of people. If that is not a violation of Edwin's rules I don't know what would be. The mods have been uncharacteristically silent about this thread -- indeed, I'm surprised they've allowed it to stay up at all. Perhaps it should be frozen or deleted, strictly speaking. But before taking action (or if they intend simply to ignore it), surely the mods should make a comment on the merits, a ruling on whether the forum's rules have indeed been flouted or not, and whether the member in question has at least been warned. After all, members have been banned because of one simple and relatively innocent exasperated expletive -- surely habitual and repeated displays of unbridled gratuitous malice are worse than a spontaneous "H***!" or *D***!", are they not? If not (that is to say, if a colorful though not obscene word under stressful circumstances is worthy of a "zero tolerance" death penalty while repeated malicious and cruel and sarcastic behavior intended only to wound and embarrass is not worth even a mild warning and an announcement that the warning has been given), then the spirit of the forum's rules is surely being selectively and capriciously enforced, and I, for one, do not wish to remain a member here.

The problem is that if the "misbehavers and misfeasors" are unaware of your well thought out rebuttals, the only people potentially annoyed by righteousness is yourself and innocent third parties.

That being said.. I suspect that janusz actually didn't block you (at least not initially) because conversational arsonists enjoy staring fires and watching the show.

(None of this is meant to suggest that I don't agree with you.. you're the one being the gentleman. I'm simply agreeing with TenFour that the only person you're lecturing is yourself.)

So far, in this thread postings concerning EuMX's technical issues are in clear minority compared with the heated discussion on who is the gentleman and who is the EMD's villain.

Of course this prevents the EMD forum from becoming moribund. Keep up the good work,

It is good to have firsthand confirmation that the honorable gentleman is a troll, a liar and a hypocrite. More usefully, his future declarations that he is blocking someone can now confidently be assumed to be falsehoods as well. If stating the self-evident in this way gets me banned, then so be it.

Maybe you could stop winding people up then. There's no doubt you are the forum's villain. :D

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