System: SA 3.1.0 (called from MailScanner, called from sendmail.
The ISP "mmail.co.uk" (part of the O2 mobile phone ("cellphone" under
trans-Atlantic translation!) company here in the UK) generates a peculiar
"Date:" format. So when it arrives here, our SA is tagging it as spam.
Part of the headers:
> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 06 12:00:00 GMT Standard Time
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: {Spam?} MMail Message
> X-Mailer: <WIN Mail>
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 22 Mar 2006 12:00:00.0046 (UTC)
> FILETIME=[253124E0:01C64DA8]
> X-DurhamAcUk-MailScanner: Found to be clean
> X-DurhamAcUk-MailScanner-SpamCheck: spam, SpamAssassin (score=6.804,
> required 6, BAYES_40 -0.18, FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS 2.53,
> FROM_LOCAL_HEX 1.30, INVALID_DATE 2.19, NO_REAL_NAME 0.96)
> X-DurhamAcUk-MailScanner-SpamScore: ssssss
For data privacy reasons, I have "x"d out some of the purely-digit
"From:" LHS.
Aside: the "FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS" and "FROM_LOCAL_HEX" are probably
immutable, as the "mmail.co.uk" service definition uses a mobile number
as that "From:" LHS.
The main addressable issue here seems to be the "INVALID_DATE". The
"Date:" supplied by Mmail does not have a simple timezone (e.g. expect
"GMT"), but rather "GMT Standard Time". (Correct?)
This seems to me to be a clear breach of RFC2822. Mmail's defence is that
section 4.3 ends:
> Other multi-character (usually between 3 and 5) alphabetic time zones
> have been used in Internet messages. Any such time zone whose
> meaning is not known SHOULD be considered equivalent to "-0000"
> unless there is out-of-band information confirming their meaning.
and that the "usually 3 or 5 alphabetic" could (they argue) include the
17-character "GMT Standard Time".
Can someone demonstrate from RFC2822 that "GMT Standard Time" definitely
is, or definitely isn't, technically legal?
(If it does happen to be legal, and if this nevertheless triggers SA's
INVALID_DATE, then we have an SA bug.)
Would "GMT (Standard Time)" be legal? (I raise that just in case "mmail"
really need to keep that information in that place for some reason; this
would give them a way out.)
--
: David Lee I.T. Service :
: Senior Systems Programmer Computer Centre :
: Durham University :
: http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.d.lee/ South Road :
: Durham DH1 3LE :
: Phone: +44 191 334 2752 U.K. :
