Gmail spam filters add warning: a follow-up

This is a follow-up on Gmail spam filters add warning (January 4, 2007). It suggests shortcomings both in legitimate mail senders' message subject heading practices, and in Gmail's analysis of innocuously entitled messages.

During an occasional foray into the spam folder this weekend, to grapple with the 1800+ messages that had accumulated since my previous foray a few weeks ago, I discovered only three false positives (approximately 0.17%):

1. Shots, Shows, And Shirts, from Snap Shots
2. Edublogs and EduBling!, from Edublogs
3. Sept sessions and Nov online event, from Cathy Baxter

The first two messages may have gotten snagged because of their snazzy subject headings, even though the senders could be well-known, and their mail servers verifiable.

However, the third one, which was the first that I had detected in rapid glances at twenty-five senders per page, was a noodle twister. I had recognized the sender on first glance, and the subject was innocuous.

Nevertheless, a gmail-generated warning superimposed on body of the message suggests that the links in the message itself were the problem:

Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information. Learn more

([within] personal correspondance, September 24, 2007)

Indeed, inside were truncated, somewhat destination-opaque links through tinyuurl.com to Eluminate Live! sessions (closed Sep 26, 2007):

• http://tinyurl.com/24wbh8


• http://tinyurl.com/2ql72g

Although those links were in a message from a recognized sender, and in context of a legitimate, far less destination-opaque link:

• http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/home/projects/2007/pid/440

Gmail spam filters apparently caught those tiny URLs!

Writing 'air up my ...

Because I've just taken part in preparing a presentation focusing on, among other writing quirks, sentences that begin with because, I've started here as I have with, "Because ...." However, the main reason I'm posting here is to raise awareness of another post, on another blog, and see if referencing and trackback functions rise to the occasion when I link from here to there, where I wrote about gaps between tech-savvy learners and educators. Hopefully this link will pick up and trackback from an edublog. If it doesn't, here is the link:

http://ltdproject.edublogs.org/2007/09/14/gaps-between-tech-savvy-learners-and-educators/