Good morning

I am not using Microsoft and do not work in an environment that would
benefit from “relation management” - or “document management” systems in
the wider sense of the expressions.

Now I tend to inform people who are unaware that their public mail is
directed via outlook and most probably passes servers on the other side
of the ocean.

The regularity with which I receive mail from public services in France
(i.e. from around the corner) that *do* have their own mail-servers but
direct their collaborators' mail via outlook.com, becomes overwhelming.
It is more the rule than the exception, even for organisms that claim to
be “at the edge of technology deveopment”.

My question is however simple: Is there an *obvious advantage* to use outlook.com instead of your own mail-server, while the systems in question allow the integration of just any mail-service under the sky?

TY

Michael

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Michael Uplawski <[email protected]> wrote:

My question is however simple: Is there an *obvious advantage* to use outlook.com instead of your own mail-server, while the systems in question allow the integration of just any mail-service under the sky?

Well it would bypass the issues I've been having with mail delivery
from my server being blocked randomly by major email providers (see
my recent posts here). They won't block Outlook.com. Indeed that's
an incentive for such providers to have an overly-aggressive server
blocking policy themselves, so businesses give up and sign up with
their service. For example the Google's DMARC/DKIM tutorials were
full of little ads for their commercial email hosting service while
I was reading up on how to set that up in order to get mail through
to GMail (it still goes to spam, but at least it's not rejected
outright, usually).

--
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#_ < |\| |< _#

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On 28.06.2025 07:01 Uhr Michael Uplawski wrote:

My question is however simple: Is there an *obvious advantage* to use outlook.com instead of your own mail-server, while the systems in
question allow the integration of just any mail-service under the
sky?

Not a real benefit, but one that the decisionmakers in management like.
They know MS products, it is the market standard in business and they
choose it because of that.

Cloud is great for them, they love buzzwords.

--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to [email protected]

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supersedes

Marco Moock wrote in comp.mail.misc:

On 28.06.2025 07:01 Uhr Michael Uplawski wrote:

My question is however simple: Is there an *obvious advantage* to use >>outlook.com instead of your own mail-server, while the systems in
question allow the integration of just any mail-service under the
sky?

Not a real benefit, but one that the decisionmakers in management like.
They know MS products, it is the market standard in business and they
choose it because of that.

It has been a while since I was close to this kind of decision
makers. But, in my time, they would have to communicate before
anything was really done. Where an IT-infrastructure exists – and
sometimes so complete that its use is *proposed* to customers – do administrators and/or other executing agents need to be lobotomized
before they delegate mail to a service abroad?

It reminds the tired refrain of “you have to adapt anyway, in a
short while it will be like that”, while it is *ME* who acts and
decides (like in: no more cash money, an IP-address for each light
bulb etc.).

Cloud is great for them, they love buzzwords.

But buzzwords do not push buttons, buzzwords do not sign
contracts. I may share your opinion, Marco, but the illusions must end.

It cannot be just laziness.
--
“There is no flag large enough
to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
(Howard Zinn)

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Marco Moock wrote in comp.mail.misc:

On 28.06.2025 07:01 Uhr Michael Uplawski wrote:

My question is however simple: Is there an *obvious advantage* to use >>outlook.com instead of your own mail-server, while the systems in
question allow the integration of just any mail-service under the
sky?

Not a real benefit, but one that the decisionmakers in management like.
They know MS products, it is the market standard in business and they
choose it because of that.

It has been a while since I was close to this kind of decision
makers. But, in my time, they would have to communicate before
anything was really done. Where an IT-infrastructure exists – and
sometimes so complete that its use is *proposed* to customers, do administrators and/or other executing agents need to be lobotomized
before they delegate mail to a service abroad?

It reminds the tired refrain of “you have to adapt anyway, in a
short while it will be like that”, while it is *ME* who acts and
decides (like in: no more cash money, an IP-address for each light
bulb etc.).

Cloud is great for them, they love buzzwords.

But buzzwords do not switch anything, buzzwords do not sign
contracts. I may share your opinion, Marco, but the illusions must end.

It cannot be just laziness.
--
Money alone is a soft pillow.
(Ruby-Gem „Sprichwoerter” - German version)

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For your reference, records indicate that
Michael Uplawski <[email protected]> wrote:

Now I tend to inform people who are unaware that their public mail is directed via outlook and most probably passes servers on the other side
of the ocean.

This is not unique to email. There are many people who use Internet
services because they are a recognized name brand, regardless of how
many thousands of miles away they are or whose flag they fly.

My question is however simple: Is there an *obvious advantage* to use outlook.com instead of your own mail-server, while the systems in question allow the integration of just any mail-service under the sky?

Service providers give management an easy scapegoat when things go wrong.
The bigger the name, the bigger the “too big to fail” conceit on both
sides of the equation. For smaller organizations, they just couldn’t
employ enough technical staff to oversee all the stacks that they
want/need to run.

In short, the “advantage” is being able to use all these toys without actually having to understand *anything* about how they actually work.
They *want* to be “unaware”; you make no friends when you try to inform them of their reality.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

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Doc O'Leary wrote in comp.mail.misc:

In short, the “advantage” is being able to use all these toys without >actually having to understand *anything* about how they actually work.
They *want* to be “unaware”; you make no friends when you try to inform >them of their reality.

This hurts. I must change the direction of my posts. My original
query covered my experience with many public services and a few
companies of similar status, like my supplier of electric energy.

But what you write, Doc, evoked 1 such company, providing the
IT-infrastructure for the social insurance company which dominates
the agricultural sector in France. As far as I can see, you
fully described them.

It hurts, because the insurance company is actually great.

Unawareness about anything IT is however another attribute. They
have a digital shadow which is a bunch of pretentious, incompetent
and incredibly arrogant idiots. Hence, they put an ‘i’ in front of
the insurance companies name.

I do not want to further enlarge on this precise heap of crap, nor
dwell on the general inaptitude of people to cope with IT, but must
find a way to live with it.

Apart from telling my advisers and people in charge of my affairs
that they spread confidential information that they thought to keep
private, I have no idea what to do.

Do you have an advice? There was one occasion on which I considered
suing the company in question, but hesitated long enough to finally
calm down. This would anyway be a crusade without end…

“I wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then” (Bob Seger)
Becoming a drooling idiot, myself, could be a solution.
--
“If I had known what art was,
I would never have concealed it.”
(Pablo Picasso)

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For your reference, records indicate that
Michael Uplawski <[email protected]> wrote:

It hurts, because the insurance company is actually great.

Well, that’s the thing. People who know technology have to find a way to work with people who *actively* do not, but who do other things very well.
Even if I see an insurance company as needing to have a *core* technology competence to function in the modern world, maybe they don’t see it that
way (at least not for “solved” technology problems like email).

Do you have an advice? There was one occasion on which I considered
suing the company in question, but hesitated long enough to finally
calm down. This would anyway be a crusade without end…

It really depends on the specifics of their behavior. Generally, I find
I’ll get more traction if I frame the problem as an accessibility/accommodations issue. That is, instead of hitting them with
the exact kind of technical details I know they don’t want to hear, I go
the opposite path and just say I don’t know how to use “that fancy stuff” and ask what other options there are.

Another reframing is to point out that the problem on their side is bigger
than just me. I had Microsoft block messages from my email server last
year for literally *no* reason:

<https://impossiblystupid.com/node/1021/?content=microsoft's-smartscreen-embrace-extend-and-extinguish-for-email>

It usually lights a fire under people when they realize their email
provider isn’t actually providing them legitimate business emails, or is dumping them into a spam folder.

Of course, if they’re outsourcing their internal operations *anyway*, anything you find a way to “safely” give them is still likely to be escape their control at some point . . .

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

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Doc O'Leary wrote in comp.mail.misc:

Even if I see an insurance company as needing to have a *core* technology >competence to function in the modern world, maybe they don’t see it that >way (at least not for “solved” technology problems like email).

My English may fail me now, PSE excuse if my phrasing lacks
precision.

AFAIS, on the side of the insurance company, they consider any IT
problem solved that the other company with the ‘I’ in front has
declared to be responsible for. The slogan is « Excellence
technologique & innovation » and then they delegate their email
although mass mailings and newsletters come from their own servers.

Do you have an advice? There was one occasion on which I considered
suing the company in question, but hesitated long enough to finally
calm down. This would anyway be a crusade without end…

It really depends on the specifics of their behavior. Generally, I find >I’ll get more traction if I frame the problem as an >accessibility/accommodations issue. That is, instead of hitting them with >the exact kind of technical details I know they don’t want to hear, I go >the opposite path and just say I don’t know how to use “that fancy stuff”
and ask what other options there are.

Okay. I did something similar in asking my correspondence to be
directed to the “user space” on their Web application, instead of my
mail address. Unfortunately, with work accidents and work-related
diseases, new persons are in charge and appear to not be involved in
that part of communications. Every department appears to be either
comfortable with the Web-interface, authorized to use it, one of
both or none.

Another reframing is to point out that the problem on their side is bigger >than just me. I had Microsoft block messages from my email server last
year for literally *no* reason:

<https://impossiblystupid.com/node/1021/?content=microsoft's-smartscreen-embrace-extend-and-extinguish-for-email>

I am having trouble accessing that URL.

It usually lights a fire under people when they realize their email
provider isn’t actually providing them legitimate business emails, or is >dumping them into a spam folder.

I told everybody that they should not be surprised, if I just
routinely erase their messages as they do not seem to come from the organization that they work for.

Of course, if they’re outsourcing their internal operations *anyway*, >anything you find a way to “safely” give them is still likely to be escape >their control at some point . . .

Yes. As regards the insurance, my favorite solution is to take the
car and talk to their staff at the counter .., 40 minutes one way.

I guess we are off-topic now but the concerns are probably bigger
than what my OP has covered.

Cheerio

Michael
--
“It's not what isn't,
it's what you wish was that makes unhappiness.”
(Janis Joplin)

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For your reference, records indicate that
Michael Uplawski <[email protected]> wrote:

although mass mailings and newsletters come from their own servers.

That’s interesting. For most companies I deal with, bulk email delivery is the *first* type they outsource. I think it’s a fool’s errand to expect any sort of coherence when it comes to technology decision making at
pretty much every organization these days. I sometimes get the urge to do
a study to determine if the incompetence of an organization can be
determined just from the complexity of their SPF records. :-)

<https://impossiblystupid.com/node/1021/?content=microsoft's-smartscreen-embrace-extend-and-extinguish-for-email>

I am having trouble accessing that URL.

That’s unfortunate. I have fairly aggressive firewall rules due to all
the hostile traffic that comes across the Internet (email spamming is only
the tip of *that* iceberg). I don’t know if you’re using a VPN or simply have an ISP that turns a blind eye to the abuse coming from their
networks.

I told everybody that they should not be surprised, if I just
routinely erase their messages as they do not seem to come from the organization that they work for.

Again, that does not create allies. Find the shared problem you can
solve together.

Yes. As regards the insurance, my favorite solution is to take the
car and talk to their staff at the counter .., 40 minutes one way.

I do similar when dealing with my bank sometimes, but it is never my
favorite way to handle it. I suspect it’s also counterproductive, because the retail staff have little incentive to make sure my online experience improves to the point I *won’t* have to stop in.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

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Doc O'Leary , <[email protected]> wrote:

For your reference, records indicate that
Michael Uplawski <[email protected]> wrote:

<https://impossiblystupid.com/node/1021/?content=microsoft's-smartscreen-embrace-extend-and-extinguish-for-email>

I am having trouble accessing that URL.

That's unfortunate. I have fairly aggressive firewall rules due to all
the hostile traffic that comes across the Internet (email spamming is only the tip of *that* iceberg). I don't know if you're using a VPN or simply have an ISP that turns a blind eye to the abuse coming from their
networks.

Same here FWIW, "connection refused". Having read the page via the
Wayback Machine, I think this is rather ironic. I'm not using a VPN,
through probably a lazy ISP (all the ISPs who survive in Australia
these days seem to be).

I try and avoid blocking IPs if at all possible. I have
specifically blocked SMTP connections from Tor IPs since it's very
unlikely that any signal will come through that noise, but I leave
Web requests open for all the robots of the world to plunder.

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For your reference, records indicate that
[email protected]d (Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:

I try and avoid blocking IPs if at all possible. I have
specifically blocked SMTP connections from Tor IPs since it's very
unlikely that any signal will come through that noise, but I leave
Web requests open for all the robots of the world to plunder.

I used to be more permissive, but the abuse levels kept increasing. Even
for just email, all the filtering and reporting and other busywork just
made it get worse and worse, and at 5000 bad messages for every good one
(which was 20 years ago; I don’t know how people manage these days!), I changed my approach. Now I don’t do *any* filtering at all, and I give
valid emails pretty much everywhere. The firewall doesn’t do that much
heavy lifting for email, though; disposable addresses are what really
stops the flow of spam for me.

Yes, some innocents will be tripped up by the measures, but at least you
get feedback that there is a problem. From my perspective, the problem is
that you’re being used as a human shield for the benefit of those who use your network for abuse. The economics of that happening on a global scale
are not in my favor.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

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