A friend of mine recently started a new job, and we were having a conversation via email. Unexpectedly, she tells me that my latest email has been blocked by their automated filtering system- instead of receiving my email, she was sent this:

Please reply with history to uspostmaster@XXXXX.com if you would
like this message released.

MailMarshal (an automated content monitoring gateway) has
stopped the following email for the following reason:

It believes it may contain unacceptable language, or inappropriate material.

   Message: B47d568a10002.000000000001.0002.mml
   From:    XXXXX
   To:      XXXXX
   Subject: Re: XXXXX

MailMarshal Rule: Content Security (Inbound) : Block Unacceptable Language
Script Offensive Language (Basic) Triggered in Body
Expression: fuck* Triggered 2 times weighting 10
Expression: shit Triggered 2 times weighting 6
Script Offensive Language (Extensive) Triggered in Body
Expression: bugger* Triggered 1 times weighting 35
Expression: fuck* Triggered 1 times weighting 60


Please remove any inappropriate language and send it again.

If you do not recognize the address listed in the From: field
above or the Subject: line does not relate to an expected email,
then the blocked message is probably spam and no further action
is required on your part.

Additionally, addresses listed above could possibly be spoofed.
Please see the following for more information on email spoofing:

http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/email_spoofing.html

The blocked email will be automatically deleted after 5 days.

Email Content Security provided by NetIQ MailMarshal.

I love how 'bugger' makes 'fuck*' worth 60 instead of worth 5. 

So if I were having a conversation with a friend about the aliens in Ender's Game (referred to as "buggers" iirc) then this filter would block it.  That's nice of them. 

Censorship in general is TRWTF

I wouldn't put things like that into an email that went to a person's company email, though.  That's a WTF as well.   

Gotta love Maillmarshall.  We use it here, and I've heard this type of complaint several times.

"What's the point of blocking the email if you're going to tell me all the bad words you didn't want me to see in the first place?"

taylonr:

"What's the point of blocking the email if you're going to tell me all the bad words you didn't want me to see in the first place?"

Let's just hope that the purveyors of this foul language don't learn from the spammers and re-send the message as "fucI< this fucI<ing sh1t, you buqqers!!!". Won't somebody think of the children!!!

frankly anyone who is 'delicate' enough whimper and cry under their desk when they see a 'naughty' word doesn't need draconian protection that affects more normally adjusted people too, they need to be laughed at. Loudly, in public.

Lingerance:

taylonr:

"What's the point of blocking the email if you're going to tell me all the bad words you didn't want me to see in the first place?"

Would you rather "I just blocked your email containing two inline essays because it contained a bad word, also I sure as hell aren't going to tell you why, so it's up to you to use an encyclopedic knowledge of every swear-word in out filter list."

Personally, I think it would make most sense to tell the SENDER of the email, NOT the recipient, which words were blocked. The current system is just stupid...

Hey there! I've stopped you reading a message because it contains the word "fuck", and no-one should ever have to see the word "fuck".

It's like the police stopping you in the street, beating you up and taking your wallet to show you why you should be happy that they just chased off a mugger. "You wouldn't like it if the mugger was kicking you like THIS and THIS, would you?" No officer.

taylonr:

Gotta love Maillmarshall.  We use it here, and I've heard this type of complaint several times.

"What's the point of blocking the email if you're going to tell me all the bad words you didn't want me to see in the first place?"

It saves time. Now that you can see all the bad words right away, you don't need to read the email.

Our mail filter would complain about all that X'ed out data. Obviously references to XXX porn.

rc_pinchey:

[Personally, I think it would make most sense to tell the SENDER of the email, NOT the recipient, which words were blocked. The current system is just stupid...

Right, at work I can control my language, not the sender's. ALSO its external communications. If I was talking to my boss I would not use that language, but to a friend, different story, ill tell him about those fuckers who got shit faced!

I disagree, this is the best censorship ever: Blugrbutt 

You just forgot to use the <earmuffs> tag in your email:

<earmuffs>

Fuck.  Shit.  Cock.  Pussy.  Balls.

</earmuffs> 

Well, since the intent of mailmarshall is to block spam and other offensive material, it would be best to just say it was blocked due to possibly offensive words.  If it's your friend (and you would know because it tells you the email address) you could tell your friend it got blocked because of language, and they could resend it (although I admit bugger is a stupid word to block).  Probably shouldn't be sending those types of words to a corporate email anyway (regardless of it's from inside or outside) use hotmail or something.

taylonr:

Gotta love Maillmarshall.  We use it here, and I've heard this type of complaint several times.

"What's the point of blocking the email if you're going to tell me all the bad words you didn't want me to see in the first place?"

It's only the context that makes words profane.  When the surrounding words give meaning to a curse word, it becomes like a bomb in a crowded Iraqi market place with the surrounding words being like civilians.  However, when context has been removed, the profanities become as safe as a newborn kitten.

Sad Bug Killer:

I disagree, this is the best censorship ever: Blugrbutt 

WTF? This can't be really happening at that website, can it? I about fell off my chair laughing at this stuff! Somebody is asleep at the switch.

clbutty 

 In the company's defense, I can see the merits in putting a system like this in place for outgoing email.  For many business it just wouldn't do to allow that kind of thing accidently go out to clients.  But incoming?  When the message is obviously part of a conversation thread where previous messages have passed?

That gives me an idea... I wonder if you could improve spam filter performance noticabley by identifying messages that are part of conversation threads in the which the recipient has already partipated, and giving them a much lighter spam check.  It certainly wouldn't matter for one inbox unless you could also use it to improve accuracy (which I guess at least in this case it would have), but say you're running a large system that checks a few million messages per day?

jcoehoorn:

That gives me an idea... I wonder if you could improve spam filter performance noticabley by identifying messages that are part of conversation threads in the which the recipient has already partipated, and giving them a much lighter spam check.  It certainly wouldn't matter for one inbox unless you could also use it to improve accuracy (which I guess at least in this case it would have), but say you're running a large system that checks a few million messages per day?

SMTP is just so fucking weak though, it's utterly trivial to spoof just about anything, including this suggestion (which otherwise seems to have merit).  We really need a more secure and reliable email protocol instead of yet more heavy-handed filtering and analysis systems that treat the symptom rather than the cause.

My personal favourite relates to a list of schoolkids which was sent for legitimate purposes - blocked on account of lots of occurrances of "free", "teen" and "sex". 

morbiuswilters:

It's only the context that makes words profane.  When the surrounding words give meaning to a curse word, it becomes like a bomb in a crowded Iraqi market place with the surrounding words being like civilians.  However, when context has been removed, the profanities become as safe as a newborn kitten.

Ahahah, yeah, nice use of sarcasm here, just mark it with a tag next time. For one moment I was thinking you really believe this. But of course you were using sarcasm so it's all fine.

mfah:

SMTP is just so fucking weak though, it's utterly trivial to spoof just about anything, including this suggestion (which otherwise seems to have merit).  We really need a more secure and reliable email protocol instead of yet more heavy-handed filtering and analysis systems that treat the symptom rather than the cause.

How is this particularly spoofable?  If I respond to a message the user gets added to my whitelist automatically.  I suppose somebody could figure out the addresses of some people in my whitelist and spoof those, but that's not very likely.  Additionally, how is removing spoofing going to dramatically reduce the amount of spam?  Fighting spam pretty much requires deep content inspection and pattern analysis and will probably always be a problem.

Edit: I should add that such a "whitelist addresses you respond to" feature exists in a lot of spam filtering software. 

Sad Bug Killer:

I disagree, this is the best censorship ever: Blugrbutt 

I like the phrase: (rebreastled "Dueling Banjos").

Incidentally, dictionary says that "tit" also means a small European bird. Ornithologists better accept that they should call these birds "breasts". 

fist-poster:

I like the phrase: (rebreastled "Dueling Banjos").

Incidentally, dictionary says that "tit" also means a small European bird. Ornithologists better accept that they should call these birds "breasts". 

Sad Bug Killer:

I disagree, this is the best censorship ever: Blugrbutt

mfah:

SMTP is just so fucking weak though, it's utterly trivial to spoof just about anything, including this suggestion (which otherwise seems to have merit).  We really need a more secure and reliable email protocol instead of yet more heavy-handed filtering and analysis systems that treat the symptom rather than the cause.

ender:

Actually, there are challenge-response systems that work like this. It's easy to recognise if the message is part of an existing conversation by looking at the References header - when you reply to a message, it's Message-Id will be added at the beginning of existing References header, and the Message-Id will also be copied to the In-Reply-To header. Smart e-mail clients use these headers for threading, and since only the sender, receiver and the hosts which the message passed know the message IDs it's very unlikely for a spammer to get in their possession fast enough to be useful for him (assuming nobody on the path is infected with a spambot).

Weaksauce.  Many mail clients are too retarded to handle Message-Ids properly and it quickly breaks down when you have multiple people copying and replying to each other.  That's why it's better to just automatically add anyone you email to your address book so they don't get scanned for spam.  That doesn't solve everyt