[Beowulf] Semi-OT: emailing your HPC software suppliers ...

[Joe Landman]

Hi folks:

   We purchased a license to the Intel C/C++ compiler suite over the 
weekend for a project, and have been waiting for our license.  I emailed 
them this morning to see where it was in the process.  I received a note 
back from my mailer like this (email addresses/server names/ips removed 
to protect the possibly innocent):

<----- at intel.com>: host ---.intel.com[---.---.---.---] said: 554 5.7.1
     Message seems to be spam, rejected. Your message was not received 
by Intel.
     For more information, see 
http://www.intel.com/intel/sss/en/whitelist.htm .
     Japanese page: Intel SPAM error click here:
     http://www.intel.com/intel/sss/jp/whitelist.htm (in reply to end of 
DATA
     command)

All I did was follow their instructions to reply to the email to ask a 
question.  Running over to that link, it turns out that they use a spam 
detector.

Now, all we did is hit the reply button  and type a little text so that 
they would have context.  Their spam filter said:

"The message Intel received  had features about  it (a 
strangely-punctuated subject line, for instance, or  lots of HTML code) 
that known unwanted mail also has.  In other words, it "looks" a lot 
like unwanted e-mail to our automated anti-spam program."

which may be read as "we can dish it out to you, but we ain't gonna take 
it back"

That isn't the bad part.  If you read the link, you will see after you 
fill out the request to be white listed, that it will take 1-2 weeks to 
review this.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

So why am I posting this here?  In part it is because someone from Intel 
may be reading this list (though possibly not with their spam filter), 
and might be able to communicate to their IT folks about a seriously 
broken spam filter....  Don't emit what you are unwilling to accept 
email-wise.

We strive to make sure our filters don't bounce messages inadvertantly. 
  We do get lots of spam, and it helps to improve our filters.  But we 
also want to make sure we don't miss customer emails.  Our customers are 
very important to us.   Missed emails are bugs, whether we bounce them 
or our filters filter them.

That said, their phone support folks are very helpful.   I am looking 
forward to playing with the compiler.


-- 
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
Founder and CEO
Scalable Informatics LLC,
email: landman at scalableinformatics.com
web  : http://www.scalableinformatics.com
phone: +1 734 786 8423
fax  : +1 734 786 8452
cell : +1 734 612 4615