Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

Obama wasn’t content to rest up after his illegal assassination of Osama bin Laden back in May, this time stepping up his game to take out American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki with a predator drone / Hellfire missile in Yemen. The audacity of conducting public assassinations on the territory of sovereign nations aside, the New York Times picks right up on the issue of due process:

The strike appeared to be the first time in the American-led war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that an American citizen had been deliberately killed by American forces, a step that has raised contentious constitutional issues in the United States. It was also the second high-profile killing of an Al Qaeda leader in the past five months under the Obama administration[.]

The White House decision to make Mr. Awlaki a top priority to be hunted down and killed was controversial, given his American citizenship.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which fought unsuccessfully in the American court system to challenge the government’s legal justification for its so-called targeted killings program, which was used to take aim at Mr. Awlaki, condemned that program in reaction to the news of Mr. Awlaki’s death. “As we’ve seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts,” Jameel Jaffer, the A.C.L.U.’s deputy legal director, said in a statement.

For what it’s worth, Foreign Policy’s blog agrees that Anwar was a US citizen due an appropriate trial. The correct course of action would have been extradition from Yemen to the US for trial.

I bought a Seiko Men’s SKA201 Arctura Kinetic Watch from Amazon for ~$150 more than 5 years ago. It’s a great watch and lasted decently, but recently it’s worn down and no longer charges up when you wear it on your wrist.

So, I googled around and ending up sending my watch to a company in Denton, Texas called BestFix Watch Company, Inc.. The watch came back shiny, looking new, ticking, and charging up again–I don’t know if there are other good repair places out their, but this shop was really worth it.

(No, this is not an ad!)

For whatever reason, Gmail keeps blocking my account alert emails from Chase. In my spam folder, guess which are really spam, and which are legit?

When I move them to my inbox and/or mark them as spam, I get warned that “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.”

How do I get Google to believe that my emails from Chase are real? I keep marking them as not spam, but that doesn’t help! Ridiculous that Gmail is hurting Chase Bank’s ability to conduct business and manage their fraud/risk. I highly suspect that account fraud alerts would get thrown into the same bucket…

Update 1:

The message headers seem to indicate a failure between Cornell and Google’s servers on SPF (Sender Policy Framework):

Delivered-To: XXXX@gmail.com
Received: by 10.231.53.18 with SMTP id k18cs6777ibg;
Sat, 24 Sep 2011 05:13:22 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.52.93.112 with SMTP id ct16mr4101007vdb.423.1316866401115;
Sat, 24 Sep 2011 05:13:21 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <Chase@alerts.chase.com>
Received: from limestone3.mail.cornell.edu (limestone3.mail.cornell.edu. [128.253.83.163])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id bz6si11946296vdc.126.2011.09.24.05.13.20;
Sat, 24 Sep 2011 05:13:21 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: fail (google.com: domain of Chase@alerts.chase.com does not designate 128.253.83.163 as permitted sender) client-ip=128.253.83.163;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=hardfail (google.com: domain of Chase@alerts.chase.com does not designate 128.253.83.163 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=Chase@alerts.chase.com; dkim=hardfail header.i=@alerts.Chase.com
X-CornellRouted: This message has been Routed already.
…

Update 2: A helpful Googler/blog reader said this:

It appears to be a problem specifically with Cornell. It’s a known issue when Cornell is forwarding e-mails to GMail. The Cornell IT admins [are fixing] their exchange server. In the meantime you can fix this with either:

- have Chase send info direct to @gmail.com
- create a filter to “never mark as spam” for that address.

My solution is to change my old rules to email directly to gmail rather than forward through Cornell’s servers.