Blocking mail from bad places

Wed Apr 4 22:42:28 UTC 2007

on Wed, Apr 04, 2007 at 06:25:18PM -0400, John L wrote:
> 
> >>This technique works great to keep spam out of your mailbox.
> >
> >Inline rejection is a little dangerous for mailing lists
> 
> And for anyone else who doesn't feel like jumping through your hoops.
> 
> >Providing a telephone number in the bounce is an effective way to deal
> >with false positives.
> 
> Only if you assume that everyone who writes to you is so desperate to send 
> you mail that they are willing to make what may be an international call 
> in the middle of the night.  I have not found that to be a very realistic 
> assumption.

I have to agree with John here - I've been sending back 'email me at
postmaster at ... if this in an error' for all rejections here since 2003
or so, and can count the legit mail to postmaster I've received in that
time on one hand, maybe two; the stuff that gets rejected before the
accept postmaster default gets a different error, containing a phone
number. I've never had anyone call me there. 

Not that it bothers me much - I've done my part, I figure, and if they
aren't willing to email a postmaster or call, then <shrug>? What can I
do?

I'll add that even if everyone were willing to email/call with problems,
the hideous things that (e.g.) Exchange does to your carefully
handcrafted rejection errors are enough to cripple the least tech-savvy
of your likely audience, anyway.

-- 
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