Blocking mail from bad places

Thu Apr 5 15:38:37 UTC 2007

One problem with the "bounce" solution is that for those of us with 
multiple domains (some of them wildcarded) mapped to our mailboxes, the 
volume of "backscatter" makes it a real hassle to sort out the valid 
bounces from the "noise". Even users with a single email address can be 
victimized often enough to dismiss this stuff as a form of "spam", and 
automatically delete it without looking; \every few months, I get pained 
complaints from one friend or family member or another about someone 
using their address to spam, and thousands of bounce messages winding up 
in their mailbox as a result... another major problem, in my opinion, 
caused by spam that is leading to email becoming more and more of an 
unreliable medium - even when everything works perfectly according to 
protocol and RFC, and a person gets a bounce message because an address 
is out of date or typoed or otherwise invalid, they'll never know.

Thomas

Steven Champeon wrote:
> 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.
>
>   