Misguided SPAM Filtering techniques

Mon Oct 22 22:28:37 UTC 2007

Dave Pooser wrote:

> I call BS. I ran sender-callout verification on my primary email server for
> a while (before I became convinced it was mildly abusive, and stopped) and
> typically blocked 2-3 spams per day. In fact, I had more FPs than legit spam
> blocked by that method.

2-3 spams a day?  That's really an amazing low number.  You can call BS all you 
want.  I'll stick to my numbers as they are what my reports were telling me.  Is 
it possible that the email address in question was listed somewhere on the list 
that viruses used to send forged email more than other spammers?  That's 
completely possible.  Still, my results are what I observed when I went looking 
at the statistics over a 6 month period.  I was actually looking for other 
statistics, the reduction in overall spam levels after implementing gray 
listing, which was the next 6 month's statistics.

> Absolutely I am. If you're going to try to offload your spam filtering to
> me, I want the process to cause you as much pain as possible (within ethical
> limits, which is why I won't forward your email

It's OK, really, as I;m sure that your email address is only used once or twice 
total, so your validation of the email address really means nothing to the 
recipient.  They get one spam message.  If they get more, they just blacklist 
the address.  It's what I do.

> Sender callouts will verify addresses without requiring any action from the
> end user. If you must [ab]use my resources to do your job, please have the
> common decency to use my (abundant) hardware and software resources rather
> than my (much more limited) wetware resources.

You have more information on this?  I'd be more than happy to investigate 
another method myself that does not piss you off so much, as long as it provides 
the same level of isolating spam.

  -Sean
(Please respond only to the list)