nanog mailing list archives
Re: Blocking mail from bad places
From: Thomas Leavitt <thomas () thomasleavitt org>
Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 08:38:37 -0700
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when everything works perfectly according to protocol and RFC, and a person gets a bounce message because an address is out of date or typoed or otherwise invalid, they'll never know.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 listsAnd for anyone else who doesn't feel like jumping through your hoops.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.Providing a telephone number in the bounce is an effective way to deal with false positives.I have to agree with John here - I've been sending back 'email me at postmaster@... 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 phonenumber. 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.
Current thread:
- RE: Blocking mail from bad places, (continued)
- RE: Blocking mail from bad places Scott Weeks (Apr 03)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Valdis . Kletnieks (Apr 03)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Thomas Leavitt (Apr 03)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Ken Simpson (Apr 04)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places joej (Apr 04)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Peter Dambier (Apr 04)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places John Levine (Apr 04)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Ken Simpson (Apr 04)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places John L (Apr 04)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Steven Champeon (Apr 04)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Thomas Leavitt (Apr 05)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places James R. Cutler (Apr 05)
- Message not available
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places James R. Cutler (Apr 05)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Ken Simpson (Apr 05)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Matthew Black (Apr 05)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Valdis . Kletnieks (Apr 03)
- RE: Blocking mail from bad places Scott Weeks (Apr 03)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Thomas Leavitt (Apr 07)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Valdis . Kletnieks (Apr 07)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Paul Vixie (Apr 08)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Steve Sobol (Apr 05)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places Matthew Sullivan (Apr 05)
- Re: Blocking mail from bad places joej (Apr 04)