Re: Blocking mail from bad places

[Steven Champeon <schampeo () hesketh com>]

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@... 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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