TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Spam Surge Drives Net Crime Spree

Re: Spam Surge Drives Net Crime Spree

Dan Lanciani (ddl@danlan.com)
Fri, 29 Dec 2006 20:08:37 -0500 (EST)

tom.horsley@att.net (Tom Horsley) wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:54:57 EST Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com> wrote:

>> I assume that a message with an image from someone I
>> don't know is likely spam and bounce it with an appropriate error.

> People who "bounce" messages only make the volume of traffic higher
> and contribute to the spam problem by sending their "helpful"
> bounces back to the forged sender address where the bounce is just
> more spam for the person who never actually sent the message.

No, a delivery error message is not spam. And it is not sent "to the
forged sender address" or for that matter sent "to" any address at
all.

> The universe would be a much nicer place if all bounces stopped
> happening :-).

No, it would not. Lack of an indication that mail has failed to be
delivered makes the system far less useful for anything other than
spam.

> dannyb@panix.com (Danny Burstein) wrote:

> In <telecom25.428.5@telecom-digest.org> Dan Lanciani <ddl@danlan.com>
> writes:

>> Interesting. I assume that a message with an image from someone I
>> don't know is likely spam and bounce it with an appropriate error.

> Unless you're doing this at the initial SMTP server contact, please
> stop.

Of course I'm doing it at the initial SMTP server contact. I'm lucky
enough to be able to do that because I have my own server. Many are
not so fortunate, though, and I would not quickly deny them their
bounces.

> If you're making the bounces based on the reply-to or return or
> "from" addresses, those are quite likely forged, and all a bounce to
> them is doing is making things worse.

Oh, good, then SPF is the solution. (ducks)

Dan Lanciani

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