On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 11:15:50PM +0100, Andrzej Filip wrote:
[reposted from mail-ng(_at_)imc(_dot_)org]
The above mentioned VMN could reduce "spam as we know it" by at least order of
magnitude by excluding most of open relays/proxies and forcing easy
identification of real sender.
Well, I think the current situation is quite manageable, with the RBS,
the virus checking and spam-checking software. The only thing I would
like to get rid of, is all the error reporting mails, saying that I have
sent out virus infected mail, or that I have sent mail to somebody whose
address is unknown or their mailbix is full.
I have by the way collected strings for postfix filters to discard
messages reporting bogus virus, available at
http://www.dkuug.dk/keld/virus/
Actually there is some good chances of getting rid of the bogus error
reports. We are dealing with the good guys here, so they may be able to
take proper advice.
I would advice that we recommend some best practice procedures,
hopefully to be implemented in the MTAs spftware productss of the world.
1. Always check for virus/spam before checking for valid receipient, or
whether the mailbox is full or some such.
2. Generate a specific error message, maybe we should introduce a
standard error code for this, like 551 - mail rejected as virus or spam
3. If the mail is virus or spam, then do not send it back to the
sender - as this is most likely a forged address anyway. Discard it
instead. But if you must, then use the standard error mesaage as
described above.
I think with this scheme, we would have avoided alomost all of the
virus/spam and also annoying error traffic .
No need for new protocols, closed networks etc. Maybe a need for some
RBL listing virus/spam infected machines, I don't knos.
Best regards
Keld