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Re: [Asrg] where the message originated

2009-01-13 20:13:50
> But none of this is necessarily true.

IF the mail is bounced because it contains a virus or worm, and if that virus or worm is KNOWN to falsify return addresses, then I claim that there is little or no value in bouncing it... because it is not clear that ANYONE working backwards is going to be able to figure out reliably who (if anybody!) should be notified of the problem.

It doesn't really much matter which antivirus software identified the message as malicious (although it would be nice to have an audit trail somewhere such that a misbehaving piece of related software can be found and fixed).

[snip]

> - A human being won't necessarily be harmed by this.  For starters,
there's no way to know that the message will be delivered.  If the
putative sender is elsewhere, then the mail system there might
detect and reject the message.  The putative sender's mail client
may be using an anti-virus product that detects it.  Or the putative
sender may never "open" the message (which seems to effectively
defuse most, but not all, of these problems).

That's a bogus argument. You're basically saying that "someone else will probably pick up on this" and using that as a (lame) excuse to lob a grenade their way.


--

Gordon Peterson II
http://personal.terabites.com
1977-2007:  Thirty year anniversary of local area networking
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