John Levine wrote:
We really don't care about the proper SMTP response if it is spam.
I suppose that's the case if you're sure that deferring the processing
will never produce a bounce message.
The deferred processing is only the statistical spam filter. IP
blacklist and HELO whitelist are very fast, and don't need deferral.
Only the small fraction that passes the blacklist and fails the
whitelist gets deferred processing, and the result of that processing is
a spam score, never a REJECT. The score affects only the rank of the
message in the recipient's quarantine. Quarantine counts as delivery,
even if the recipient never looks at it.
The only time I ever send a bounce to a questionable return address is
if there is something wrong on our end, and we can't deliver a message
that has already been accepted (user mailbox suddenly off line, etc.).
The need for a bounce is rare enough that an admin can look at it and
decide if it should be sent.
--
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* David MacQuigg, PhD email: macquigg at ece.arizona.edu * *
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