Ty Fairchild wrote,
| I am reluctant to include my filter bypass word with each and every bounce.
| Not being familiar with the specifics, if I had some reassurance that
| spammers (not the bots) would not manually cull it and use it to get
| through I would gladly place the bypass word in my bounced Subject message
| for the convenience of the sender.
Then I challenge you, Mr. Fairchild: there is negligible chance that spammers
would take the trouble to cull the bypass word manually, and there is none if
you scatter pieces of it throughout the rejection text or describe it indi-
rectly instead of coming out and stating it. If you change your rejection
text to give rejectees a way to derive the bypass word, then I'll believe the
paragraph above. If you continue to leave it out, then I'll conclude that
you don't want non-spammers to learn it either, and that, like Wotan, you
choose to freeze out all possibility of communication from anyone who isn't
already in your approval file. [I have not seen the text of Fairchild's re-
jection notice.]
(I wonder what the value of a bypass word is if one doesn't provide it in
the rejection letter for use by anyone who wants to go to the effort; if a
bypass word is for use only by those to whom it has been entrusted, isn't it
easier and safer to place them on the acceptance list than to spread around
a secret that might get told to someone who shouldn't learn it?)
My own preferred way of handling mail that is not recognizable as desirable
nor as undesirable is to look at it first and then delete it if I don't want
it. One of the very first things I ever posted to this mailing list has not
changed: procmail is amoral. You can use it to do mean things or kind
things. You can use it to be considerate and you can use it to be rude. Tim
proved that one can do something only slightly different from what Wotan and
Fairchild do and yet show polish, forethought, and consideration.
I've spoken my piece on this and I'm done. When anyone decides out of xeno-
phobia, misanthropy, narcissism, or some combination thereof that impeding
communication and trumpeting the impediment are more satisfying than communi-
cating, the rest of us are better off for having been informed. If by these
last couple posts I've gotten onto Fairchild's and Wotan's enemies lists, at
least they added me by proactive decision for my individual case, not from
their contention that it should be the default treatment for all humanity.